Paul Hambruch

Paul Hambruch (22 November 1882, Hamburg – 25 June 1933, Hamburg) was a German ethnologist and folklorist.

Biography He studied natural sciences, chemistry and mathematics at the University of Göttingen and geography, anthropology and ethnology in Berlin, where his instructors were Ferdinand von Richthofen and Felix von Luschan. In 1904 he began work as an assistant at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. By way of a request from the Jaluit Gesellschaft, he traveled to Nauru in an effort to fight a disease affecting coconuts.

In 1908–10 he participated in the Südsee-Expedition to Micronesia under the directorship of Georg Thilenius, head of the Ethnological Museum in Hamburg. In the South Seas, he conducted ethnographic research on Nauru, Ponape and other islands. His collection of fairy tales and myths from the Pacific islands were to become widely known.