Diamond Wars | The Puppet Master | 2

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s 1914 and De Beers’s monopoly is under threat. Diamonds have been discovered on the desolate coast of the German colony of South West Africa.

So it hired an ambitious diamond expert named Ernest Oppenheimer and gave him his orders: head to the beach and assess the threat.

But then World War One disrupts De Beers chance to do a deal with the German diamond miners. Now, Oppenheimer sees his chance to scramble to the very top of the diamond industry.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to Business Wars Add Free on Amazon Music.
0:04.6	Download the app today.
0:07.0	March, 1914, German Southwest Africa, present-day Namibia.
0:22.3	Ernest Oppenheimer stands on the beach and jots down observations in his notebook.
0:27.2	Behind him are the enormous lemon yellow sand dunes of the Namib desert.
0:31.8	Before him is the Atlantic Ocean.
0:34.6	Oppenheimer is a 34-year-old diamond expert with a starched color and a walrus moustache.
0:40.4	He's here on reconnaissance for the South African diamond monopoly de Beers.
0:45.6	This place terrifies de Beers.
0:48.4	It wants Oppenheimer to assess how big a threat this diamond-rich beach poses to its control
0:53.6	over the world's supply.
0:55.9	Through the mist, Oppenheimer sees black laborers on their hands and knees combing the hot sand
1:02.3	for diamonds as armed white guards watch.
1:06.3	Oppenheimer turns to the man showing him around the German diamond magnet August Stauck.
1:12.1	Mr. Stauck, why are the black workers gagged?
1:15.9	Stauck removes his boater hat and shakes off the sand.
1:18.9	It's so they don't steal by swallowing the diamonds they find.
1:23.5	Oppenheimer makes a note.
1:25.4	I see.
1:27.0	How big is this place?
1:28.7	The forbidden zone?
1:30.2	Yes.
	...

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