Galápagos affair

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Galapagos Islands

The term Galápagos Affair , coined by journalists, refers to events that occurred between March and November 1934, mainly among German settlers on the island of Floreana, part of the Galápagos Archipelago, and in the course of which three people died under partly unexplained circumstances and three others disappeared without a trace . The events, which have never been fully clarified, preoccupied the mass media worldwide and, until recently, also stimulated literary and cinematic processing.

Floreana Island

The island of Floreana (Santa Maria) is 173 square kilometers, is located in the south of the Galápagos Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean and politically belongs to Ecuador . The distance to the Ecuadorian mainland is about 1000 kilometers. The island was occasionally used as a shelter by pirates ; Several times it served as a penal colony, but all attempts at permanent settlement and economic use (through hunting, cattle breeding and fishing) failed until the 20th century. Since 1793 (in unofficial form until today) there has been a post office in the so-called Post Office Bay, originally set up by British whalers : a bin in which mail can be deposited for onward transport by passing ships. The young Charles Darwin visited the island as part of his world tour with the Beagle in 1835 and described it in his travelogue.

Settlement by civilization refugees from Germany

From the end of the 1920s onwards, several groups of dropouts from Germany settled on the island, which was uninhabited at the time, in order to live there away from civilization as self-sufficient .

The first group consisted of the Berlin doctor Friedrich Adolf Ritter (born on May 24, 1886 in Wollbach , Grand Duchy of Baden , today Baden-Württemberg ) and his partner, the teacher Dore Körwin (born around 1901/1902 as Dore Strauch, who after the Separation from her husband again carried her maiden name), who settled on Floreana in September 1929. Through several newspaper articles and a book in which he stylized himself as the “new Robinson ”, Ritter made his experiment known to the public, whose interest was already through sensational details such as the previous “partner swap” - Ritter was accompanied by his lover, while his wife with whose husband moved in - had been awakened. The fact that Ritter and Strauch had all of their teeth extracted before leaving Germany in order to prevent dental problems also attracted a lot of attention, as did the fact that neither of them usually wore any clothes on Floreana, unless visitors came.

Ritters and Strauch's "escape from civilization" was inspired by the form of philosophical reflections Ritters, however, never published in a fully formulated way. Essentially, Ritter’s philosophical considerations, insofar as they can be reconstructed from his publications, consisted of an eclectic mixture of set pieces from the philosophies of Nietzsche and Lao-Tse , enhanced by mysticistic elements (for example, he wrote about the “deep symbolism” of the parable, known as the “Faustian curve "Stands for the" Germanic human type "). In addition, there was a fundamental rejection of western civilization (with curious details such as the aversion to wearing black clothing and headgear), reflections on life reform, the rejection of alcohol , nicotine , coffee , grain and dairy products, and the programmatic commitment to vegetarianism Diet (the latter remained theory; Ritter himself consumed meat, as the circumstances of his death prove not least). Ritter emphasized that his rejection of central aspects of European civilization was not aimed at a glorification of the primitive life of “the savages”, nor was it his intention to attract students and disciples - his decision to settle on Floreana was considered pure by him interpreted personally. In addition, Ritter was also critical of the drug treatment of illnesses, which should rather be overcome through the "power of thought". Ritter's posthumously published records are also characterized by a massive rejection of the capitalist society and economy (the USA was his "ant society") and by a pronounced feeling of superiority over the Latin American population; they also contain extremely racist and, in some cases, anti-Semitic statements: he literally referred to people of African origin as “big apes”.

Encouraged by Ritter's article, several groups of people, mostly Germans, also tried to settle on Floreana: most of them, however, quickly gave up. Heinz and Margret Wittmer, who came from Cologne , settled permanently on the island in August 1932 , together with Harry, Heinz Wittmer's twelve-year-old son from his first marriage (Heinz Wittmer had previously been employed in the Cologne town hall in the secretariat of the then mayor Konrad Adenauer ) . The Wittmers tried on the one hand to escape the economic crisis in Germany, on the other hand they hoped that the climate would improve Harry Wittmer's health, who suffered from lung and eye diseases; however, this hope did not come true. Margret Wittmer was pregnant when she arrived on Floreana; their son Rolf, who was born on New Year's Day 1933, is the first person to be officially born on Floreana (deceased in 2011). Four years later, on April 18, 1937, their daughter Floreana Ingeborg was born.

