Richard Gustav Neuhauss was a German medical doctor, a member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, and one of the most celebrated public faces of anthropology in Germany immediately before the First World War.
In 1908-1910, he carried out research in various different locations in German New Guinea. During this time, according to the reports published shortly after his return, he shot around 40 minutes of film on a variety of subjects. He also took 700 photographs, recorded 65 sound disks and published a three volume report.
Of the film material, only one 6 minute film is known to have survived, described here.
Neuhauss hoped to return to New Guinea in 1914 to participate in a joint Anglo-German airship survey of the island, but the outbreak of the First World War finally put paid to a project that was already in difficulty due to lack of support from the German colonial administration.
At his own request, following the outbreak of the First World War, Neuhauss was put in charge of the diphtheria station of the War Hospital in Berlin, but himself died of the disease in 1915, only a week after taking up his post.
Text : Neuhauss 1909, Neuhauss 1911, Jordan 1992, pp. 174-175, Claas and Roscoe 2009
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