John Hagenbeck, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJohn Hagenbeck
German animal dealer and plantation owner
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Hamburg, Germany
About John Hagenbeck
- John Heinrich August Hagenbeck (15 October 1866, Hamburg —16 December 1940, Colombo) was a German animal dealer, a plantation owner in Ceylon and a writer of books.
- He was the originator of what is now Dehiwala Zoo in Colombo. John was the eldest son from the second marriage of Carl Claes Gottfried Hagenbeck and thus a half-brother of Carl Hagenbeck, well known for his zoos.
- John worked for Carl Hagenbeck from 1881, transporting animals and travelling on his behalf.
- In 1886 he visited Ceylon and recruited people for Hagenbeck's Völkerschau or "human zoo".
- In 1891 he moved to Colombo and workd as a planter.
- He soon acquired rubber, cocoa and tea plantations.
- He also traded in animals.
- In 1914, at the start of the war, he moved to Indonesia to avoid internment and then fled to Germany.
- He started a film company in Berlin in 1918 which produced films on his travels.
- He also wrote several books.The Hagenbecks had an animal catching station near Kilimanjaro and John accompanied Baron Axel Blixen for a hunt in the area.
- John was also a friend of Leonard Woolf who was briefly stationed in Hambantota. In 1927 he returned to Colombo and started a zoo in Dehiwala in 1929.
- The zoo was sold to the British government in 1935 and all his properties were seized in 1939 by the British.
- He died in Colombo in 1940.
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