In October 1932, a third group of settlers settled on Floreana: They were led by a woman - presumably an impostor  - who posed as the Austrian baroness Eloise Wagner de Bousquet (the name Bousquet probably came from the marriage of the "baroness" a French pilot; the names differ in the sources: Elvira is occasionally given as a first name, and Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet as a surname). She was accompanied by two men of German origin, both of whom were obviously in an intimate relationship with the "Baroness": Rudolf Lorenz, who had previously run a business called "Antoinette" in Paris with the Baroness and led it to bankruptcy , and Robert "Bubi" “Philippson from Berlin . At first there was also an Ecuadorian servant in this group, but he soon left the island; several other companions of German or Austrian origin did not stay on Floreana either. The baroness's declared intention was to build a luxury hotel on Floreana , for which large quantities of building materials were also delivered: The so-called "Hacienda Paradiso" ultimately only consisted of a corrugated iron hut with two rooms, which the baroness did not prevent to advertise their "hotel". The presence of the "philosophical Robinson" knight and the self-proclaimed "Empress of Floreana" (this is how the baroness presented herself in newspaper articles) actually attracted visitors, mainly wealthy US yacht owners, to the remote island. The dropout colony, which was supposedly far from civilization, became an attraction for well-heeled tourists; The people who settled on Floreana were regularly given generous gifts and subsequently created regular shopping lists for future visitors. In particular, the American millionaire and philanthropist Allan Hancock visited the island regularly with his yacht, on which numerous scientists, including the zoologist and marine biologist John S. Garth, toured the Galápagos Archipelago; He made extensive film material about the settlers of Floreana.

From the beginning, the coexistence of the other settlers with the baroness and her companions was fraught with conflict. On the one hand, the fresh water supplies on the island are limited; on the other hand, the baroness soon raised the claim to leadership over all residents of the island: In her opinion, knights, bushes and the Wittmers were only tolerated by her on "their" island; it "confiscated" supplies that were intended for others under threat of armed violence, and also controlled the mail traffic of the other residents. Their unpleasant visitors were partly forcibly expelled from the island, with a Norwegian hunter seriously injured in November 1932, in June 1933 a Danish merchant who had previously lived temporarily on the "Hacienda Paradiso", by a shot in the stomach by the baroness unexplained circumstances, was even critically wounded. Written petitions by Ritter and the Wittmers to the Ecuadorian authorities to put an end to the violent conduct of the baroness did not lead to any improvement in the situation.

Not only the coexistence of the individual settler groups with one another, but also that within the individual groups became increasingly conflict-laden. The relationship between Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch - who was unable to cope with the difficult living conditions on the island due to a massive walking disability caused by illness ( multiple sclerosis ) - was becoming increasingly difficult. According to eyewitness reports, Strauch was physically abused by Ritter, sometimes in the presence of third parties. The circumstances within the baroness's group were even more dramatic, where Rudolf Lorenz , who had meanwhile been ill (presumably from tuberculosis ), was increasingly pushed into the role of a work slave and was regularly beaten by his physically superior rival Philippson. At the beginning of 1934 Lorenz fled from this increasingly unbearable situation and subsequently lived partly as a guest with the Wittmers, partly he hid from the Baroness and Philippson and at the same time tried to find a way to leave the island. Lorenz confided to the Wittmer couple that he feared that the baroness and Philippson were planning to murder him.

The events of 1934

According to Margret Wittmer, the baroness visited the Wittmer couple on March 26, 1934, where she only met Mrs. Wittmer; she asked them to bring Lorenz the news that she and Philippson were planning to leave the island for Tahiti with an American yacht anchored off Floreana . This conversation represents - if Margret Wittmer's account is correct - the last appearance of the baroness before witnesses; she and Philippson subsequently disappeared without a trace. Lorenz then sold the entire property of the group around the baroness, including the building materials built into the Hacienda Paradiso, to knights and the Wittmers and left the island in July 1934 on the boat of the Norwegian fisherman Trygve Nuggerud in the direction of Santa Cruz  - Lorenz Nuggerud was hired there to transport him to San Cristóbal (Chatham), where he hoped for the possibility of a ship passage to Europe. However, Nuggerud's boat never made it to San Cristóbal. On November 17, 1934, the bodies of Lorenz and Nuggerud were discovered on the uninhabited island of Marchena , part of the Galápagos Archipelago , which they had reached with the lifeboat from Nuggerud's boat. Nuggerud's motorboat and his twelve-year-old Ecuadorian cabin boy José Pasomino were never found. On November 21, 1934, Friedrich Ritter died on Floreana as a result of food poisoning, whereby the circumstances of Ritter's death suggest that the fatal poisoning of Dore Strauch could have been brought about on purpose. Strauch left Floreana for Germany in December 1934, and immediately before her departure she had to face interrogation by a representative of the Ecuadorian authorities and by the German consul in Ecuador: the questioning by the Ecuadorian authorities was apparently only a formality, it was not a sworn interpreter was called in once .

