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In
the year of 1895 Peter was born. Julia died ten days after the birth,
as the result of an infection. Wilhelm plunged into a deep depression
and had to withdraw to a sanitarium for approximately one year.
On the advice of the attending physicians and with the consent of his sister, Maria, who had taken little Peter to her home in Dortmund, Wilhelm returned to Africa after his discharge and left the raising of the child to his sister. In Dar es Salaam Wilhelm worked once more as a big-game hunter and soon met Else Hertig, who was working as a nurse in the German hospital located in the capital of the former colony German East Africa. |
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From
this second marriage came Elke, the professor's only sister. The relationship
between Wilhelm and Else must have been quite passionate, for it is
stated in the family chronicles that the young Elke was sent, for the
time being, to her aunt and brother in Dortmund due to moral considerations.
In the year 1900, Else Ameisenhaufen-Hertig fell victim to a tragic accident: she was devoured by a lion which she had been absolutely determined to tame. Wilhelm again entered a serious state of crisis and had to undergo psychiatric treatment in Dar es Salaam. In 1910 Peter and Elke, now fifteen and twelve years old, respectively, visited their father for the last time. Elke recalls: When Peter and I visited father, he had been discharged from the hospital for two years. He had founded the Vereinigung zum Schutze zentralafrikanischer Thiere (Society for the Protection of Central African Animals), and his efforts were now directed entirely toward the preservation of wild animals that he would have shot heartlessly a few years earlier. |
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