13 Facts About Wilhelm Solf

Wilhelm Heinrich Solf was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman.

Wilhelm Solf attended secondary schools in Anklam, western Pomerania, and in Mannheim.

Wilhelm Solf took up the study of Oriental languages, in particular Sanskrit, at universities in Berlin, Gottingen and Halle and earning a doctorate in philology in the winter of 1885.

Wilhelm Solf then found a position at the library of the University of Kiel.

Wilhelm Solf joined the German Foreign Office on 12 December 1888 and was assigned to the Imperial German Consulate General in Calcutta on 1 January 1889.

Wilhelm Solf joined the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office and in 1898 was assigned as district judge in Dar es Salaam in German East Africa for a short period.

Wilhelm Solf included Samoan traditions in his government programs but never hesitated to step in assertively, including banishment from Samoa in severe cases, when his position as the Kaiser's deputy was challenged.

The Samoan colony was on its way to self-sufficiency and had reached that achievement just before Wilhelm Solf was called to Berlin and was succeeded by Erich Schultz as Governor of German Samoa.

Wilhelm Solf lobbied for a negotiated peace settlement in 1917 and 1918.

Wilhelm Solf opposed the implementation of unrestricted submarine warfare, a policy that eventually contributed to the entry of the United States to the war in 1917.

Wilhelm Solf held centrist political views and joined the German Democratic Party.

Wilhelm Solf wrote Weltpolitik und Kolonialpolitik and Kolonialpolitik, Mein politisches Vermachtniss.

In 1908 Wilhelm Solf married Johanna Dotti; their children were:.