The journalistic echo

The media interest in the puzzling incidents involving the group of European "dropouts" was enormous, and newspapers worldwide reported on the incidents, although in the absence of ascertainable facts, fantastic decorations, including an alleged curse on Floreana , were rumored. The apparent lack of interest on the part of the Ecuadorian authorities in clearing up the incidents in a satisfactory manner left room for wild speculation. One of the authors who reported on the events was the then famous French-speaking Belgian writer Georges Simenon , who had just been to the Galápagos Islands while on a world tour. Simenon wrote a series of articles about the affair for the French daily Paris-Soir, which were published there from February 1935.

During a vacation in Germany in the spring and summer of 1935, Margret Wittmer published several articles in a German daily newspaper in which she described her view of the events, which led to Dore Strauch's protests. In the same year, Strauch's own account , written by a ghostwriter , appeared in English under the title Satan Came To Eden. The book, which never appeared in German translation, contains some highly idealized descriptions of living together with Friedrich Ritter, which are in clear contradiction not only to the portrayal of Margret Wittmer, but also to the descriptions of other eyewitnesses of the life of Ritter and Strauch on Floreana (a Book published under the title Satan came to Eden in 1998 in German by the journalist Georg Bremer deals with the same events, but is not a translation of the book by Dore Strauch). Parts of Strauch's book were also published in US magazines. At the instigation of the relatives of Friedrich Ritter and without the participation of Strauch, a volume with notes and letters from Ritter about life on Floreana (As Robinson on the Galápagos) was published posthumously in the same year . A first selection of Ritter's notes had already been published in 1931.

The events were known at that time world so the American president that Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of a trip to South America in July 1938 specifically to Floreana went to them in person, the couple Wittmer to question (which he did not encountered in their house).

After a quarter of a century, the publication of Margret Wittmer's book Postlagernd Floreana aroused renewed interest in the Galápagos affair . Experience report of German settlers, which contains an impressive description of the living conditions of the settlers, but also gives a lot of space to the events of 1934. The book developed into a long-seller in the book trade and was also sold as a paperback and in book club editions - the latter under the modified title Paradise on the Edge of the World  , which is rather inappropriate in view of the events described . By the time the author died in 2000, the book had been translated into 15 languages ​​(into English just two years after the German first edition was published) and more than 150,000 copies were sold worldwide. It is still used today to advertise package tours to the Galápagos Islands. A kind of supplementary volume was published under the title Postlagernd Floreana actual based on letters from Margret Wittmer after her death in 2001. The author received several civil awards, in 1992 she was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit.

The most comprehensive analysis of the Galápagos Affair to date was provided by the British author John Treherne in 1983 with his book The Galápagos Affair, which was also published in German in 1989 under the title Verloren im Paradies . Treherne, a zoologist at Downing College, Cambridge University , was confronted with stories about the affair during an academic research stay on the Galápagos Islands, which fascinated him so much that he subsequently not only read all the printed sources but also the few official ones Evaluated files in Ecuador, conducted interviews with Witnesses who were still alive at the time, and examined the papers of deceased witnesses. In his book, Treherne endeavored to conclusively clarify the incidents of 1934, which by and large turned out to be convincing, but due to the poor sources, as the author himself admits, must necessarily remain speculative. The German journalist Georg Bremer published a book on the Galápagos Affair in 1998, which is essentially based on Treherne's analyzes (except for the life of the Wittmers on Floreana after the affair; Margret Wittmer's book was used as the source) - albeit without that this is expressly made clear - and that it largely takes over its reconstruction of the events of 1934.

