302-The Galápagos Affair

Futility Closet

Greg Ross

History

4.8 • 748 Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1929 a German couple fled civilization to live on an uninhabited island in the Eastern Pacific. But other settlers soon followed, leading to strife, suspicion, and possibly murder. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the Galápagos affair, a bizarre mystery that remains unsolved.

We'll also meet another deadly doctor and puzzle over a posthumous marriage.

Intro:

Damon Knight invented a way to compose stories without having to write them.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, why do we regard some tastes as bad?

Photo: Captain Allan G. Hancock, Dore Strauch, and Friedrich Ritter at Floreana. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7231, Waldo L. Schmitt Papers, Box 90, Folder 4, Image No. SIA2011-1149.

Sources for our feature on Floreana:

Dore Strauch, Satan Came to Eden: A Survivor's Account of the "Galápagos Affair," 1936.

Margret Wittmer, Floreana: A Woman's Pilgrimage to the Galápagos, 1989.

John E. Treherne, The Galápagos Affair, 2011.

Elizabeth Hennessy, On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galapagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden, 2019.

Alexander Mann, Yachting on the Pacific: Together With Notes on Travel in Peru, and an Account of the Peoples and Products of Ecuador, 1909.

K. Thalia Grant and Gregory B. Estes, "Alf Wollebæk and the Galápagos Archipelago's First Biological Station," Galápagos Research 68 (2016), 33-42.

Hans-Rudolf Bork and Andreas Mieth, "Catastrophe on an Enchanted Island: Floreana, Galapagos, Ecuador," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation 19:1 (2005), 5.

David Cameron Duffy, "Galapagos Literature -- Fact and Fantasy," Noticias de Galápagos 44 (1986), 18-20.

Gavin Haines, "Cannibalism, Nude Germans and a Murder Mystery: The Secret History of the Galapagos," Telegraph, Feb. 12, 2018.

Oliver Smith, "Cannibalism, Murder and Chronic Obesity: 10 Island Paradises With Dark and Deadly Secrets," Telegraph.co.uk, Aug. 9, 2017.

Allison Amend, "In the Footsteps of Charles Darwin," New York Times (Online), June 20, 2017.

Trevor Seymour, "Murder on Seduction Island," [Surry Hills, New South Wales] Daily Telegraph, June 25, 2002, 26.

Shiela Waddell, "At the Ends of the Earth," Glasgow Herald, Nov. 20, 1999, 12.

Mitchell Smyth, "Satan in Paradise -- Lust and Murder on a Desert Isle," Toronto Star, Oct. 22, 1994, L2.

Katherine Woods, "From Utopian Dream to Nightmare," New York Times, May 24, 1936.

"Woman Is Leaving Galapagos 'Eden,'" New York Times, Dec. 9, 1934.

"Desert Isles' 'Ruler' Escapes Eviction," New York Times, Jan. 23, 1934.

Stephanie Merry, "'The Galapagos Affair: When Satan Came to Eden' Movie Review," Washington Post, May 8, 2014.

Stephen Holden, "Seeking Eden, They Fled to Far Isle; Hell Followed," New York Times, April 3, 2014.

Andrea Crossan, "A New Film Unearths the True Story of a 1930s Murder Mystery in the Galapagos," The World, PRI, April 4, 2014.

Moira Macdonald, "'The Galapagos Affair': A Murder Mystery in Paradise," Seattle Times, April 17, 2014.

Alan Scherstuhl, "Murder in Paradise in The Galapagos Affair," Village Voice, April 2, 2014.

Ryan Gilbey, "Death in Paradise: Ryan Gilbey on The Galapagos Affair," New Statesman, July 28, 2014.

Listener mail:

"Cremation Medical Certificate," gov.uk, Jan. 2, 2009.

"Doctors’ Fees, Cremation Forms & Certificates," beyond.life (accessed June 22, 2020).

Trevor Jackson and Richard Smith, "Harold Shipman," BMJ 328:7433 (Jan. 24, 2004), 231.

"Harold Shipman (1946–2004)," Biography, April 27, 2017.

John Philip Jenkins, "Harold Shipman," Encyclopaedia Britannica (accessed June 22, 2020).

This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Alon Eitan.

You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss.

Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website.

Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode.

If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Futility Closet Podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history.
0:14.9	Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from writerless writing to a paradox of taste.
0:22.3	This is episode 302. I'm Greg Ross.
0:24.9	And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1929, a German couple fled civilization to live on an uninhabited
0:31.5	island in the East Pacific. But other settlers soon followed, leading to strife, suspicion,
0:36.9	and possibly murder.
0:38.5	In today's show, we'll tell the story of the Galapagos affair, a bizarre mystery that remains unsolved.
0:44.8	We'll also meet another deadly doctor and puzzle over a posthumous marriage.
1:00.9	Ever since she'd been a girl, Dora Strouk had felt called to some higher purpose, though she didn't know what it might be.
1:06.9	She was undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis when she discovered a similar feeling in her doctor, Friedrich Ritta.
1:12.0	He was 15 years her senior, but they felt they had some shared destiny. She wrote,
1:16.0	We had a feeling that we were intended for each other, and that there was some work we had to do together, as though we were a joint tool in the hand of a spirit using us to unknown ends. He wanted
1:22.3	to take up a life of contemplation to perfect himself spiritually, and he felt that couldn't be done
1:27.2	in a crowded civilization.
1:29.0	Together, they decided to move permanently to a remote spot where they could be alone,
1:33.2	break the bonds of conventional existence, and discover a new way to live.
1:38.2	Inspired by the writings of an American naturalist, they decided on Floriana, an island in the
1:43.2	Galapagos group off the coast of Ecuador.
1:45.7	In 1909, the Scottish traveler Alexander Mann had written that it would be an ideal
1:50.5	Robinson Crusoe retreat for people tired of the artificiality of modern civilization.
1:55.9	So in 1929, they set out to live as a modern Adam and Eve on an island of 67 square miles in the East Pacific.
2:03.2	They were gigantically idealistic. They planned to live without fire, and they brought no guns
	...

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