George & Herbert Heinecke
George Christmas and Herbert Henry Heinecke were the oldest sons of George and Mary Heinecke of Tumbarumba, New South Wales. They had a younger brother, Charles, and two sisters, Ada and Johanna. The Heinecke family was prominent in the region, particularly due to their success in the mining and agricultural industries. George and Herbert's grandfather Charles Heinecke had immigrated to Australia from Germany in 1853, settling in Tumbarumba about nine years later.
When the First World War broke out and the British Empire declared war on Germany, the local German community was often subject to accusations of disloyalty and hatred. Newspaper reports of enemy spies within Australia whipped up hysteria and fear.
As German minorities in a small Australian town, the Heinecke family may have felt added social pressure to prove their loyalty to the Australia and the British Empire. In January 1916 George and Herbert's father took the unusual step of publicly declaring his sons' intentions to join the Australian Imperial Force in the Tumbarumba Times.
The boys joined up together on 24 March 1916, listed their professions as “miner”, and were given consecutive service numbers: 2184 and 2185. They were assigned to reinforcements for the 56th Battalion, which was part of the 14th Brigade. George was 27 when he enlisted; Herb's service record lists him as 23, but his birth certificate indicates that he was two years older.
They sailed to France in December 1916, and in late January 1917 Herb and George were detached for duty with the 14th Brigade Mining Company. On 6 March 1917, while involved in the pursuit of the Germans who were intentionally withdrawing to the Hindenburg Line, Herb was killed in action, witnessed by his older brother.
George remained with the 14th Brigade Mining Company following his brother's death, re-joining the 56th battalion on 22 March 1917. He was seriously wounded two months later during the second battle of Bullecourt, and died of his wounds in a casualty clearing station on 15 May 1917. George left behind his wife, Alice, who he had married a few months before leaving Australia.
The brothers were buried in France: Herb in Bancourt British Cemetery, and George in Grevillers British Cemetery. At the end of the war George and Mary requested photographs of their sons' graves in France, presumably because, like the majority of families, they knew they would never get the opportunity to visit them.
After George’s death, he was praised in the Tumbarumba Times, which stated that “it is one of the curses of war that it extracts a large toll of the best of the nation’s manhood”.
George and Mary Heinecke remained in Tumbarumba for the rest of their lives. George became a devoted supporter of functions held to welcome servicemen and servicewomen home from the First and Second World Wars. Although he had lost two sons in the war, George still experienced harassment from those expressing anti-German sentiment. In response to criticism in the local newspaper in 1918, George argued that although his name was still German, it was “clean”, and he was not ashamed of it.
He passed away in 1946 at the age of 79.