The reconstruction of the incidents according to John Treherne

The disappearance of the Baroness and Philippsons

Treherne assumes that the baroness's story about a yacht with which she and Philippson would leave Floreana was fictitious and only served the purpose of Lorenz - whose urgent wish to leave the island was well known - to the " Hacienda Paradiso ”. Numerous indications speak against the view that the Baroness and Philippson left the island on the ominous yacht. The baroness did not mention the name of the yacht or that of its owner to Margret Wittmer; the yacht was not sighted by any of the residents of Floreana, nor are there any reports of ship movements from other islands in the archipelago at this time. The Baroness and Philippson left most of their personal belongings without any disposition and, most importantly, neither of them turned up again. The hypothesis that a ship that had taken the Baroness and Philippson away from Floreana could have sunk is rejected by Treherne, as there is no evidence of a missing ship in this region for this time.

If the Baroness and Philippson have not left the island, however, the most plausible explanation for their disappearance without a trace is that they were victims of an assassination attempt. The main suspect is Rudolf Lorenz, who evidently feared that the baroness would seek his life and who was also the main beneficiary of the disappearance of the baroness and Philippsons - through the sale of the property of the baroness' group. However, Treherne suspects that Friedrich Ritter was involved in the two murders. The hypothesis that Ritter was involved in the crime remains speculative, but can be supported by several circumstantial evidence: The hatred of Ritter for the Baroness and Philippson is proven by witnesses, as is the fact that there was an assault in at least one case before the Baroness and Philippson disappeared An argument between Ritter and Philippson had broken out. Ritter's behavior after the disappearance of the Baroness and Philippsons appears particularly suspicious: After briefly adopting the yacht hypothesis, he subsequently took the view that the Baroness and Philippson had committed suicide before he appeared in a newspaper article published after his death Heinz Wittmer accused of double murder in a rather clumsy and implausible manner. In contrast to other authors who have dealt with the affair, Treherne considers it unlikely that the Wittmers will be involved. The problem, however, is the fact that the Baroness and Philippson's plan to leave the island is only documented by Margret Wittmer's statement.

Treherne suspects that the corpses of the Baroness and Philippsons off the coast of Floreana were thrown to the numerous sharks there and that every trace of the crime was removed. However, Treherne does not want to completely rule out the possibility that the baroness and Philippson could have committed suicide together as a result of the failed hotel project by drowning themselves in the sea. Georg Bremer's portrayal goes beyond Treherne in that he explicitly accuses Lorenz and Ritter of the murder of the Baroness and Philippson.

The investigations of the Ecuadorian authorities were limited to an interrogation of the Wittmers carried out a few months after the disappearance of the Baroness and Philippsons - Lorenz and Ritter had already died at this point. An official search for the bodies did not take place.

The death of Lorenz and Nuggerud and the disappearance of the cabin boy

In the case of the death of Lorenz and Nuggerud and the disappearance of José Pasomino without a trace, Treherne assumes an accident. Witness statements show that Nuggerud, referring to the decrepit engine of his boat, initially refused to make the dangerous journey from Santa Cruz to San Cristóbal, but that Lorenz allowed himself to be changed by offering a large sum of money. Treherne suspects that the boat's engine failed and that Lorenz and Nuggerud then confided in the lifeboat with which they were washed up on the island of Marchena. What happened to Nuggerud's boat and the cabin boy can no longer be clarified. On Marchena, where there is no fresh water supply, Lorenz and Nuggerud apparently tried - as the circumstances of the corpse find show - to survive by drinking seal blood and eating raw meat; Attempts to start a fire failed. Death may have occurred from lack of fluids and general exhaustion.

The death of Friedrich Ritter

Inscription on the gravestone of his parents in the Wollbach cemetery with reference to Friedrich Ritter

Friedrich Ritter died on 21 November 1934 on Floreana from the effects of poisoning by botulism - bacteria ( Clostridium botulinum ), which he had contracted by consuming selbsteingelegtem chicken. Since the discovery of the bodies of Lorenz and Nuggerud four days earlier on Floreana was not yet known at the time, a direct connection between the two events can be ruled out. However, the circumstances of Ritter's death make it very likely that the fatal poisoning of Ritter was deliberately brought about by Dore Strauch, who had prepared the meat. Whether her possible knowledge of a possible involvement of Ritter in the murder of the Baroness and Philippsons could have played a role in this remains speculative; Apparently Dore Strauch was at this point convinced that the Baroness and Philippson had been murdered, thought Lorenz was one of the perpetrators and possibly assumed that Ritter was involved. It can also be proven that Ritter had the intention to separate from Strauch at this point in time and shortly before that he had contacted his wife again in Germany.

