Pod Insights National Park After Dark Not Our War: Namib-Naukluft National Park About this episode Henno Martin and Hermann Korn were two German-born geologists conducting research in present-day Namibia when World War II broke out. Instead of facing internment or being forced into a war they did not believe in, these two friends loaded up a truck with their dog Otto and some basic survival supplies and set out to escape the war by surviving off the land in the harsh Namib desert.
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Transcript 11,004 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 It's that magical time of year when Designer Shoe Warehouse becomes your Designer Shoe Wonderland and you become everyone's favorite gifter. Because you know that good things come in shoeboxes. Like cozy slippers, on-trend kicks, boots made for snow stomping, and party shoes that sparkle and shine. Plus, socking stuffers that bring joy from head to mistletoe. Who doesn't love more joy? Find shoes for you and yours at your Designer Shoe Wonderland. Shop in-store or visit DSW.com. DSW: Let us surprise you.
0:31 Speaker 01 This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
1:00 Danielle LaRock? As long as there have been wars, there have been dissidents, defectors, and deserters. During wartime, defectors are military personnel or civilians who abandon their country or cause to join the opposing side. In the United States, Benedict Arnold is perhaps the most infamous defector, dating back to the American Revolutionary War when he defected to side with the British. Then there's Desmond Doss, who, instead of avoiding war entirely, refused to carry a weapon due to his faith during World War II. Although he still served as a medic and saved dozens of lives, his decision showed that avoiding war can sometimes mean refusing to participate in violence. More recently, during the Vietnam War,
1:45 Danielle LaRock? Muhammad Ali famously refused to be drafted into the US military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to the war. His stance cost him his heavyweight title and led to legal battles, but it also made him a global symbol of resistance and conscience. Over the years, countless others have evaded the draft to avoid military service, and even more have participated in anti-war protests and have shaped the course. Of history. In May of 1940, what started as an occasional joke between two friends quickly became a reality at the outbreak of World War II. A quiet act of defiance unfolded in the Namibian desert. Instead of facing internment or being forced to fight a war they did not
2:27 Danielle LaRock? support, Henno Martin and Herman Korn would flee into the barren wilderness of the Namib Desert to try and survive. Welcome to National Park After Dark.
2:55 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow, you're doing a World War II episode and I'm so excited.
2:58 Danielle LaRock? That's also kind of survival.
3:00 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow.
3:01 Danielle LaRock? I did this for you, Cassie.
3:02 Cassandra Yahnian? Thank you. This is like, everything I could have ever dreamed of.
3:06 Danielle LaRock? You're welcome.
3:07 Cassandra Yahnian? Thank you.
3:07 Danielle LaRock? And welcome, everybody, to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle.
3:10 Cassandra Yahnian? I'm Cassie.
3:11 Danielle LaRock? And we are going to Africa for this episode specifically to Namibia, which is gorgeous, by the way.
3:21 Cassandra Yahnian? Absolutely gorgeous.
3:23 Danielle LaRock? I think of you a lot when I look at pictures of this country because of, I just feel like it's a photographer's dream.
3:31 Danielle LaRock? You know what I mean? It's just like the rich red of the desert that just kind of cascades right into the ocean and there's just, I don't know, it's just otherworldly looking and it feels like something that's so unique, as far as landscape photography. And I just feel like you would love it.
3:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Let's take our listeners there.
3:53 Danielle LaRock? Okay. Let's.
3:55 Cassandra Yahnian? And also, let's take them to Saqacha.
3:57 Danielle LaRock? Remind me, again?
3:59 Cassandra Yahnian? It's in Yemen.
4:00 Danielle LaRock? Oh, my God. I remember where I was when you told me you wanted to go there.
4:05 Cassandra Yahnian? I want to go there so bad. I want to go there so bad and they have such cool landscapes. It's beautiful. The dragon blood trees, the sand dunes that go straight to the ocean. I mean, it looks absolutely incredible. Of course Yemen has a lot of political turmoil there and it's not exactly safe to go to a lot of the country, but Saqotra, they say, is really safe to travel to that has been kind of untouched by that. But the US Embassy websites disagree with that assumption.
4:41 Danielle LaRock? Okay.
4:41 Cassandra Yahnian? There's like red warnings not to go there.
4:44 Danielle LaRock? We'll keep it on the list, just like at the bottom.
4:47 Cassandra Yahnian? One day.
4:48 Danielle LaRock? Well, let's go to Namibia. The country is located in southwestern Africa, framed by the Atlantic Ocean, Angola, Botswana, and South Africa. Popular photos of the country often capture the rolling red sands of the Namib Desert crashing into the deep blue of the Atlantic. The Namib Desert spans 1,200 miles along the coast from Angola to South Africa, so all the way straight through Namibia. The only desert in all of southern Africa, the Namib is also the oldest desert in the world, dating back over 80 million years.
5:20 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow.
5:22 Danielle LaRock? The landscape of the desert is both striking and barren. Some of the world's tallest sand dunes tower over the desert plains and valleys. It's difficult to describe the otherworldly majesty of this corner of the world, the contrast of the giant rusty red sand dunes against the stark white salt plains, the ghost-like silhouettes of the bear camel thorn or skeleton trees, the incredibly clear night sky, or the rivers that sometimes roar through the canyons and dry up into nothing. Despite its harsh, oftentimes cruel environment, extreme temperatures, and tough conditions, it's home to abundant and resilient wildlife and people. Animals like zebra, gemsbok, springbok, baboons, hyenas, and 348 species of birds all called the Namib Desert home.
6:09 Danielle LaRock? Native people have lived in this desert since prehistoric times, including the original San people known as the Bushmen, along with Koi, Bantu, Ojumbo, and Nama tribes. Some say that the name Namib is derived from the Koi word meaning desert, while others say it means vast or there is nothing in other indigenous languages. The Namib Desert is one of the least likely places in the world where someone might seek refuge. Temperatures often plummet well below freezing at night and soar to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. Water holes are scarce and wildlife often ranges far and wide because of that. Apart from a few small indigenous groups, the land is mostly uninhabited by humans.
6:53 Danielle LaRock? So why did two men choose this place to hide out for over two and a half years?
6:59 Cassandra Yahnian? Such a good question because I feel like there are many places around the world that could have
7:04 Danielle LaRock? Done the job.
7:05 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, been a better option.
7:07 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, and we'll get into it.
7:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
7:09 Danielle LaRock? So let's meet the boys, the boys. Henno Martin was born in 1910 in Freiburg, Germany. He raced through school where he studied science and then geology, completing his PhD by the age of 25.
7:23 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow, ambitious.
7:24 Danielle LaRock? I feel like that's accelerated learning.
7:27 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, that's like, people usually have their masters by that point.
7:31 Danielle LaRock? Right. He dressed like a professor, always wearing his round wireframe glasses, and he was usually in a tweed suit jacket.
