Max Dauthendey

Max Dauthendey (1867-1918) was a poet born in Würzburg, Germany. At the peak of his career, in 1914, he started on a world tour, but the outbreak of World War I made it impossible for him to return to his homeland and beloved wife. He spent the last four years of his life on Java as a virtual prisoner, including in the Parahyangan region, and died tragically just a few months before the end of the war. From Java he wrote in November 1917: “Man is not born to be competitive, but rather to become enthusiastic…. The West will perish in competitiveness. Out of genuine enthusiasm Asia will become new and strong….” The following excerpts are from Dauthendey’s Letzte Reise (Last Journey), published posthumously in 1925.

Garoet, Hotel Papandajan, 11 April 1915 (Diary)
Little Javanese landscape…One morning on the way to a bench with a view, I came upon a group of people in a rice field. Most of the water had been drained off and they were wading in mud and catching mud fish in flat baskets. Many women, children, men, young and old. In the background, on a green meadow beyond which were red leaves and the blue peak of the Papandajan showing above, a colorfully clad boy ran with his pink paper kite soaring above the coconut palms. It was a genuine Javanese landscape airy, playful, yet gentle and fragile.

Garoet, Hotel Papandajan, 18 August 1915 (Letter to his wife)
The days are warm and pleasantly fanned with breezes. It is really a paradisiacal climate in these Javanese winter months now. The world of palms and fruit trees is a great solace, just as the fruit trees at home are now full with fruit. If there ever was a Paradise, it can only have been here on Java.