DEATH OF EMIL LUEBKE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 726, 27 July 1929, Page 34

DEATH OF EMIL LUEBKE

OWNER OF SAMOA “ZEITUNG” LINK WITH GERMAN SAMOA (From Our Own Correspondent) APIA, July 8. An interesting personality in old Gei man Samoa, Emil Luebke, proprietor of the “Samoanische Zeitung” (“Samoa Times”) has died this month in Apia. In his youth he served his time with the Uhlans, but was a man of peace and disliked ail forms of militarism.

In an appreciation the Hon. G. E. L. Westbrooke, who had been Mr. Luebke’s friend of many years, says the deceased was born in East Prussia in 1861 and was a printer. While still a young man he migrated to Australia and for many years followed his calling as a printer in Brisbane, where he became a naturalised Australian. He was brought to Samoa in 1901 by the first German judge, Dr. Knipping, to take over the Samoa “Weekly Herald,” then iun by a Mr. King, who for several years has been proprietor of the “Polynesian Gazette," Levuka, Fiji. Mr. Luebke converted the Samoa “Weekly Herald” into the “Samoanische Zeitung,” which was, of course, printed in German, but to which was added an English supplement for the benefit of English readers.

He ran the “Samoanische Zeitung” up to the time of the New Zealand occupation, when he waß called upon

to run his paper entirely in English, which he did for a few issues, when he sold out to his foreman, the late Mr. James Ah Sue, who as proprietor and editor of the “Samoa Times,” ran the paper on his own account up to the time of his death in the influenza epidemic of 1918. Mr. Luebke was a man of liberal ideas, and conducted his newspaper on liberal lines for the people, being quite impartial himself. Although for some years he was an invalid and could not work at his trade, he was, up to 10 years ago, very active and took keen interest in sports and horse racing. About 1905 Emil Luebke married a Mrs. Benecke, who survives him at the •age of 81. “He had played the game as an honoured and worthy citizen,” Mr. Westbrooke concludes.