[Albert Schweitzer's East Africa plans and the Berlin mission. According to, thus far, unpublished correspondence of the years 1929-1936].

In 1928 Albert Schweitzer planned to found a second private hospital comparable to that in Lambaréné (Gabon), this time in Somalia, the former German colony Deutsch-Ostafrika. At Lambaréné there were French missionaries nearby whereas in Somalia Schweitzer intended to cooperate with protestant missionaries from Berlin. For that reason informative talks with responsible members of the Berliner Missionsgesellschaft and negotiations about basic conditions started in 1928 continuing until 1936. As the correspondence is still preserved in the society's archives at East Berlin an ample documentation about the whole procedure can be published here for the first time. It demonstrates different aspects of Schweitzer's unique personality, his social aims, contrary and corresponding views of his German partners, flashlights on the organizing support by intimate friends, the way of collecting financial support, etc. Collaboration was assuming its concrete form, when, all of a sudden, the growing monetary inflation and deteriorating economic situation forced Schweitzer to desist of realizing his East-African dream in order to save Lambaréné.