7:39 Cassandra Yahnian? That's cute.
7:40 Danielle LaRock? He, it does look like, there's a movie that I'll talk about at the end that's based on a memoir that one of these men wrote. And how he's depicted in this movie is just super cute. You know, he just looks like he's ready to dive into a volume of books at any moment.
8:01 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, it's like nerdy cute.
8:03 Danielle LaRock? Yep.
8:03 Cassandra Yahnian? Love it.
8:04 Danielle LaRock? At university, he met Herman Korn, a fellow student at University of Bonn, who was three years older than him. If Henno was the professor type, Herman was the more rugged academic. Slouchier pants, mismatched jacket, and a thick head of hair, often seen with a cigar pipe hanging from his mouth. Born in 1907, Herman was also a science prodigy. He collected rocks avidly as a child, and at age 10, he became the youngest ever member of the Saufield Geological Society in Germany. The two became fast friends. In college and beyond, Herman struggled with bouts of depression, accompanied by heavy drinking. He was drawn to Henno's steadiness and self-discipline,
8:46 Danielle LaRock? and Henno admired Herman's charisma, intelligence, and sense of adventure. So they complemented each other really well and kind of was like ying to the yang type of situation.
8:57 Danielle LaRock? While Henno was more politically involved than Herman was, they both grew up in Germany in the aftermath of World War I, and they became increasingly troubled by German politics and the surge of German nationalism that dominated the country in the following years. By 1935, the rising tide of fanatical patriotism and authoritarianism in their home country led them to seek work abroad. Both in their mid-20s, they picked Namibia at the recommendation of Henno's college advisor and friend, Hans Kluse, who had conducted his own geological research there a few decades prior. The two friends left Germany on a boat and emigrated to Namibia, which was then known as southwest Africa. And just for like a tiny bit of
9:42 Danielle LaRock? background on this, not to get too into the weeds, but it's important for context here. In the late 1800s, present-day Namibia became a German colony before falling under South African governance in 1915, following World War I. Like many colonies, the Germans valued the colony, which was then known as southwest Africa, for its natural resources, namely diamonds and uranium, amongst other things, of course. But those were the two big ones. So at the time that they arrived, the country was under South African control because South Africa invaded the country during World War I and gained
10:23 Danielle LaRock? control of it from its German occupation. And it wasn't until 1990 that Namibia gained its independence.
10:32 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, that's so interesting. That kind of reminds me of, I don't remember the exact dates, but when we were visiting Borneo and the French had taken over. Not Borneo, sorry, Madagascar. The French had taken over there and they had just recently given them their country back.
10:51 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
10:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
10:52 Danielle LaRock? So on their cruise south, Herman and Henno visited several West African countries along the way, including the Canary Islands, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Nigeria. When they arrived in present day Namibia, they worked there as geologists, doing their own field research in the Naukluft Mountains in central Namibia. Together, they were actually the first to formally document the Mison Crater in the Namib Desert, which is about 130 million years old. So it's kind of a big career accomplishment for them.
11:23 Cassandra Yahnian? I guess, quick question, is where they are a national park?
11:27 Danielle LaRock? Yes.
11:28 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
11:28 Danielle LaRock? Yes.
11:29 Cassandra Yahnian? Yay. Wow.
11:31 Danielle LaRock? They also, well, not yet, but it will eventually.
11:34 Cassandra Yahnian? But it will eventually become one.
11:35 Danielle LaRock? Yes.
11:35 Cassandra Yahnian? It sounded National Park like, so I just wanted to check in.
11:39 Danielle LaRock? Make sure. Yeah, I'm not going off.
11:41 Cassandra Yahnian? You've been off the rails recently, so I just wanted to see.
11:44 Danielle LaRock? Understandable for you to check. They also found evidence to bolster the continental drift theory, or Pangaea, that says Africa and South America were once one landmass. They both loved their work, and for a few years, it seemed that they had successfully escaped the political turmoil in their home country of Germany. But all of that changed on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, leading Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany. World War II had officially begun. As a former British colony, South Africa sided with Britain and declared war on Germany a few days later. So Henno and Herman worried that they would soon face internment by the South African government, which has control of Namibia at this time.
12:30 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, gotcha.
12:32 Danielle LaRock? Both men identified as pacifists and hated the war, especially this one, which they thought was showing the ugliest parts of humanity and the de-evolution of civilization. As friends and colleagues left Africa to return to Europe and fight for Germany, Hano and Herman wanted nothing to do with any of it. By the end of 1939, 77 people were interned in southwest Africa, Namibia, which increased to 96 by March of 1940. The first detainees were no Nazis, but even still, Hano and Herman had to hand over their hunting weapons and get government permission to travel outside of a 10-mile radius of their home. The two men had long decided this war was not theirs.
13:16 Danielle LaRock? One night, they sat on the stone steps outside of their house in the capital city of Windhoek and talked about what they could do. Years ago, they had said to each other, kind of in a half-joke, like, "Ha, you know, maybe if this ever happens, we're just gonna, we're just gonna go into the desert. You know, we work out there anyway."
13:36 Cassandra Yahnian? Like, we're, we know the land. No one's out there.
13:41 Danielle LaRock? They had left Europe years before to get away from the inevitable, rapidly growing war, and now it was at their doorstep, despite being thousands of miles away. By 1940, more and more Germans in the city were facing internment. Their running joke about escaping into the desert was quickly becoming their best option. By May 1940, the British were defeated in Norway and Germany had just attacked Holland and Belgium. The southwest African government began to ramp up its internment policy. And by then, Herman was set on fleeing and following their initial plan. He's like, "Hey, I know we were kinda kidding, but I'm actually so for real right now." And Hano needed some convincing. He wasn't on board 100% right away.
14:26 Danielle LaRock? But on May 25, 1940, after securing a 10-day research permit that they had full intentions of overstaying, they fled into the wilderness of the Namib Desert.
14:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Hmm, and then, after 10, I mean, maybe I'm jumping ahead, but then after 10 days, they could just mysteriously go missing?
14:45 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, they're just like, "We're not coming back."
14:47 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah. And now it's making more sense of why they chose this location because they're kind of stuck in this area.
14:54 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, everything is being, I wouldn't say heavily patrolled, but people have eyes out and they can't just go anywhere at any time.
15:05 Cassandra Yahnian? Or fly somewhere else.
15:06 Danielle LaRock? Or fly somewhere else. And not that they, and I'll get into it a little bit, they don't have any sort of survival skills. It's not like they've been preparing for this in any way, other than just mentally thinking about it. But they have had years of experience working in this environment. So they were familiar, at least to an extent, and it was the only place nearby that they felt they could truly not be found.
15:36 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, I have a question and maybe you don't know this, or this is never going to come up, but are they really just friends or are they also lovers?
15:44 Danielle LaRock? They are truly just friends.
