Richard Kandt

Richard Kandt (1897)

Richard Kandt - before 1894 Richard Kantorowicz - (born December 17, 1867 in Posen , † April 29, 1918 in Nuremberg ) was a German doctor and Africa explorer .

Life

In his autobiography, the sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld reports on his friendship with Richard Kantorowicz, with whom he passed the Abitur examination together at the Kolberger Domgymnasium on September 5, 1887. Hirschfeld reports, among other things, the following episode: "When I ... circulated our petition for the liberation of homosexuals, I received a very long letter from him [Kantorowicz] in which he implored me not to sacrifice myself to a goal, that I could never, ever reach ... Not long after receiving this warning letter came the "You too, my son Brutus" day. Kandt had fallen into the hands of a blackmailer who ... already lost a considerable part of his fortune He kept giving because he believed that whatever obscured his honor, no matter how through no fault of his own, was a stain on the honor label of his association. With completely worn nerves, he approached us for help against his insatiable vampire that we were in the fortunate position of successfully granting him. Outwardly liberated, he remained internally broken. "

Richard Kantorowiczt studied medicine in Munich and had been a member of the Rhenania-Munich fraternity there since 1887 . In 1893 he was baptized. In 1894 he took the name Kandt . Richard Kandt later worked as a psychiatrist in Bayreuth and Munich . Between 1897 and 1907, he investigated the northwest of German East Africa and in 1906 to the Imperial Resident of the system established by Regulation of 20 June 1906 and with effect from 15 November 1907 Residentur Rwanda called of German East Africa. Kandt arrived in Rwanda in August 1907 and founded his resident seat in Kigali that same year . In the spring of 1914 he came to Germany on vacation and was unable to return to Rwanda because of the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. Soon after the outbreak of war he reported as a doctor and went to the Eastern Front.

The Kandt House in Kigali

Kandt is still a highly respected person in Rwanda today. A natural history museum has been set up in his house in Kigali and information about him is provided in a room there. A monograph on Rwanda, which he had been writing at least since 1911, and which he believed he could complete on his next vacation in Germany (1914), could not be found after his death.

Richard Kandt discovered one of the sources of the Nile in the Rwandan Nyungwe Forest in 1898 . Kandt reports on this in his work Caput Nili . From 1899 to 1901 he devoted himself to researching the Kiwu Lake .

From around 1900 he was close friends with the writer Richard Voss , in whose "Memories" (1922) he occupies a large space. Kandt died on April 29, 1918 in a reserve hospital in Nuremberg as a result of gas poisoning during the First World War. His grave is in the Johannisfriedhof in Nuremberg.

Works

• Caput Nili. A sensitive journey to the sources of the Nile. Reimer, Berlin 1904 ( archive.org ); 3rd edition 1914 ( archive.org , archive.org ); 6th edition 1921
• My soul sounds. Post-war poems. [Ed. v. Franz Stuhlmann .] Reimer, Berlin 1918 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Reinhart Bindseil : Rwanda and Germany since the days of Richard Kandt . Reimer, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-496-00983-7 .
• Reinhart Bindseil: Richard Kandt and the indirect colonial rule in Rwanda . In: Ulrich van der Heyden, Joachim Zeller (ed.): "... power and share in world domination". Berlin and German colonialism. Unrast, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-89771-024-2 .
• Reinhart Bindseil: Rwanda as portrayed by the African explorer, writer and imperial resident Richard Kandt ; trilingual: German, French, English. Self-published by the Geographical Society of Trier University in cooperation with Rwanda Komitee Trier, Trier 2008, ISBN 3-921599-57-1 .
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 3: I-L. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0865-0 , pp. 62-63.

Web links

Commons : Richard Kandt  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Richard Kandt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Richard Kandt in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Magnus Hirschfeld: From then until now. History of a homosexual movement 1897–1922. Edited by M. Herzer and J. Steakley. Westberlin 1986, pp. 156-161.
2. ↑ Koenig Royal Domgymnasium ... to Colberg 1888. School news of the year 1887/8. Colberg 1888, p. 19.
3. ↑ Magnus Hirschfeld: From then until now. History of a homosexual movement 1897–1922. Edited by M. Herzer and J. Steakley. West Berlin 1986, p. 159.
4. ↑ Innocent Kabagema: Rwanda under German colonial rule 1899-1916. European Publishing House of Science, Frankfurt am Main 1993, pp. 114, 117-119.
5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Innocent Kabagema: Rwanda under German colonial rule 1899-1916. European publishing house of the sciences, Frankfurt am Main 1993, p. 118 f.
7. ↑ German Colonial Journal. No. 9/10, May 15, 1918.