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CONCLUSION: The Germanic Perspective
It has been the intention of this study to evaluate the various published contributions of German-
speaking explorers and travellers to the perception of New Zealand and the Maori between 1839
and 1889, and, in doing so, establish whether the chosen subjects have been able to find a
dominant German or Austrian voice in their discourse which, even if derived from British
sources, is distinct or separate from the typical British viewpoint. As it has been shown, over the
fifty years under investigation German-speaking observers did present a somewhat different
picture of New Zealand from their British counterparts, for the most part due to their dual position
as non-New Zealanders and non-Britons, which often went in their favour, particularly among
Maori and officials, through allowing them to experience privileges that a local British New
Zealander never or rarely would, and their general lack of a vested interest in the colony (at least
at the time the accounts were written). At the same time, it is clear that these German and
Austrian visitors were also subjected to many of the same influences as the British, from common
beliefs and philosophical standpoints to scientific theories and racial stereotypes, which were in
many cases consistent with the greater European mentality, such as the ‘index of civilisation’,
‘environmental determinism’ and ‘fatal impact’. This is even more understandable when one
considers that up until the 1860s the main literary sources were still in most cases British, or at
least English-language works, in addition to general information gathered from New Zealand
colonists, officials and Maori. Ultimately, standard British sources and views interacted with a
smaller, but in various cases no less significant, amount of German sources, with the key
publication of Hochstetter’s Neu-Seeland proving to be a popular and standard primary source
among later visitors to the country. As a result, the outlook of this non-British observing party did
differ in many other respects from that of the colonising power due to their own Central European
cultural values, mentalities and general attitudes towards such themes as colonisation, non-
European peoples, the British Empire and England in particular. While a detailed analysis
between the views of British visitors and those of German-speaking visitors warrants further
study, what we have contended ourselves with instead are the issues of how far and why the latter
were able to separate themselves from the British belief system, witnessed, for example, in their
adoption or rejection of common stereotypes, and to what extent they revealed a distinctly
Germanic perspective, rather than whether their opinions formed a corrective to or balanced the
predominantly British views of the colony.
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