15:46 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay, it just feels like very like 1940s, two men who are not married, who are like escaping society in a country at the time that is very not for gay relationships. I don't know. It's just was giving me kind of, it was just kind of giving me more intimate vibes so far.
16:09 Danielle LaRock? I truly didn't think about that when I was doing this research and I will say it never came up, was hinted at. I didn't feel an inkling of that when I was reading the book, but who knows?
16:22 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay.
16:22 Danielle LaRock? I can't say definitively, of course.
16:25 Cassandra Yahnian? And I feel like also if, if they were, uh, it might have never been known also.
16:31 Danielle LaRock? Right, right.
16:33 Cassandra Yahnian? Especially during this time period, but that was just kind of the whole time we've been talking about them. I've been picturing them as like boyfriend.
16:39 Danielle LaRock? Lovers.
16:40 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
16:40 Danielle LaRock? Okay. Well, good to know. That's where your mind is at. It really didn't even.
16:45 Cassandra Yahnian? They just seem like they get along and they like the same things and they're alone.
16:48 Danielle LaRock? They love rocks.
16:49 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
16:50 Danielle LaRock? They hate war.
16:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
16:53 Danielle LaRock? It's calming down.
16:54 Cassandra Yahnian? Why wouldn't they be together?
16:57 Danielle LaRock? In addition to their travel permit that they secured, Herman left a few clues around his house to mislead authorities to the wrong area of the desert when they inevitably came looking for them because they knew they were going to overstay their permit. People are going to come searching and they wanted to just throw them off the scent a little bit. Under the cover of night, they drove their truck off-road and into the hills of the desert. They took only a truck, a radio, a pistol, a shotgun, a wind generator, and some basic supplies with them. And most importantly, Herman's loyal canine companion, Otto, a large black and brown mutt. And based on photos, he truly is a mutt. I don't even know how to describe him, like lab, roddy
17:41 Danielle LaRock? mix. I don't know. He looks, he looks perfect in every way. And also, I didn't, wind generator truly is a generator powered by wind, not an old timey turn for fan, just so you know.
17:58 Danielle LaRock? At first, I was like, okay, I'm a little confused, but
18:01 Cassandra Yahnian? A wind generator. I have one in my house. I have a few in my house, wind generators.
18:07 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
18:08 Cassandra Yahnian? Fans, not whatever that is.
18:10 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, they, they used it to power some small, like the radio.
18:14 Cassandra Yahnian? I mean, that totally makes sense that they would need something like that.
18:17 Danielle LaRock? I don't know if anybody else was thinking that, but that's what I thought. So I just wanted to click. All right.
18:22 Cassandra Yahnian? But I see how you connected those and I bet other people were.
18:25 Danielle LaRock? Okay. Although they both spent extensive time in the area by doing field research for, and at that point, it'd been about five years or so, neither of them had any formal wilderness training or survival experience. They often camped in the desert for days at a time when they were doing their field research, but they would soon come to realize a well-prepared and finite scientific stay was completely different from what they were about to experience. Their destination was the dry canyon of the Koesab River about 130 miles west from Windhauk. To be even more inconspicuous, they decided to take a wide detour to the north so they wouldn't risk being seen on the road to the river.
19:06 Danielle LaRock? Valley, which they figured was their best and maybe only hope of finding a somewhat reliable source of water in the desert. Upon arriving in the barren desert, they found a shallow pool of water in the canyon and soon discovered a very pleasant surprise. There was fish. There were carp in the pond, likely from a broken dam during the last big rainy season six years prior. And this was good news because it meant the water hadn't dried up since then, despite the desert's notorious lack of rain. And I looked up some comparisons, just so we can all kind of put it in context, because sometimes numbers does, don't do it for me. So the annual
19:45 Danielle LaRock? precipitation, bases on location, kind of varies where you're at in Namibia and in this desert, because the desert's huge. But on average, it's from point one nine to three inches of rainfall a year.
19:59 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow, that's like nothing.
20:02 Danielle LaRock? So I looked up Burlington, Vermont.
20:03 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, fun. I was just thinking, I was like, it rains way more than that here. We get that in like a week.
20:09 Danielle LaRock? Do you want to guess? Or I feel like you're gonna just?
20:12 Cassandra Yahnian? I know, just tell me.
20:13 Danielle LaRock? Okay, so, uh, latest facts and figures place Burlington, Vermont's annual precipitation average at forty-three inches.
20:22 Cassandra Yahnian? Per year. Yeah, I think we're the second rainiest region outside of Washington.
20:27 Danielle LaRock? Really? Because I would bet wherever the hell we were in Hawaii,
20:33 Danielle LaRock? would knock both of those out of the water.
20:35 Cassandra Yahnian? We had some bad weather when we were there. Yeah, I read, I don't know if it's truly the second, or it's like a close, like second or third or something, but I read that the rain in Vermont compares to that of Washington. I was like, that makes sense.
20:51 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
20:51 Cassandra Yahnian? It's crazy. Sometimes I'll be home and it'll be raining in the summer and I'll just look up my mom's house, this location, and it's like, bluebird day, sunny, beautiful. It's raging thunderstorms here. I'm like, what the?
21:05 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, every time I check in on you, you're like, I'm snowed in. It's raining. It's a lightning storm.
21:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Life in the mountains.
21:16 Danielle LaRock? Henno and Herman decided to name the area Carp Cliff and immediately set to work to catch fish. They cooked up their first catch on a hot, flat stone that very night, since they didn't bring a pot or pan, adding some branches from nearby trees for flavoring as it cooked. At Carp Cliff, they found the perfect location for their shelter and home base, an overhanging cliff that sheltered a large patch of flat ground. Even better, there was only one way to get up into the cave, so they would be able to see if anyone was coming from a distance, if they were to come looking for them.
21:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Smart.
21:52 Danielle LaRock? They designated different quote unquote rooms in the shelter with a space for the living area, another corner for the kitchen that was protected from the wind, and two sleeping holes for their sleeping bags, which they had dug to fit each of them perfectly with special little divots for their hips and their shoulders.
22:08 Cassandra Yahnian? Cute. Their dog was probably like, what are we doing?
22:14 Cassandra Yahnian? We don't live here, do we? Chaska?
22:17 Danielle LaRock? Oh, Chaska would never.
22:19 Cassandra Yahnian? He would be so pissed.
22:20 Danielle LaRock? Chaska's like, I'm gonna go get a new family.
22:24 Cassandra Yahnian? Have fun.
22:26 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
22:26 Cassandra Yahnian? I will not be saying.
22:27 Danielle LaRock? This is not the life for me.
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25:19 Danielle LaRock? They parked the truck in a secluded gorge a few miles north of their shelter, taking the car battery with them to power their radio. They charged the battery, of course, with a wind generator that's not a fan and has other purposes. Yes. Herman and Hano became even more grateful for their nearby karp as they realized how difficult hunting in the desert would be, especially without a proper rifle, because theirs had been confiscated at the start of the war. After a few unsuccessful attempts at hunting gazelle, Hano managed to kill a small antelope, which he and Herman then had to carry about 600 feet up to their home base in the cave. And they did have, I don't know exactly the type, I didn't write the exact type of weapon
26:02 Danielle LaRock? down, but it's a very small pistol-looking thing versus an actual hunting rifle. So they had a lot of trouble.
26:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, they had to have compact, not a lot of gear on them.
26:13 Danielle LaRock? Because hunting was more difficult than expected, they had to closely ration their other food supplies like flour, jam, tomato puree, and dried fruit. For breakfast, they ate half a cup of flour mixed with a bit of water to turn it into a thick paste and then topped that with a teaspoon of either jam or sugar. And unless they managed to hunt successfully, that flour paste would be all they had until dinner.
26:37 Cassandra Yahnian? I hate that. Is it like, are they cooking it to be like a pancake?
26:42 Danielle LaRock? Uh, I don't know.
26:44 Cassandra Yahnian? Or is it truly, they're just eating?
26:46 Danielle LaRock? I don't know if it's like overnight oats consistency or like cake batter or pancake batter.
26:51 Cassandra Yahnian? I was thinking like flour and water and you could like make a pancake.
26:55 Danielle LaRock? I feel like they probably.
26:56 Cassandra Yahnian? I guess you don't have eggs.
26:58 Danielle LaRock? No, they don't.
26:59 Cassandra Yahnian? Eggs are what make it fluff, so.
27:00 Danielle LaRock? They certainly don't have eggs.
27:02 Cassandra Yahnian? It probably truly is just a really nasty paste.
27:06 Danielle LaRock? From the top of their hill, all they could see in every direction was miles and miles of desolate desert. Even though they had spent extensive time in the Namib over the years, it was one thing, like we said before, to be like, this is fun. This is like, not like a Boy Scout trip, but. It's cool to be out doing field work, knowing that there's an end in sight.
27:28 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, knowing that one day you're gonna go get a really hot, nice meal and take a shower.
27:33 Danielle LaRock? And now, they're doing this indefinitely. They have no idea how long they're gonna be out here. Their new reality made the landscape feel harsher and less forgiving. The hunger pangs were often debilitating and their plans for work had to be adjusted based on lower energy levels and oppressive desert heat. Just as their hunger was reaching critical levels, they got lucky again. A bull wandered near their camp and after a few mangled shots, they managed to injure it enough for Henno to close in and stab it with a knife. The bull was massive and it was nearly impossible to get the carcass up to their quote-unquote "kitchen", so Herman and Henno, and of course Otto, brought their camp temporarily down to the bull where they cooked some meat and smoked the rest to preserve it for longer, turning
28:17 Danielle LaRock? it into what's known as "biltang", air-dried cured meat. Before their desert adventure, neither of them knew how to cure meat in this way, so some of the animal was wasted by trial and error. And the rest was way too salty, but they ate it anyway, knowing that the alternative was starvation. When things were good, like they were after the bull, when they had plenty of food, there was moderate temperatures and nearby drinking water, the two men felt like they were living out a childhood fantasy as real-life Robinson Crusoe. However, their spirits fell when they tuned into the radio broadcasts at night and remembered the war going on back home, their whole reason for fleeing into the desert in the first place.
29:00 Danielle LaRock? The fascist propaganda was relentless whenever they listened in, and they began to feel increasingly hopeless that peace and mutual understanding would possibly prevail. As the months passed, Herman and Henno settled into their new life in the desert, thanks to a more predictable food supply with their smoked meat and fresh carp. In their downtime, Herman often played his violin or painted landscape scenes with his watercolors. Both men also worked on filling in their map of the area with what they could after what they found throughout their daily explorations, piecing together a more complete picture of their corner of the desert. For the most part, they got along well and coexistence was pretty peaceful. In the early days in the desert, they talked and agreed that if they ever got into an
29:45 Danielle LaRock? argument, they would each take some space. When this inevitably happened, Hano took his sleeping bag and slept elsewhere, but still nearby for a few nights until they had both cooled off.
29:57 Cassandra Yahnian? See, that sounds like a lover's quarrel to me.
30:01 Cassandra Yahnian? That sounds exactly like I'm moving my sleeping bag over here until we work things out and then coming back to bed when you guys fix it.
30:11 Danielle LaRock? Cause you have to come back eventually. It's like, hey, how y'all doing?
30:16 Cassandra Yahnian? You still mad at me?
30:19 Danielle LaRock? Are we over it? After surviving on only meat for months, Hano and Herman really began craving fruits, sweets, and above all, vegetables. So they decided to try and plant a garden near their watering hole. They planted seeds for radishes, carrots, beets, and tomatoes, but the baby garden beds were soon trampled by zebras. Herman and Hano decided that they would have to build an enclosure around it if they wanted anything to have a chance to grow. But they were worried because any sort of fence or manmade barrier would give them away if someone happened to be passing through or passing near the watering hole. They ultimately decided the benefits outweighed the risks and fenced the garden in,
31:02 Danielle LaRock? which yielded a few radishes and beets in their first harvest.
31:06 Cassandra Yahnian? There's nothing like when you start a garden and actually get something that you can eat.
31:11 Danielle LaRock? The amount of money I spent on my vegetable garden last year to produce one green pepper and a couple of strawberries that also I think were here before I was even here. Like they're wild strawberries.
31:27 Cassandra Yahnian? I know. I got two cucumbers. I never got my zucchinis up and going. So if you guys have any, any tips about how to get good zucchinis, because they kept growing, but they would never get big. And then they would just fall off before they, while they were super tiny. So I used to bring in the house, these tiny zucchinis and I would chop them up and they were like legit, like that big when I cut it. And I would serve them to Al for dinner.
31:55 Danielle LaRock? It's like, you're gonna eat this and you're gonna love it.
31:57 Cassandra Yahnian? You're gonna love this. I grew this myself.
32:02 Cassandra Yahnian? My tomatoes did really good.
32:03 Danielle LaRock? Tomatoes, I feel like do decently well.
32:06 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
32:07 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, I, for the last two years, actually, I tried to grow, also, I tried to grow pumpkins.
32:12 Cassandra Yahnian? I tried to grow a pumpkin last year, too.
32:14 Danielle LaRock? And they would, they would, whatever, the vines would explode and I would get the big yellow flowers. I'm like, oh, my God.
32:23 Cassandra Yahnian? It's happening.
32:24 Danielle LaRock? And then it would just grow so long, grew out of where the area was for the garden, would wrap around different things. It was going so great and nothing ever came of it. The flowers would just bloom and die, bloom and die.
32:36 Cassandra Yahnian? That happened not as much with the vine for me, but I had a lot of blooming and dying, or I'd get a tiny little one that would end up falling off. And by the end of the summer, I got one pumpkin that was like this big.
32:48 Danielle LaRock? A little sugar pumpkin size?
