Paul Pogge

Who was Paul Pogge?

Paul Friedrich Johann Moritz Pogge was a German explorer in Africa.

Pogge was born in Groß Roge, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He studied law in Berlin, Munich and Heidelberg, where he obtained his doctorate. In 1865/66, he took his first journey to South Africa as a big game hunter.

He undertook two expeditions in Central Africa into the southern Congo Basin, the first between 1874 and 1876 and the second between 1880 and 1884. On the first journey he was accompanied by naturalist Alexander von Homeyer, and funded by the Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung Aequatorial-Afrikas. On his second journey he was accompanied by Hermann Wissmann, a trip in which the two explorers reached the site of Nyangwe on the Lualaba River. Also on the expedition, they became the first Europeans to come in contact with members of the Batwa.

He died in Luanda.