THE HINDENBURG WALL: A review of existing Indigenous knowledge

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Biodiversity

The first European to succeed in entering the highlands of central New Guinea was Richard Thurnwald, a member of the Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss Expedition of 1912-13. He arrived at the source basin of the Sepik River (in the Telefomin vicinity) on 19 September 1914. It was either Richard Thurnwald or Walter Behrmann, the expedition geographer, who named the high mountains south of the source basin of the Sepik, the Hindenburg Range. Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), after which the mountain range and wall were named, was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman and politician, who served as the second president of Germany from 1925 to 1934. During much of von Hindenburg’s life New Guinea was under German administration (1884-1914), before first passing to British (1914) and then Australian (1921) administration, before Papua New Guinea became independent in 1975.