Several details about the circumstances of Ritter's death are suspect: both Ritter and Strauch were demonstrably aware of the risk of botulism infection in meat that they pickled themselves; In the specific case, they even had to assume that the chickens in question were not slaughtered, but perished after they had eaten spoiled pork. Ritter was convinced that the meat of the chickens would still be edible if properly prepared: a view that Treherne  expressly agrees with , citing the food chemist . With the method of preserving meat used by Ritter, thorough heating of just a few minutes would have been enough to reliably kill the bacteria: If this is the case, then it can clearly be assumed that the preparation was improper. It is also noticeable that Strauch himself, who stated that she had also eaten the meat, showed no symptoms of poisoning . Strauch could not explain why, given the problematic origin of the meat, when the first symptoms appeared, she saw no reason to warn her partner that he might have poisoned himself. It is also noticeable that Strauch obviously waited an extremely long time before turning to the Wittmers for help. When Margret Wittmer - her husband came later - arrived at Ritter, his condition was already hopeless, so that prepared medical measures - including gastric lavage  - were not carried out. Due to paralysis in the mouth area (a typical consequence of botulinum poisoning), Ritter was no longer able to speak at this point, but according to Margret Wittmer, he formulated a written message that also stressed Strauch. Your content addressed to Dore Strauch is said to have read: "I curse you at the last moment."

It is also strange that Dore Strauch later published two mutually exclusive versions of the death of Ritter: In the 1935 British edition of her book Satan Came To Eden , she claimed that Ritter died of a stroke (the rotten chicken is not mentioned here) ; In the US edition of the same book, published the following year, on the other hand - in accordance with earlier statements by Strauch and, at least in some essential parts, also the account of Margret Wittmer - the rotten chicken meat is given as the cause of death in a much more detailed description; the knight's death is shown here as the result of an accident.

The Ecuadorian authorities limited themselves - as mentioned - to a formal questioning of Strauch's circumstances about the death of Ritter and then allowed her to leave the country. Knight's corpse has meanwhile been removed from the still existing grave on Floreana by strangers (possibly animals). The occasional rumor that he was transferred to his place of birth Wollbach is incorrect; however, an inscription on his parents' tombstone in the Wollbach cemetery refers to Friedrich Ritter.

The further fate of the survivors of the Galápagos affair

Dore Strauch returned to Germany after Ritter's death and settled in Berlin, where she probably died on May 11, 1943, presumably as a result of heart disease, at the age of only forty-one (Treherne and Bremer give 1942 as the year of death) . Harry Wittmer drowned in a boat accident off Floreana in 1951, his father Heinz died in 1963 on Floreana from the effects of a stroke. His much younger wife Margret Wittmer outlived all other witnesses of the affair by decades: She died on March 21, 2000 at the age of almost 96 on Floreana, where her descendants now run a hotel and a boat company for tourists in Puerto Velasco Ibarra. As a result of a targeted settlement policy by the Ecuadorian government, the island now has around 100 residents - however, the authorities have not allowed new settlements in the Galápagos Archipelago for some time for reasons of environmental protection .

The imagery of "paradise" and "devil" in the depictions of the affair

The special interest of the world public in the incidents can be explained in part by the seemingly sensational circumstances of a sex and crime story and the remoteness of the location of the incident, reminiscent of the construction of a detective novel, due to which there are only a manageable number of suspects gave. In many cases, however, commentators also emphasized the exemplary character of the events in the sense of a “moral fable”: “Dropouts” who turned their backs on the “civilization” they rated negatively and withdrew into a natural landscape imagined as an ideal world, in supposed paradise but on earth they perished because of their inability to live together peacefully, because of their own destructiveness and willingness to use violence. What is striking about the journalistic and literary depictions of the affair is the frequent use of metaphors that explicitly depict Floreana as the Garden of Eden or Paradise and, in a figurative sense, speaks of the “ devil ” breaking into Paradise. Friedrich Ritter himself used this choice of words in several newspaper articles written in English, Dore Strauch adopted it for her book, later authors and translators followed suit.

