Looking after One’s Own: The Rise of Nationalism and the Politics of the Neuendettelsauer Mission in Australia, New Guinea and Germany (1921-1933)

Looking after One’s Own is a political history of a German mission society during the last years of the Weimar Republic. It investigates the gradual engagement of the Neuendettelsauer Lutherans in Bavaria with National Socialism, and the tensions between this development and the restructuring of the Lutheran mission fields in New Guinea between 1929 and the early 1930s. It is an interdisciplinary, transnational history connecting events in Germany with developments in New Guinea and Australia. The author explores the impact of political desires, national ambitions and missionary aspirations. Looking after One’s Own shows a sophisticated appreciation of the distinction between principle and pragmatism and the ability of individuals to hold them both in suspension in their actions.