Otto Strasser (1861 - 1900)

Otto Emil Strasser was born on 30 August 1861 in Bühl as the son of the merchant Otto Strasser (1831–1880). From 1889 he worked for the ‘German Trade and Plantation Company’ in Mioko, Papua New Guinea (formerly Neulauenburg, German New Guinea). From 1884 onwards, alongside the trading stations, coconut plantations were the primary import of German colonial rule.

Strasser was summoned as acting assistant judge in Herbertshöhe in 1891. In later years he worked for the German trading company ‘Hernsheim & Co’ as a merchant in Kabaira on New Ireland, present-day Papua New Guinea (formerly Neumecklenburg, German New Guinea). The majority of the fifty objects in the possession of the Museum Natur und Mensch that he sold to the former Museum für Natur- und Völkerkunde Freiburg in 1896, originate from here. The rest come from other islands in the Bismarck Archipelago and from Sepik, New Guinea (formerly Kaiserin Augustafluß, Kaiser Wilhelmsland in German New Guinea). It is not known under which circumstances Strasser obtained the objects for the collection. Contact with the museum was most likely established through his sister, Maria Anna Fehrenbach (1860–1917), who was living in Freiburg from 1892. Otto Strassger died on 21 July 1900 at Kuragakaul Station near to Simpsonhafen on the tGazelle Peninsula, New Britain (formally Neupommern, German New Guinea). This trading post, along with Kabaira, belonged to the trading company ‘Hernsheim & Co.’ whose main commercial activity was the export of oil-rich coconut flesh (copra).