One of Namibia’s most popular reads is Henno Martin’s book ‘The Sheltering Desert’, recounting how he and his good friend Hermann Korn escaped into the Kuiseb Canyon during WWII to avoid internment. But who was Henno Martin and what led him to write the bestseller?
Both Henno Martin and Hermann Korn were respected geologists who made their mark in Namibian history not only in the literary world with ‘The Sheltering Desert’, but with their noteworthy contributions to Namibian geology.
Henno Martin was born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1910. With an interest in the natural world from an early age, he studied natural- and geo-science in Zürich, Göttingen and Bonn, completing his doctorate at the age of 25. Korn was of a similar inclination and was the youngest-ever member of the Saalfeld Geological Society at the age of 10. Concerned about the political situation in Germany, both doctors boarded the steamer Usambara of the Woermann Line in August 1935 bound for South West Africa, present-day Namibia.
Their research began a few months later in the Naukluft Mountains where they mapped the vast area and collected evidence of gravitational nappe transport that would later be internationally recognised. When their research grant ended, they made a living doing water-exploration work, using their knowledge as geologists to site water wells, an important skill in an arid land.
By September 1938. the world war was looming and the pair began to plan their escape into the small desert schist-canyons of the upper Kuiseb River rather than risk incarceration. After war was declared a year later, the South West African government began to intern Germans living in the country. As the war escalated, Henno and Hermann finally put their plan into action and on 25 May 1940 left civilisation. They slipped out with Hermann’s dog Otto, a bakkie, a Chevrolet passenger coupe, a pistol and rifle and some basic supplies, driving halfway to the Brandberg before turning into the hills and then onto an unused track into the Namib Desert as night fell.
During their two years in the Kuiseb they lived in three locations, hiding their vehicles, hunting game for the pot and always struggling to find enough water to survive. They listened to the news and classical music concerts on their short-wave radio, powered by a wind generator. They continued with their geological research, mapping the area, and ruminated on the meaning of life. Hermann painted desert landscapes in watercolours and played his violin. They were eventually forced to return to civilisation in September 1942 to seek medical help when Hermann became seriously ill with beriberi.
Hermann was hospitalised and Henno was arrested and spent two days in jail and two weeks in isolation in the hospital while his friend recovered. They were then charged with minor offences, required to pay a small fine and released. Towards the end of the war, rather than being interned as they feared, they were hired by the government for groundwater exploration.
The friends’ journey together would end a few years later when in 1946 Hermann died in a car accident. Henno went on to become the director of the Geological Survey in South West Africa in 1947, a position which he held until 1963 when he became the director of the Precambrian Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. Two years later he took up the prestigious post as a professor at the Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Georg-August-Universitat of Göttingen. He continued his research in Namibia working with international geoscientists and the Geological Survey in Windhoek.
Henno’s scientific achievements included his work with Hermann in the Naukluft, the discovery of the Messum crater, his contribution to the evidence on continental drift substantiating the theory that Africa and South America were once one landmass, and his publication ‘The Precambrian Geology of South-West Africa and Namaqualand’. During his lifetime he received numerous accolades and was made an honorary member of several societies including the Geological Society of South Africa, America and Namibia. On the 7th January 1998 he passed on at the age of 87. Before he died, the Geological Society of Namibia honoured him by creating the Henno Martin Medal, awarded annually for the best scientific publication by a geologist living in Namibia. Henno’s connection to nature and our responsibility to the Earth was encapsulated in his book ‘Menschheit auf dem Prüfstand’ (Mankind on the test bench), published in 1992.
The Gondwana Collection Namibia and the Geological Society of Namibia paid further tribute to him in 2022 by erecting the Henno Martin Rock at the entrance to Namib Desert Lodge. The rock is a slab of Sole Dolomite - a layer of yellow dolomite that underlies the Naukluft Mountains and which the two geologists highlighted in their early research. Their finds were documented in the scientific publication ‘Gravity tectonics in the Naukluft Mountains of South West Africa’.
We remember Henno Martin as both the young protagonist in the Kuiseb adventure who continues to capture our imagination eighty years later and for his valuable contribution to a deeper understanding of our home, the Earth.
(References: Memorial to Henno Martin 1910-1998, Klaus Weber, Geological Society of America (geosociety.org); The Story of Henno Martin and Hermann Korn (namibia-accommodation.com)
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