Abstract
Willy Durinx and Uli Kozok recount Hans Christoffel’s military career and his rapid rise through the ranks, as well as his later life and public renunciation of his violent past. Against the backdrop of Dutch Ethical Policy and the violence that truly characterized the ‘pacification’ campaigns, the authors critically examine both Christoffel’s role as a ruthless agent of colonial rule and his later embrace of spiritualism.
Willy Durinx is a volunteer and scientific collaborator at the MAS, where he has conducted extensive research into the ‘Christoffel Collection’. Previously, he was affiliated with the former Antwerp Ethnographic Museum, where he initiated this study. Uli Kozok is a retired professor of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa specializing in Indonesian language, philology and history. He holds a PhD in Batak languages from the University of Hamburg.
This article first appeared in Indonesia in the december 2025 issue of Jurnal Sejarah Citra Lekha: Durinx, Willy and Uli Kozok. “Hans Christoffel: ‘Kapten Kecil Penakluk Rimba’ dalam Historiografi Kolonial Hindia Belanda,” in Jurnal Sejarah Citra Lekha 10, 1 (2025): 1–15. The English translation published here was produced with the assistance of AI and subsequently language-edited; both authors read and approved the final version.