Robert Rasch

Rasch was born in Königsberg in East Prussia in 1852.[1] He emigrated to the United States and worked as a sailor for Crawford of San Francisco, sailing between the US and Pacific Islands. He was shipwrecked off Kosrae in 1883, after which he gave up sailing and moved to Nauru, where he worked as a trader on behalf of Hernsheim & Co.[1] The day after he arrived in February 1884, he was offered three women by Chief Denuwea, choosing a 15-year-old named Ebagon.[1] He built a home at Arubo in Ewa District and the couple went on to have four children.[1]

At the time of Rasch's arrival, Nauru was experiencing a prolonged period of civil war. Rasch claims that he sent a message to the German authorities in nearby Jaluit Atoll requesting that they occupy the island (which had been granted to Germany in the 1886 agreement with the United Kingdom) to stop the violence.[1] When the German ship SMS Eber subsequently arrived in October 1888, a party of marines was dispatched to the island and confiscated all firearms on the island.[1] Reichskommissar Franz Leopold Sonnenschein appointed Rasch temporarily as the first island-based representative of the German government. He remained in post until 14 May the following year, when the first formal Bezirksamtmann, Christian Johannsen, arrived.[2]

In 1912 Rasch returned to Germany for a holiday. However, the outbreak of World War I prevented him from returning until 1922, during which time Ebagon had died.[1] He died at his home in Anna on 31 October 1938.[3]