Unserdeutsch

A South Pacific Docu-Fairytale

»Ganse Welt is ferik!«
»The whole world is crazy!«

It sounds like a fairy tale: once upon a time there was a German colony in the South Pacific. In Papua New Guinea. And there you could hear a very foreign language: Unserdeutsch. “Our German”. Rabaul Creole German.

“Unserdeutsch” is a documentary about a South Pacific fairy tale, about a unique history that is as unusual as this language. It tells the story of the descendants of the former German colony of German New Guinea, now Papua New Guinea. In 1899 this area was taken over as a South Seas colony of the German Reich. With colonisation came German settlers, craftsmen, and traders. They took indigenous partners and produced children who grew up between the cultures of Kaiser Wilhem’s Germany and South Pacific tribal societies. Neither white nor black, these children did not really quite belong to any culture. Educated by German missionaries, they learned the German language, Christmas carols, and German cuisine at the same time that they also learned about the spirits and ancestors of their mothers. These children between two cultures developed their own language, the only German Creole language, Unserdeutsch (“Our German”).

Much time has passed since then. There are no colonies there anymore and only a few of the “Unserdeutsch” children are still alive. The language will soon die out, like a rare bird of paradise. Nothing is eternal.

The play opens in the past, about 120 years ago, in the middle of a colony in the South Pacific called “German New Guinea”. With a “Bismarck Archipelago”, with islands like “New Mecklenburg” and “New Pomerania”, with the “Empress August River”, and towns like “Herbertshöhe”, “Friedrich Wilhelm’s Bay”, and “Berlin Bay”. With children from unions between indigenous people and settlers, who ended up between traditional tribal societies and the society brought by Kaiser Wilhelm.

In 2008 we visited and interviewed the descendants of these children, made photos and films, and gathered old pictures and stories. This documentary material forms part of the production.

Unserdeutsch – A South Pacific Docu-Fairytale is an expedition into the history and stories of this colony. On the way we meet witnesses from the past and people who follow the tracks left by words. It is about life between different worlds. It is about death and dying.