32:50 Cassandra Yahnian? It was called a giant pumpkin was the label on the thing.
32:54 Danielle LaRock? Don't tell people that. Just be like, this is a sugar pumpkin that is meant to be this small.
32:58 Cassandra Yahnian? Look what I created.
33:01 Danielle LaRock? I don't know how I feel about the, I know I'm gonna garden again this summer. I just know it.
33:06 Cassandra Yahnian? I've already started, so.
33:08 Danielle LaRock? Zucchinis?
33:10 Cassandra Yahnian? No. I did, I've done onions, beets, peas, carrots. I've done a lot of root stuff.
33:19 Danielle LaRock? You should do, my chives went crazy. I was-
33:22 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, my chives already came from last, I planted so many chives last year. They're all up. No, I've been eating them.
33:27 Danielle LaRock? I'm like, I was my local chive dealer. I had so much chive. I'm like, somebody, please take this off my hands. Okay, anyway.
33:35 Cassandra Yahnian? I use it as a companion plant and a snack while I'm in the garden.
33:39 Danielle LaRock? Yum. So now that they were able to think about something other than their own hunger and survival, they were able to take up their scientific research again, exploring the landscape, identifying different geological formations and documenting their findings. One day, the pair summited a mountain overlooking the Gwab Canyon and spent the whole day up there measuring and sketching what they saw. Herman mused that it was like, quote, "the first morning after the creation of the world." Henno, reflecting on that day too, says, "He experienced a quote, 'Indescribably reassuring feeling of belonging to the wild, beautiful, and cruel life of this vast country. It was as though the fresh wind from the south was dissipating all doubts and uncertainties,
34:21 Danielle LaRock? and a feeling of peace and security came over me. It was an adjustment, however, to need to kill in order to survive, and hunts didn't always go smoothly. In addition to carp and the rare bull, Henno and Herman primarily hunted Jumpsbok and Klipspringer to eat, but neither of them had much hunting experience. And if you look up baby Klipspringer, you're gonna die, they're so cute."
34:45 Cassandra Yahnian? I'm gonna look it up right now. Oh my god, how would you kill one of these?
34:51 Danielle LaRock? You're hungry.
34:52 Cassandra Yahnian? I mean, if you're hungry, but it literally looks like a miniature deer slash-
34:59 Danielle LaRock? I don't wanna say goat, it is a small antelope, so yeah, it makes sense.
35:03 Cassandra Yahnian? It's so cute.
35:05 Danielle LaRock? Another tough lesson from their bull hunt was that the pistol bullet sometimes didn't have enough velocity to break through the animal's skull, so killing required more effort and more shots from their already limited supply of ammo. Eventually, they did run out of bullets and had to make their own out of melted down lead shots.
35:21 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow.
35:22 Danielle LaRock? They're getting crafty.
35:23 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
35:24 Danielle LaRock? They are-
35:25 Cassandra Yahnian? Scientists.
35:26 Danielle LaRock? And that, I forget which one, but he was the youngest. He was 10 years old when he got accepted into this like geological society. They're both-
35:34 Cassandra Yahnian? So a genius.
35:35 Danielle LaRock? They wear tweed jackets, you know what I mean? They're, they know what they're doing. As you can maybe imagine, this Stone Age era lifestyle left little time for their geological research and work. Even though they were literally outside in the field all of the time, most of their days was spent finding, hunting, and preparing food. In the morning, after a breakfast, a flour paste, and a teaspoon of jam, Herman and Henno would take Otto down to the watering hole to fill up on water and to look for fresh hoof prints in the sand. Then they would head out looking for game, often splitting up to better their odds or try to funnel the wildlife towards the other person. Assuming they were successful in finding something, they'd then need to kill it, which proved continually difficult without a rifle or even real bullets. I mean, they're using
36:19 Danielle LaRock? their makeshift melted down, reassembled bullets.
36:24 Danielle LaRock? And once they had killed their target, they either take the animal back to camp or bring camp to it temporarily, depending on its size. So they're doing like a ton of work every day just to survive.
36:35 Cassandra Yahnian? It feels like every day is all about just finding how to eat and how to drink water.
36:40 Danielle LaRock? Even if the days were somewhat simple and interchangeable, they were never boring. As winter turned to summer, their carp pond dried up, killing the remaining fish and demanding they find a new water source nearby. Water levels throughout the desert were shrinking rapidly, and they began to be even more conservative in their water use. After a while, Henno really started to enjoy the slowness required by this more primitive lifestyle. He said, quote, "The waiting and listening both soothed and excited me far more than a thrilling film or interesting book had ever done. And it occurred to me that probably 10,000 generations of men had lived from the chase, whereas only the last couple of hundred or so had abandoned it for cattle breeding and agriculture,
37:23 Danielle LaRock? thus laying the basis for our civilization, a civilization which, in addition to films and books and a good many really marvelous things, had given us horribly bloody and senseless wars." So he's really doing a lot of deep thinking and reflection out in the desert, which I feel like they're both of that mind. Of, of course, they're there because of that. But when you don't have much else to do other than to focus on yourself and your existence, you have a lot of big, profound thoughts.
37:58 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, and it feels like he's saying, yes, there are good things about society, but overwhelmingly, there's horrible, horrible things happening within it. And he's kind of found his own peace out here.
38:11 Danielle LaRock? The days in the desert passed quickly, and both men felt a sense of deep reverence for what it meant to survive and live out there. Henno was regularly reminded of and excited by the startling contrast between the dead, arid, sun-parched rock landscape all around and the swift and beautiful animals that lived in it. Death, he said, was always at their heels, but they defied him gaily and lived their lives with obvious gusto. Even with the hardships, Herman and Henno felt a sense of peace and belonging in the desert. While they were careful to keep Otto safe and away from the hyenas, the two men didn't fear many predators out in the desert. Most of the wildlife around them were herbivores. One day, however, Herman got bitten on the palm of his hand by a large sand tick while
38:56 Danielle LaRock? they were taking a midday nap in the shade. The sand tampon is a soft tick found in sandy shaded areas in Namibia, particularly under trees, and they cause painful bites to humans and animals. But unlike typical ticks, they feed really quickly, often leading to a temporary fever or illness. And to avoid this tick, they say to avoid sitting in shaded sandy areas or, and then obviously just to use tick repellent and stuff, but it's like, you're in the desert, you want to be in the shade.
39:30 Cassandra Yahnian? You need a shady area when it's 100 degrees.
39:33 Danielle LaRock? So this tick bites Herman, and the poison quickly made him sick. He was throwing up, was unable to see, and unable to stand on his own. Henno built a makeshift camp for them there. Thankfully, they were already near one of the few remaining water holes, and they spent a few days there while Herman recovered. But despite the scare, Herman also felt a sense of belonging and calm in the wilderness, saying, "My Paleolithic soul feels at home here." One morning, when they went down to check on their garden, they noticed three sets of human footprints in the sand in the canyon. They presumed these men were native people, likely the Koi, and didn't know if they were sent by police to find them, or if they were on the run too.
