Gone with the Wind

Kolmanskop, the former German diamond mining settlement in South West Africa, now Namibia, is a ghost town and museum. During the final phase of the German Empire, the place was full of life, an outpost of the German way of life in Africa - Kaiser Wilhelm's dream of a German Kimberley. The meteoric rise began in 1908 when a railway worker found the first diamond in the desert sand. The small town in the Namib Desert became the richest town in Africa. In the bars, people paid in carats, the beer came packed in straw sleeves on ‘Woermann’ steamers from the German Reich, after work they did gymnastics and bowled in the hall, on Sundays they went antelope hunting and the pastor came by motorbike. Then came the decline... Kai Althoetmar went in search of traces in Kolmanskop. - Illustrated eBook with numerous photos.