, where Husen was born in 1904 exercising with a
heliograph. Husen worked as a signal troops apprentice in a similar function during World War I Husen was born in
Dar es Salaam, then part of
German East Africa, as the son of an
askari who held the rank of
Effendi. Prior to
World War I, he had already learned German and worked as a clerk at a textile factory in
Lindi. When war broke out in 1914, both he and his father joined the
Schutztruppe and participated in the
East African campaign against Allied forces. Husen was wounded in the
Battle of Mahiwa in October 1917 and held as a
prisoner of war by British forces. After the War, Husen worked as a "boy(servant)" on various cruise ships and worked as a waiter with a
Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linie ship in 1925. In 1929, he travelled to Berlin to collect outstanding military pay for himself and his father, but his claims were rejected by the
Foreign Office as too late. Husen stayed in Berlin and worked as a waiter. He used his
Swahili in language courses for officials and security personnel and as a low paid tutor in university classes, e.g. for the famous scholar,
Diedrich Westermann. He married a
Sudeten German woman, Maria Schwandner, on January 27, 1933, three days before Hitler came to power. The couple had a son, Ahmed Adam Mohamed Husen (1933–1938), and a daughter, Annemarie (1936–1939). Husen had another son, Heinz Bodo Husen (1933–1945), from another relationship with a German woman named Lotta Holzkamp – this child was adopted by Schwandner and raised with his half-siblings. == Role in the German neo-colonialist movement ==