At that time BRECKWOLDT had just one office in Papua New Guinea: Rabaul
In the pantheon of all the South Pacific islands trading companies Breckwoldt was one of a kind: it was owned by the Breckwoldts of Hamburg, staffed almost entirely by Germans, headquartered in the old German town of Rabaul, and sold mainly German goods.
I had heard of them long before I ever set foot in New Guinea during the few short winter months I endured in Hamburg in early 1968. I had just returned from Australia on board the Greek ship 'PATRIS' which had been scheduled to leave Sydney and call at Port Moresby on its way through the Suez Canal. But history and the Eqypt-Israeli war of 1967 intervened and the Suez Canal was closed to all shipping. So the 'PATRIS' never got to Port Moresby but sailed through the Great Australian Bight and around the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town) instead. However, a good number of 'Territorians' from the then Territory of Papua & New Guinea had already booked a passage and the shipping line at great expense flew them down to Sydney to join the ship. And so it came that I spent some four weeks aboard the 'PATRIS' with a whole bunch of hard-drinking and boisterous 'Territorians'. Having just scraped together the fare, I had no money for drinks but I did mix with the 'Territorians' night after night in the ship's Midnight Club to listen to Graham Bell and his Allstars.
One of the 'Territorians' was Noel Butler who then lived in Wewak in the Sepik District. If New Guinea seemed remote and exotic, then the mysterious Sepik District was even more remote and more exotic! It sounded all very Conrad-esque and straight out of "Heart of Darkness"! I didn't know it then but Noel would become my lifelong friend and I would visit him in Wewak several times; what I also didn't know then was that one day I, too, would live and work in Papua New Guinea.
By this time BRECKWOLDT had already opened more branches in Port Moresby, Madang, Lae, Kieta, Mt Hagen, and in Wewak
The chance to live and work in Papua New Guinea seemed to present itself sooner than I had expected because in those few but extremely miserable winter months while I lived and worked in Hamburg, an advertisement appeared in the HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT in which Breckwoldt offered young Germans who had completed their articles employment in New Guinea. I presented myself for an interview with Breckwoldt Senior who would've been in his early sixties at the time.
When Mr Breckwoldt Senior mentioned that they were recruiting for their recently opened new office in Wewak, I could barely contain my excitement. WEWAK - yes, that's it! However, my excitement was gone as soon as I read their employment conditions which bound an employee over for several years during which he would not be allowed to take up any other employment in Papua New Guinea, and on a ridiculously low salary from which the company still deducted accommodation charges.
I found my way out of Germany again without going into bondage with Breckwoldt: I got a job in southern Africa which, as I saw it, was almost halfway back to where I eventually wanted to go: New Guinea.
From Noel, with whom I had stayed in contact during all this time, I had heard about PIM, the Pacific Island Monthly which was read by everyone in the Territory. In it I placed a tiny classified ad which ran something like this: "Young Accountant (still studying) seeks position in the Islands."
The response was hardly overwhelming but the two letters I did receive were enough. One was from a Tom Hepworth of Pigeon Island Traders in the Outer Reef Islands in the then British Solomon Islands Protectorate who described to me in glowing terms the leisurely life on a small atoll in one of the remotest part of the South Pacific.
The other letter was from a Mr. Barry Weir, resident manager of the firm of chartered accountants Hancock, Woodward & Neill in Rabaul who, subject to a satisfactory interview with their representative in Australia, offered me the position of audit clerk. I passed muster at the interview and in the dying days of the year 1969 I left Australia for New Guinea. I worked there for several years, the last time in 1982 - see here.
But back to Breckwold: in 1967 the company celebrated its 40th anniversary with the publication of a handsome booklet in German and English on the history of the firm. The company was founded in 1927 by Wilhelm Breckwoldt in Hamburg. Mr Breckwoldt, a keen philatelist, became associated with the Pacific islands from 1931 onwards because he liked the look of their rare and unknown postage stamps.
By sending off letters to darkest New Guinea and colourful Fiji, seeking orders for consumer goods and such things as rubber belts, he received a stack of replies and added handsomely to his stamp collection.
In 1932 he booked a passage to Rabaul on the steamer 'Esperance Bay' to meet his customers personally. The result was enough orders to keep his Hamburg office busy for a year, which is how Brewo beer and Brewo razor blades turned up in the islands. Soon afterwards, branches of Breckwoldt appeared in Suva and Rabaul in 1934, Papeete in 1936 and Apia in 1937. Mr Breckwoldt visited the South Seas again in the late '30s.
With no sources of supply in Europe during Word War II, the business came almost to a standstill. But Mr Breckwoldt set up branches in Kobe, Japan, and Shanghai, China, and things began to pick up again in 1948.
In 1950, the company was allowed to reopen in Rabaul; offices in Suva and Apia were restarted; and in the early 1950s inroads were made in the Far East, South-West and West Africa. The company won agencies for VW cars, Olympia typewriters, Continental tyres and tubes, Sanyo electrical equipment and Carrier air conditioners.
By 1967 the company had transferred its head office from Rabaul to Port Moresby, and had branches in Madang, Lae, Kieta, Honiara, Apia, and Wewak. General Manager for Pacific islands was Horst Hoertelmann who returned to Germany and with whom I kept in touch for several years.
Then, suddenly, NOTHING! I checked his last Sydney airport arrival card which gave me a possible clue: born 1934! That would make him eighty-eight years old today - if he's still alive! I also googled his wife Elisabeth and their children Nicola and Ralph, who were both born in New Guinea, but with no luck. Vanished without a trace! As are Breckwoldt's offices which once could be found in almost every port of the South Pacific.
P.S. I've just heard that Horst Hoertelmann passed away in November 2021 after some two years of ill health. Rest in Peace, Horst!