40:17 Danielle LaRock? Either way, it was unsettling to see the reminders of other humans, especially so close to their camp.
40:25 Cassandra Yahnian? And obviously seeing that there's people there.
40:28 Danielle LaRock? Right. Reluctantly, they decided it was time to move their camp. In February of 1941, Herman, Henno, and Otto moved their camp from their cave to a site along the Nazgamb riverbank, where they built a semi-permanent structure and water catchment system to collect rainwater. Most of the wildlife had migrated away from Karp Cliff at this point to be closer to the water, too. So they're building up these water tanks, but soon after finishing, Herman spotted a police patrol along the river, which led them to flee and find yet another home base. So they had just finished setting up, but had to move quite quickly again. And their third desert home was known affectionately
41:10 Danielle LaRock? as Baboon's Hole, due to the large amount of baboon feces near the watering hole.
41:15 Cassandra Yahnian? Ew.
41:16 Danielle LaRock? Sick.
41:17 Cassandra Yahnian? Sick.
41:18 Danielle LaRock? They moved there in October of 1941. And I just want to pause here really quick, because I kind of mentioned the lack of predators and how the men moved to be closer to water. And so I felt like this might be like, kind of a time to sneak this in. And I'm not going to elaborate a ton, because I think, perhaps, maybe, potentially, you may be doing a story on this in the future.
41:42 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh.
41:43 Danielle LaRock? Because you mentioned it, and I don't think you formally established you were doing it, but I feel like you claimed it.
41:49 Cassandra Yahnian? Now I feel like it's pressure.
41:50 Danielle LaRock? I feel like you claimed it. I don't know. I just remember you talking to me about it. But it's the Lions of Skeleton Coast.
41:58 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, yeah. God, I haven't talked about that in a long time.
42:01 Danielle LaRock? I remember.
42:01 Cassandra Yahnian? Forgot about them.
42:03 Danielle LaRock? Well, I'll give you a little refresher on everybody else's, um, a peek into this.
42:06 Cassandra Yahnian? Can riot for this episode.
42:09 Danielle LaRock? The desert does have a small group of lions, about 150 individuals or so, that adapted to live in the harsh, dry Namib. However, in recent years, a handful of them broke away to return to the Atlantic coast and are now among the world's only known marine lions, who, kind of like the sea wolves up in British Columbia, have adapted to live by the ocean, becoming the only known lions to hunt marine life.
42:34 Cassandra Yahnian? So cool.
42:35 Danielle LaRock? Which is so rad.
42:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Cats in water. It's just.
42:40 Danielle LaRock? And to see them, just like, cause there's some beautiful photos of them. At the ocean and hunting marine life and just like chilling on the beach. It's just like, I don't know, your brain just doesn't compute it. And it's also really cool because this happened just, you know, 10 or so years ago that they were first documenting this and they, all the sources I was reading said they returned there. So I feel like at some point in history, their range did extend to the Atlantic coast. It's not like this is a first time ever type of thing, but in recent history, they hadn't been documented there in almost a century, I think. So over the last handful of years, they've already started to drastically change their
43:24 Danielle LaRock? diet and behavior to adapt to this environment.
43:28 Cassandra Yahnian? So cool.
43:29 Danielle LaRock? Which is really cool.
43:30 Cassandra Yahnian? Animals are so interesting.
43:32 Danielle LaRock? But anyway, so I just wanted to mention that because I know my first thought with thinking of like, oh my God, you guys are out there with little to no protection. You have your dog with you. You're not in any sort of really secure shelter.
43:50 Cassandra Yahnian? And now there's lions.
43:52 Danielle LaRock? Well, I was thinking of just like in general, what type of wildlife are you dealing with in Namibia? You know, I don't know. So there are, I did want to make mention, there are lions present, just not a lot of them, but there's also hyenas and hyenas are very scary.
44:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
44:09 Danielle LaRock? But back to the story, at this point, the two men and Otto had been living in the desert for almost a year and a half, and they were running low on supplies. Notably, what really was like the final straw is they ran out of coffee and tobacco.
44:25 Cassandra Yahnian? Ah, the luxuries.
44:27 Danielle LaRock? That would break me.
44:28 Cassandra Yahnian? That's fair.
44:29 Danielle LaRock? That'd break me.
44:30 Cassandra Yahnian? You know, I feel like that's so little to ask for for everything that they're doing. It's like, I just need some tobacco, some coffee to get me up in the morning.
44:39 Danielle LaRock? I will drink out of this baboon feces infested watering hole. But if I don't have coffee, I'm gonna lose my fucking mind.
44:48 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
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46:38 Danielle LaRock? Around Christmas of 1941, Herman decided to make a daring solo drive back to Windhawk to produce more supplies.
46:45 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh shit.
46:46 Danielle LaRock? Because of the holidays, the city was deserted and he was able to stock up undetected. So he did go in, they just, there wasn't a lot of people around.
46:57 Cassandra Yahnian? It would be so hard for me to go back to the desert after going back in.
47:01 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, but they love it.
47:03 Cassandra Yahnian? I know, but I'd be like a bathroom. Faked items.
47:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Please, I'm sorry, I got lost.
47:12 Danielle LaRock? But they have a garden. Well, no, they don't anymore.
47:14 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
47:16 Danielle LaRock? He returned to camp a couple of days later with the much-needed goods and even some luxury items like figs and bacon, much to Henno and Otto's delight. While in the desert, the two men even became each other's dentists. Herman bit down through the top of a gold crown and one of Henno's fillings came loose. So Herman had the idea to dissolve a piece of celluloid, which is a early form of plastic, in acetone to harden it, and they used that to make makeshift fillings for each of their teeth, which worked surprisingly well.
47:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow, they're dentists, too.
47:53 Danielle LaRock? They're geniuses.
47:54 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
47:55 Danielle LaRock? They got wired room glasses on, tweed jackets, probably a microscope. And they're like,
48:02 Cassandra Yahnian? We got this.
48:03 Danielle LaRock? I'm gonna become a master of dentistry. And what else do they do?
48:09 Cassandra Yahnian? They're gardeners, they're hunters, they're dentists, they're geologists.
48:14 Danielle LaRock? What can't they do? Life in the desert is often marked by periods of intense drought, followed by severe flooding. And this was the case in February of 1942. Herman and Henno were sitting on the rocks one day by the watering hole, just lounging, enjoying each other's company, maybe being lovers, we're not sure.
48:33 Cassandra Yahnian? I have my suspicions.
48:35 Danielle LaRock? And then all of a sudden, they see all of the frogs from within this watering hole. High-tail it. They're jumping out of the water and they're climbing up to higher ground towards the mountain.
48:48 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh, that's a bad sign.
