Title: The sheltering Desert
Author: Henno Martin
Publisher: Two Books
Hamburg, Germany 2002
First published in English by W. Kimber, London 1957
ISBN 3935453035 / ISBN 3-935453-03-5
ISBN 9783935453035 / ISBN 978-3-935453-03-5
Softcover, 12 x 19 cm, 370 pages, 17 bw-photos, 1 site map
In 1935 Henno Martin left Germany together with his friend and colleague, Hermann Korn, to do geological research in South West Africa. At the outbreak of World War Two they fled imprisonment into the Namib desert, where they lived for two and a half years. The undescribable phsyical and mental hardship they had to bare, the challenge to survive in the vastness of the Namib desert, the constant threat of detection and their gradual adaptation to live a life as ancient bushmen, while being confronted on the radio with the horrible clash of civilsations in Europe is described in this book, The Sheltering Desert. Henno Martin, born in 1910 in Freiburg, Germany, wrote numerous scientific publications throughout his succesful academic career as a geologist. This is his his true story of escape and survival. Henno Martin later spent many years in Africa, where he worked as a scientist at the Geological Survey of South Africa and as professor at the University of Capetown. From 1958 until 1960 he was professor at the University of Sao Paulo. In 1965, he became professor at the Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the University of Göttingen, where he also became a member of the Academy of Sciences and died on 07.01.1998.