August Stauch

August Stauch ( born January 15, 1878 in Ettenhausen; † May 6, 1947 in Eisenach ) is considered the discoverer of the diamond deposits in the vicinity of the town of Lüderitz in the former colony of German South West Africa, now Namibia.

August Stauch was born as the third of seven children of a railway family in Ettenhausen. He was railroad employee in Thuringia and came 1907 on medical advice - he suffered from asthma - in the German Colony. In his spare time he had a hobby concerned with the mineralogy. Stauch was stationed at the grass court train station near the town of Lüderitz and entrusted as a web master with the task, there indemnify a 20 km-long railway section from the constant sand drifts. For this he was a local worker, Zacharias Lewala, added as an aid. Stauch had his assistant, who possessed a result of past activities in a South African diamond mine on certain mineralogical knowledge, applied also to pay attention to special stones during his work. On April 10, 1908 Lewala found such and brought him dutifully to his superior. This immediately suspected a diamond, but was not sure which and settled his conjecture confirmed by his living in Lüderitz friend and mine engineer Sönke Nissen. These diamonds the Oranje had washed into the sea millions of years ago. Wind and waves washed it back in the sand of the Namib. The Southwest diamonds are usually not very large, but clear as water and thus very popular in the market. Stauch and Nissen retained their knowledge first for himself, announced their employment and secured at the Kolmanskuppe ( so named after a years ago stuck and rescued here Nama named Coleman ) a 75- km ² claim to continue the search for diamonds. The success was inevitable. Both were, even before the area was declared by the German Reich to the diamond restricted to very wealthy men and Kolmanskuppe was, in terms of per capita income of residents temporarily the richest city in Africa. Upsetting founded with German financiers the Colonial Mining mbH and brought it to a millionaire.

Upsetting tried his wealth continued to increase and invested in a wide range of companies - both in the colony as well as in Germany, about the Vox records and talking machines -AG. However, he lost in 1931 in the Great Depression his fortune. At the age he lived again in his birthplace Ettenhausen and died in April 1947 as a poor man as a result of stomach cancer suffering. Only two farms in West Africa were left to him. They still exist today and are used by the grandson Stauchs farmed ( a hunting farm and a weaving mill in Dordabis )