Hans Haasmann competed in diving for the Netherlands at the 1936 Olympics, but lived in that country for only a few years during his life. He was a native of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), then a Dutch territory. But he was chosen for the 1936 Olympics and traveled to the Netherlands only a few weeks before the Games began, along with swim Piet Stam, who was from Bandoeng in the East Indies . During World War II, Haasmann was made a prisoner-of-war by the Japanese, and was one of the few who survived the Burma railroad camps. After the war, he returned to the Netherlands but stayed only a short time and settled in Australia in the early 50s, where he lived for the rest of his life.