48:50 Danielle LaRock? So they thought that this was odd. They're like, what the heck is that about? But later in the day, it started to rain and it rained hard. Because they were in a river canyon, they could hear the roar of a flood approaching and building. Soon, their shelter was completely flooded as the water tore through the canyon. Like the wise frogs, Herman and Henno survived the storm, of course, with Otto, by scrambling to higher ground on the mountain, saving their essentials like their bedding, cooking utensils, and tire pump. It's like nature knows.
49:21 Cassandra Yahnian? It does.
49:21 Danielle LaRock? It's so interesting. It's like hours before the frog sensed a flood was coming.
49:26 Cassandra Yahnian? Same thing with tornadoes and hurricanes. You see the birds move and even trees know they'll turn their leaves down. You know, it's just so interesting what you can see in nature and what they can detect.
49:39 Danielle LaRock? It was around the time of this flooding when Herman returned to camp one afternoon, exhilarated but very nervous. For a while, they had known that they weren't alone near their camp. They had discovered leopard prints in the sand, one of them markedly scarred from an injury. They had nicknamed the animal Old Scarfoot, and for the first and only time, Herman ran into him that morning. He had been rounding a bend by the river and nearly ran straight into this giant animal. And he was, he said, he was no more than five paces away from it.
50:12 Cassandra Yahnian? Whoa.
50:13 Danielle LaRock? They both froze and stared at each other.
50:16 Cassandra Yahnian? Like, what are you doing here?
50:17 Danielle LaRock? Hello? The leopard was dripping wet as if he had just been in the river and looked tired and thin, knowing even if he reached for his pistol as fast as he could would mean nothing in this scenario. I mean, especially at five paces away, this cat would be on him if he wanted to by the time he got his weapon out. So instead, he just decided to be frozen and just stared at him. And he said after a long few moments, the leopard let out a low, rumbling growl and then slinked away. Herman went weak in the knees, thinking if the cat was any bit hungrier, he may not have walked away from that encounter with his life.
51:00 Danielle LaRock? Hano and Herman did make contact with their friend, Werner Seigenthal, on a rural farm a few times during their time in the desert, most notably for an emergency visit after auto-chased after a jumps park before it speared him, stabbing him in the belly with its big horn.
51:16 Cassandra Yahnian? Oof.
51:17 Danielle LaRock? Thankfully, the puncture seemed to just miss his intestines. So to try and save him, they drove him six hours to their friend's farm, knowing that their friend would know how to care for their injured dog due to his decades of farm experience and working with animals. And by the way, this farm is very basic. Like it is also out in the middle of the desert. It's very rudimentary. It's a step up from what they're doing, but it's not like a plethora of supplies or like how they treated Otto was
51:52 Cassandra Yahnian? horrific.
51:53 Danielle LaRock? Not
51:54 Cassandra Yahnian? in veterinary terms.
51:55 Danielle LaRock? Yes, in veterinary terms, I would be having a panic attack watching what they did. But they did save Otto's life and he did survive his injury. They stayed on the farm for four days with their friend, his wife, and their servant, who was from the indigenous Obombo tribe while Otto recovered. After sleeping in the open air for years, Henno and Herman felt claustrophobic in the bedroom at night, despite enjoying the comforts of a real bed for the first time in a very long time.
52:24 Cassandra Yahnian? One bed?
52:25 Danielle LaRock? Question?
52:27 Cassandra Yahnian? I'm just wishful thinking.
52:28 Danielle LaRock? Okay.
52:31 Danielle LaRock? When Otto recovered enough and they were able to head back into the desert, it felt like a joyous homecoming. Ultimately, the trio would spend 11 months, almost a full year, in Baboon's Hole.
52:42 Cassandra Yahnian? I hate that name.
52:44 Danielle LaRock? I know. It's like, can we name it after something other than?
52:46 Cassandra Yahnian? I'm just picturing a baboon's hole every time we say it.
52:50 Danielle LaRock? Oh, I'm not. However, in August of 1942, Herman became ill. He had been experiencing back pain for quite some time, but what they thought was just a muscle strain only got worse. As Herman's nerve pain worsened, Henno began to suspect that malnutrition was at play. For a few weeks, Henno monitored his condition closely, but Herman only seemed to get worse, with the pain spreading throughout his legs, making it increasingly difficult to walk. So finally, on September 2nd, 1942, Herman's condition was so dire that they were forced to seek outside medical help, since he was barely able to move or speak on his own and was getting weaker and weaker by the day.
53:34 Danielle LaRock? Hano drove them back to their friend's farm and dropped him off before he and Otto headed back to their hideout in the desert. And the owner of the farm drove Herman back to Windhawk and took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with Barry Barry, a specific and severe form of malnutrition caused by a vitamin B1 deficiency. Only a few days after he had returned to the desert alone, police apprehended Hano at his camp. It turns out Herman was very worried that Hano would not be able to survive on his own out in the desert, and he broke down and gave the camp location away to law enforcement. Hano spent two days in jail and then two weeks in the hospital under close supervision.
54:19 Danielle LaRock? Then, when Herman was finally well enough again, they went to trial. There, they were charged with a long list of minor offenses, but no treason or desertion charges. Rather, they were charged with things like traveling outside of the permitted area for longer than allowed, like years longer.
54:37 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay. It's like a curfew, breaking curfew.
54:41 Danielle LaRock? And not having a license to have a dog in the desert. Like, that's what they got him on.
54:46 Cassandra Yahnian? I mean, that feels nice. I feel like maybe they, maybe the law enforcement were understanding of the situation and were like, you guys went through it, you're in the hospital, you've been surviving for two years, what else are?
55:01 Danielle LaRock? Right, and it feels kind of like, they're like, okay, clearly you're not Nazis, avoiding, you know, it's like, clearly you did this because you really wanted no part in this. It's not like you're a war criminal or something.
55:15 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
55:16 Danielle LaRock? That's trying to.
55:17 Cassandra Yahnian? You're actually the opposite of a war criminal.
55:20 Danielle LaRock? Right, yeah. Their friends helped them pay the very nominal fees and they were quickly released and reunited with Otto, who also made it out of the desert with some battle scars, of course, but overall in good spirits. Shortly after, the South African government actually hired them to do more geology work, conducting groundwater exploration to find better water sources for the city of Windhawk.
55:42 Cassandra Yahnian? I think you guys know your stuff.
55:44 Danielle LaRock? You did great work.
55:45 Cassandra Yahnian? Like, great job. We actually.
55:48 Danielle LaRock? We need you.
55:49 Cassandra Yahnian? Need your assistance.
55:51 Danielle LaRock? Then, on the night of August 9th, 1946, Herman was killed in a car accident after driving his car along the railroad tracks. His vehicle fell from a bridge into a dried up riverbed. He was 38 years old and was killed instantly.
56:06 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh.