Literary and cinematic processing

Georges Simenon was so impressed by the events that immediately afterwards, in March 1935, as part of his world tour, he made a stopover in Tahiti and used this to describe the events in his novel Ceux de la soif (the title is an allusion to the Sermon on the Mount , Mt 5,6  BDS ) - the book did not appear until three years later, in 1938. The characters in the plot are closely modeled on real people, as far as Simenon was able to reconstruct the events; many details of the real processes were unknown to Simenon, others were invented by him. The characters in the plot appear under different names, and it remains open whether the Baroness (in the book: Countess) and Philippson (in the book: Arenson) committed suicide or whether they were killed by Dr. Ritter (in the book: Dr. Müller) were murdered (Lorenz (in the book: Kraus) is out of the question as the perpetrator in Simenon's version), the death of Ritter / Müller is attributed to a stroke. The book was first published in German translation in 1989 under the title Die da dürstet ; since 2006 it has been available in a revised translation under the changed title Hotel "Back to Nature" .

In 2001 the German writer Günter Seuren published his novel The Galápagos Affair. The author had become aware of the Galápagos Affair in the course of research for documentaries ( Treasures of this Earth, published by Seuren in three volumes) in the 1980s. In his novel, Seuren focuses on the relationship between Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch, who appear here under their real names, and relied mainly on the texts published by Ritter and Strauch themselves as sources. The plot is narrated retrospectively from the point of view of Dore Strauch, who reports to her therapist about the events in a mental hospital, whereby the reader learns in advance how Strauch prepares her presentation in advance and what she is keeping from the therapist. In Seuren's portrayal, the baroness and Philippson are murdered by Lorenz, who was instigated by Ritter and Wittmer for this purpose; Ritter's death is depicted as the targeted murder of Strauch. In agreement with other chroniclers of the events, Seuren also makes repeated use of the paradise metaphor.

In 2013, the Galápagos affair was researched in detail again by the German-Ecuadorian author Nicolas Montemolinos in the book Drama auf Floreana . Montemolinos doubts the portrayal of Margret Wittmer and comes to the conclusion that the Wittmer couple may also have been involved in the murder of the baroness and her lover.

In 2017 the novel The End of the Galápagos Affair was published. No more the tragic island myth! of the former Galápagos nature guide Marcus Fedor Straub.

The conflict-ridden entanglement of the dropouts on the lonely island with ultimately a tragic outcome also served as the subject of a play by Rebekka Kricheldorf entitled Floreana (first performance in a production by Crescentia Dünßer , Zurich May 2004).

On March 16, 2017, the Austrian playwright Felix Mitterer 's drama Galápagos was premiered at the Vienna Theater in der Josefstadt , directed by Stephanie Mohr . The cast of the premiere: Friedrich Ritter - Raphael von Bargen , Dore Strauch - Eva Mayer, Heinz Wittmer - Peter Scholz, Margret Wittmer - Pauline Knof , Die Baronin - Ruth Brauer-Kvam , Rudolf Lorenz - Matthias Franz Stein , Robert Philippson - Roman Schmelzer , Felipe Pasmino, policeman - Ljubiša Lupo Grujčić.

In the framework of the plot, the Ecuadorian police officer Felipe Pasmino (a fictional character) tries to clear up the disappearance of the Baroness and Philippsons through interrogations with Friedrich Ritter, Dore Strauch and the Wittmer couple, with large parts of the statements being presented in the form of “flashbacks”. The clarification of the case does not succeed. The death of Friedrich Ritter is depicted differently in two scenes in a row - one according to the portrayal of Margret Wittmer, and once according to that of Dore Strauch in the US version of her memories.

The Galápagos Affair also inspired several cinematic adaptations. Based on the novel by Georges Simenon, ZDF broadcast a detective film on August 14, 1990 with the title Paradise betrayed (French TV feature film, 1989). Bruno Crémer plays the role of Dr. Ritter modeled on Professor Franck Sarnave, who lives with his companion Rita (Sylvie Orcier) on a desert island. The dream of a peaceful life comes to an end with the arrival of an eccentric Comtessa from Kleber ( Mimsy Farmer ) and her two lovers. In the 1990s, the Galápagos Affair was also filmed in a Venezuelan docudrama entitled El Diablo en el Paraiso . Cristina Morrison plays the role of the baroness (RTV Caracas 1993, director: Gyula David, producer: Renato Ortega).

Two film projects announced since 2010 - a German project with the projected title Angels and Sins based on a script by Hartmut Schoen (2009) and a British project The Galápagos Affair based on a script by William Boyd based on Trehernes book have not yet been realized (2017) .

