The Orientalist Hans Friedrich Overbeck 1882–1942: His Entomological Work, Prisoner-of-War Experiences and Known Photographic Images

The Southeast Asia-based German mercantile trader and Orientalist Hans Friedrich Overbeck (1882–1942) published four books and over 60 articles on Malay cultural subjects, the latter largely in the Journal of the Straits (and Malayan) Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Before World War I he collected Asian ant specimens for Dresden entomologist Hugo Viehmeyer. Overbeck was arrested by the British Singapore administration as an enemy alien in 1915 and interned for almost five years in Australia, where his Malayological and entomological activities continued. After returning to Asia in 1919 he regularly contributed insect specimens to the Museum für Tierkunde, Dres-den. He was arrested, again as an enemy alien, in 1940 by the Netherlands East Indies authorities, and died a prisoner in 1942 when the steamer Van Imhoff was sunk by a Japanese aircraft while transporting German prisoners of war to India. Because his possessions were lost in this disruption, and in the firebombing of his parental home in Bremen in 1944, it has long been assumed that no photographs of Overbeck existed. Seven recently discovered archival images are reproduced here.