Gustav Adolf Graf von Götzen (12 May 1866 – 2 December 1910) was a German explorer and Reichskommissar of German East Africa. He came to Rwanda in 1894 becoming the second European to enter the territory, since Oscar Baumann’s brief expedition in 1892, and later, he became the first European to cross the entire territory of Rwanda. Götzen was the last military governor of German East Africa before the colony was placed under civilian rule. Early life and education Count von Götzen was born into a comital family at their main residence, Scharfeneck Castle, back then in the Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation. In present-day Poland and now called Sarny Castle, the castle and the adjoining summer palace, as well as the castle chapel in which he may have been baptized, still exist despite decades of disrepair in the communist era. Von Götzen studied law at the universities of Paris, Berlin and Kiel between 1884 and 1887. He then joined the army, and became (in 1887) a Lieutenant in the 2nd Garde-Ulanen regiment. Between 1890 and 1891 he was stationed in Rome and it was from there that he made his first African trip, in a hunting expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro. In 1892, having been made an officer in the War academy, Götzen travelled to Asia Minor with Major Walther von Diest. Military career 1892 - 1896: Expeditions to Africa From 1885, Carl Peters had begun claiming areas of East Africa for Germany. The Tanganyikan coast proved relatively easy, but conquest of the inland areas of the colony - right up to the Belgian Congo - was more difficult as large parts were still unexplored. For this reason, Götzen led an expedition to claim these hinterlands. He took with him Georg von Prittwitz and Hermann Kersting. The group set off from Pangani, on the Tanganyikan coast, on 21 December 1893. After travelling through Maasai areas, they eventually arrived, on 2 May 1894, at Rusumo Falls on the Kagera river. By crossing the river, the group entered in the Kingdom of Rwanda, at the time, it was one of the most organised and centralised kingdoms in the region. Götzen became the second European to set foot in Rwanda since Oscar Baumann's 1892 expedition. His group travelled right through Rwanda, meeting the mwami (king) at his palace in Nyanza, and eventually reaching Lake Kivu, the western edge of the kingdom. After encountering