Richard
Kandt (vor 1894 Kantorowicz)

Magnus Hirschfeld, From Then Until Now, Rosa Winkel Publishing House, Berlin 1986, pages 156-160

Excerpt:

"In my final years of school, in addition to my many siblings, I also gained a kind of foster brother, Richard Kandt, who later became a famous explorer of Africa; he is the author of the magnificent travelogue 'Caput Nili'. He dedicated it to his mother and his 'brotherly' friend, Richard Voss. This poet, a Pomeranian like myself, writes in his diary on May 8, 1918, just a few weeks before he himself closed his somber eyes forever on June 10, 1918: 'Many of my friends died here in recent weeks; Richard Kandt, once my blood brother, also died.'" It was not only a lifelong friendship for me, but also a friendship martyrdom...

Richard Kandt is the discoverer of the Nile's source, the source of the Kagera or Rukarara Nile. His work, "Caput Nili," would have brought him worldwide renown in any nation other than Germany... In my once so bright friendship with Richard Kandt, darkness fell, without a glimmer of hope. My grief for my friend is one of those afflictions that age us. And tired, so tired!

Richard Kandt came from an old, wealthy merchant family in Posen. The lively young man, almost my same age, came to live with us because he was drawn to the academic yet free atmosphere of our comfortable, beautiful house, just a few minutes from the sea, the good reputation of the Kolberg school, and, not least, the fresh, pure sea air, which the doctors hoped would strengthen his respiratory system, prone to catarrh. During the years we lived together, I had no idea that the time would come when I could say to him, as I had to many other young friends, "You too, my son Brutus."

(...) "Together with Kandt, I prepared for the final examination, which we both passed on September 5, 1887." (...) "From Stettin onward, Kandt's path and mine diverged. He became a member of a student fraternity, was very keen on dueling, and seemed to have completely embraced his fraternity."

(...) "For the first ten years after our separation, I received only the sparsest news from Richard Kandt. It was only after I circulated our petition for the liberation of homosexuals following 'Sappho and Socrates' that I received a very long letter from him, in which he implored me not to sacrifice myself to a goal I could never possibly achieve. I should remember that whoever unveils the veiled image of Sais—the ancient Nile city—must pay for this sacrilege with his life. (...)

"Not long after receiving this warning letter came the day of 'You too, my son Brutus.' Kandt had fallen into the hands of a blackmailer who had already robbed him, the extremely sensitive man, of a considerable portion of his fortune. He kept giving, because he believed that anything that tarnished his honor, however undeserved, was a stain on the reputation of his association." With his nerves completely frayed, he approached us for help against his insatiable vampire, which we were fortunate enough to grant him. Outwardly liberated, he remained broken inside. The blackmailer's appeal to the law had, wherever possible, soured him on the state. He said: “If a human right is denied us, we must fight until we receive it, or go where it is not denied us. I choose the latter.”

So he decided to use the still considerable remainder of his fortune to discover the source of the Nile. (...) “In the first winter of the war, Kandt visited me for the last time. He had returned from East Africa in the spring of 1914, suffering greatly. (...) I found Kandt old and sad; he looked gloomily toward Germany’s future. ‘Should I survive the war,’ he told me as we parted, ‘then I will stand by your side and fight with you the only true enemy of humankind: intolerance born of ignorance and arrogance.’

He did not survive the war. On April 29, 1918, he died in a military hospital in Nuremberg, just over fifty years old (born December 17, 1867), from the effects of a gas attack, the victim of which he had faithfully "The physician's duty to perform was fulfilled." (...)