Friedrich Salomon Hall

Friedrich Salomon Hall (1879–1964) was a German citizen with connections to Ethiopia. His parents lived in Ethiopia and served its emperor until they fell out of favour and moved to the Middle East after being rescued by the 1868 British Expedition to Abyssinia. Hall, born in the Middle East, moved to Ethiopia to join his mother who had returned there to serve the Royal Court. He became a hotel proprietor and tutor to Emperor Lij Iyassu. Hall afterwards left to act as an assistant to , a German consul to the Ottoman Empire. During the early part of World War I Hall attempted to return to Ethiopia to negotiate with Lij Iyassu for Ethiopia's entry into the war. The espionage mission was disguised as the Seventh German Inner Africa Research Expedition but was detected by Italian authorities en-route and the participants returned home. Hall blamed the expedition leader Leo Frobenius for its failure. Hall attempted a second mission to carry messages to the German legation at Addis Ababa in June 1915 but was captured by the Italians and imprisoned for the remainder of the war.

Early life

Friedrich Salomon Hall's parents were Moritz and Katarina Hall. Moritz was born in Cracow in partitioned Poland and Katarina was born in Ethiopia to an Ethiopian mother and a German father. The couple met while Moritz was in Ethiopia as a missionary; he later produced cannon for the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II. He fell out of favour, was imprisoned by Tewodros and rescued by the 1868 British Expedition to Abyssinia. Friedrich was born in 1879, after his parents left Ethiopia and settled in the Middle East, and was the seventh of thirteen children.

Hall served as interpreter for the expedition and would have led negotiations with Lij Iyasu in Ethiopia. However the expedition never reached the country; it was discovered by the Italian authorities in Eritrea and the members escorted back to their home nations. Hall had disagreed frequently with Frobenius over his conduct of the expedition and blamed him for its failure. Italy had entered the war in May 1915 by attacking Germany's ally Austria-Hungary, though they remained neutral with Germany until August 1916. Hall, again travelling disguised as an Arab, had roused the suspicions of an Italian policeman by the corns on his feet, which showed that he normally wore European shoes, rather than Arab sandals. Hall spent the remainder of the war in Italian custody and through this period the German legation remained out of communication with the government in Berlin.

Hall died in 1964.