56:07 Danielle LaRock? Henau continued to work for the South African government. In 1947, he was appointed the Director of the Southwest African Branch of the South African Geological Survey, a position he held until 1963. That year, he became the Director of the Precambrian Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, a position he held for only two years because he was then offered a prestigious role back in Germany. He became the Chair in Geology and Directorship of the Geological Paleontological Institute at the University of Gutenyen, where he worked until his retirement in 1975. Henau passed away peacefully in 1998 at the age of 88.
56:52 Danielle LaRock? In addition to his pre-war geological discoveries, Henau is created with sourcing a reliable water supply for the city of Windhoek. In 1957, Henau published a memoir about his time in the desert with Herman and Otto, which was translated to English the following year. The German title literally translates, I'm not gonna try it, for everyone's sake, I'm not gonna try and pronounce it, but it directly translates into English as "If war comes, we'll spend it in the desert." The English translation is called "The Sheltering Desert," which was also turned into a movie in 1991, which, if you guys want to watch it, you can. I was bored.
57:34 Cassandra Yahnian? I hated it.
57:35 Danielle LaRock? I felt like the, I hated it personally, but the book was clearly entertaining. And it's, it's available online for free, if you want to read it. And as for Otto, you know, we gotta know what happens to the dog.
57:49 Cassandra Yahnian? Yes.
57:50 Danielle LaRock? So it's kind of vague, uh, as to what, what happened, but according to Henno, he says, quote, "Otto lived on for a few years after our return to civilization, but as he got older, he became increasingly deaf. One day, he disappeared altogether and I never found out what happened to him." Oh.
58:11 Cassandra Yahnian? It kind of sounds like maybe he, you know how dogs so, and animals, cats and stuff, when they know they're dying, they'll walk off to die. Yeah, maybe something like that, but in old age.
58:23 Danielle LaRock? In recognition of its unique natural beauty, Namib Nochluft National Park was designated in 1979, making it the largest protected area in Namibia at the time of its proclamation. And fun fact, Namibia is the first country in the world to inscribe environmental protection into its constitution and 14% of its national land is protected, which includes almost the entire Namib Desert.
58:50 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow.
58:50 Danielle LaRock? You can still visit the first cave site where Henno, Herman and Otto lived, which is now protected within the national park and is known as the Henno-Martin and Herman-Corn shelter on tourist maps. It's relatively easy to access and people visit it all the time. In addition to day trips, some people have bike packed through the Namib Desert and stopped at Herman and Henno's documented sites to more closely replicate their experiences and life in the desert. So they used their path of like where they lived for two years to bike through.
59:24 Cassandra Yahnian? That's so cool. That's so fun that there's a real tie to visit these locations.
59:29 Danielle LaRock? And you asked me if there was a national park.
59:31 Cassandra Yahnian? I'm so excited. Now we have to go.
59:35 Danielle LaRock? The Namib Desert Lodge located south of the national park has also commemorated Henno-Martin and Herman-Corn, their work and their escape from Nazi rule in the Third Reich. A large slab of rock from the Nochluft Mountains they spent years studying is affixed with a memorial plaque honoring their noteworthy contributions to Namibian geology, but their legacy expands beyond the rock.
59:59 Danielle LaRock? The pair is remembered for their courageous spirit, the two young men who, rather than conforming, chose to take a stand in the form of self exile, who chose to risk their lives in the unforgiving desert of Namibia, rather than fight a war they did not believe in. And that's my story.
1:00:17 Cassandra Yahnian? What a cool story. I've never heard of it before either.
1:00:20 Danielle LaRock? And Same.
1:00:22 Cassandra Yahnian? I mean, it's so interesting and also feels like they made the right decision. Although it it seems a little wary of what would have happened to them if they, like, they might have just continued living their normal lives, just under strict.
1:00:38 Danielle LaRock? I think they were really nervous.
1:00:40 Cassandra Yahnian? Oversight, but they were really, I mean, and rightfully so, everything that was happening in Europe at the time, a lot of people who were fleeing, a lot of people were fleeing, and the people who didn't flee ended up living through some really horrific things. So I totally understand why they would feel the need.
1:00:58 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, I mean, of all the places, a really rough place to be, but they made it work. And just such a bold decision.
1:01:09 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, and cool that they did it with no, no skill. I mean, I don't want to say no skills prior because they clearly had a deep knowledge of the land and they were highly educated to adapt.
1:01:22 Danielle LaRock? They were highly educated and they knew the land, but I don't know, like, I feel like.
1:01:26 Cassandra Yahnian? But not survival skills. Yeah.
1:01:30 Danielle LaRock? I definitely think their intel, their intelligence, they just seemed like they weren't just book smart, clearly, they made things work in real life applications. And they, they did the best they could and not to say they didn't have their hardships because they did. But by and large, I, they did pretty well.
1:01:52 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
1:01:52 Danielle LaRock? Given what could have happened, you know, anything could have happened and they did have, you know, they had their car battery. They did have a vehicle that they could always be like, hey, we're gonna get the fuck out of here. They had a backup.
1:02:04 Cassandra Yahnian? It's so funny that they're like, we just drove into town throughout. I'm like, what do you mean? You're just hopping your car and I would be hopping in my car all the time.
1:02:14 Danielle LaRock? You'd be like, I'll be right back, Danielle.
1:02:16 Cassandra Yahnian? I'd be like, we're at a food. I'm going to the grocery store. Instead, they're starving and hunting and stuff. I'd be like, yeah, I'm just gonna go over that sand dune over there. I'll be right back. Don't you worry.
1:02:30 Danielle LaRock? Don't come looking for me.
1:02:31 Cassandra Yahnian? With grocery bags.
1:02:35 Danielle LaRock? Sweet treats. It's kind of like a hybrid survival thing because there were very real risks and
1:02:41 Cassandra Yahnian? Totally.
1:02:41 Danielle LaRock? Like if something went down, it could have been fatal and there was.
1:02:47 Cassandra Yahnian? It almost was.
1:02:49 Danielle LaRock? And it almost was, but at the same time, it's not like they were stranded in the middle of nowhere with no out. So anyway. Yeah. So I just, we've never covered a story like that really before. So hope you guys enjoyed it and I don't even know if we have a, need a palate cleanser.
1:03:09 Cassandra Yahnian? I don't think we need a palate cleanser. I'm not sad.
1:03:12 Danielle LaRock? Me neither.
1:03:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Well, let's leave you all on that.
1:03:16 Danielle LaRock? Hopefully you're not sad either. Well, we'll see everyone next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.
1:03:21 Cassandra Yahnian? Go watch your back.
1:03:22 Danielle LaRock? Bye.
1:03:23 Cassandra Yahnian? Bye.
1:03:25 Danielle LaRock? Thanks for joining us for another episode. We hope you learned something new and have another location to put on your list. If you want more NPAD content, make sure to follow along with our adventures on all socials at National Park After Dark. For more stories just like this one with the added bonus of exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to our YouTube channel. And if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform.
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