In 2013 the American documentary filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller presented their two-hour documentary The Galápagos Affair after working for five years at the Telluride Film Festival . Satan came to Eden. The film consists on the one hand of the rich footage that John Garth shot on numerous visits to the island (including scenes from Dore Strauch's farewell to Floreana), on the other hand of still images and current scenes from Floreana and other islands of the archipelago. In particular, interviews with the descendants of other European immigrants from the 1920s and 1930s show a broad panorama of the living conditions on the Galápagos Islands at the time of the events. In addition to Margret Wittmer's children, the interviewees also included a great-nephew Friedrich Ritter, who attributes his behavior, which he judges very critically, to the experience of the trench warfare in the First World War .

The original (silent) film scenes and the still images are often highlighted and interpreted with quotations from the actors (in English). The speakers are: Friedrich Ritter - Thomas Kretschmann , Dore Strauch - Cate Blanchett , Margret Wittmer - Diane Kruger , Heinz Wittmer - Sebastian Koch , Die Baronin - Connie Nielsen , John Garth - Josh Radnor . With regard to the disappearance of the Baroness and Philippsons, the film refuses to stipulate, but presents a kaleidoscope of different opinions from interview partners, through which all possible explanations are played out.

The film, including bonus material - interviews about the lives of other settlers on the islands, a nature documentary about the Galápagos Archipelago and a partial cut of the filmmakers' press conference at the Telluride Festival - has been released on DVD for the American market (region code 1).

A curiosity is a 16 mm silent film made by Hollywood producer Emory Johnson on Floreana a few weeks before the Baroness and Philippsons disappeared, in which Baroness Wagner de Bousquet played a pirate queen. Johnson had traveled to Floreana on Allan Hancock's yacht. The film was included in their documentary by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller.

In 2020 the filmmaker Jürgen Stumpfhaus shot the documentary The Galapagos Crime. A drama among German dropouts , which was shown in the Terra X series.

Literature / fiction

  • Friedrich Ritter: The modern Robinson. Dr. Knight on the Galápagos Island. Willahn, Berlin 1931.
  • Hakon Mielche : Let's see if the earth is round. Carefree sailing through the seven seas. Zinnen, Vienna 1934.
  • Friedrich Ritter: As Robinson on the Galápagos. Grethlein, Leipzig 1935.
  • Dora Strauch: Satan Came To Eden. Edited by Walter Brockmann. Jarrolds Publishers, London 1935 (the US-American edition, which differed significantly in content, was published in 1936 by Harper & Brothers, New York).
  • Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt : The break into paradise. In: Ders .: Galápagos. Noah's Ark in the Pacific. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1977, pp. 362–379, ISBN 3-492-02101-8 .
  • Uwe Nettelbeck : At the river Pirú you met a man named Berú. Therefore the name. The Journey of Tupak Yupanki. Die Republik, No. 41-47, Salzhausen 1979, pp. 9-439.
  • Georges Simenon: The Secret of the Galápagos Islands. In: Norbert Klugmann, Peter Mathews (Ed.): Black booty. Thriller Magazin 1, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1986, pp. 93–118, ISBN 3-499-42753-2 (German translation of the reports for Paris-Soir).
  • Margaret Wittmer: Poste restante Floreana. An extraordinary woman's life at the end of the world. 6th edition, Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1995, ISBN 3-404-61901-3 .
  • Luise Marie Dreßler: Post restante Floreana actual. A modern robinsonade on the Galápagos Islands with Margret Wittmer. Self-published by the author, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-8311-2959-2 .
  • John Treherne: Lost in Paradise. The Galápagos Affair. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-499-12441-6 .
  • Georg Bremer: Satan came to Eden. The mysterious murder affair of German resettlers on Floreana. Oesch, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-858-33253-4 .
  • Günter Seuren : The Galápagos Affair. Novel. Ullstein, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-550-08345-9 .
  • Frederick Ritter, George Egnal: My Evil Paradise Floreana. Amazon Kindle Ebook, 2013.
  • Felix Mitterer : Galápagos. Play. Haymon TB, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3709978719 .
  • Marcus Fedor Straub: The end of the Galápagos affair. Put an end to the tragic island myth! Chronicle and novel in one. Tredition, Hamburg 2017 (2nd edition 2018), ISBN 978-3-7469-7752-2 .
  • Ida Hegazi Høyer : The black paradise. Novel. Residence, Salzburg / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-7017-1686-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georges Simenon: Hotel "Back to Nature". Diogenes, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-257-23564-X .
  2. ↑ Sex, greed and violence turned paradise into a murderous hell