Hjelmar von Danneville

Dr. Hjelmar von Danneville (1860-1930) was a prisoner in New Zealand suspected of being an imposter during World War I due to her gender non-conformity.

Hjelmar von Danneville
von Danneville pictured between 1914 and 1917.
Born	1860 Denmark
Died	17 February 1930 San Francisco, CA
Other names	Hjelmar von Dannevill; Hjelmar Danneville

Life

Born in Denmark in 1860, she arrived in Wellington in 1911, claiming to have studied medicine in Switzerland.^[1] She also claimed to have been a correspondent working on the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.^[2]

Because of her short hair, masculine style of dress, and foreign accent, von Danneville was suspected of being a German imposter by the New Zealand authorities during World War I.^[2] She was subjected to a forced medical examination by the military to determine her sex, and was interned for six weeks on Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington Harbour in 1917.^[3][4] She was the only woman to be interned on the island.

von Danneville moved to San Francisco in 1918, where she continued to fight with local authorities - including her arrest in 1925 "for masquerading as a man" - but ultimately obtained a permit to wear masculine clothes. She died in San Francisco in 1930.^[5]

Based on her personal letters, modern historians have suspected that von Danneville may have been a lesbian.^[6]

In popular culture

von Danneville was the subject of an exhibition at Wellington's Enjoy Public Art Gallery in 2018.^[7][8]

Her story was featured in a 2019 non-fiction book by historian Jared Davidson, Dead Letters: Censorship and Subversion in New Zealand 1914–1920^[9] and in a 2021 biography Spies and lies: the mysterious Dr Dannevill.^[10]