Egypt: Gotterdammerung in the Desert

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EGYPT

Ever since Heinrich Schliemann un covered the ruins of Agamemnon's court in Greece, Germans have been among the most relentless of antiquarians. It seemed only natural, therefore, for some adventurous German technicians working at Gamal Abdel Nasser's jet airplane factory outside Cairo to decide to drive 300 miles across the Libyan Desert to the remote Siwa Oasis, site of Roman temple ruins and the classical oracle of Jupiter Ammon, consulted by Alexander the Great. It was to be a week-long vacation. The group included Gunther Wanderscheck, Reinhold Rimm, and Hans Hauser, together with Cairo Salesman Klaus Böhm, and his wife Gudrun. They took two Volkswagens, a sedan and a Micro Bus, and Gudrun, who took along her camera, snapped the others clowning about before they all left.

They drove 65 miles along the coast to Alamein, where Montgomery trounced Rommel's Afrika Korps in World War II, then turned south to the Qattara Depression. Egyptian desert patrols warned them that the route was unsafe because of old land mines still planted there, but since they had a four-day supply of food and water, they decided to cut across the unmarked desert. The going was a lot slower than they expected, and the Volks began to falter. Suddenly they realized that what had begun as a search for ancient gods might turn into a grim Götterdämmerung. Noted Gunther Wanderscheck, 33, on a scrap of paper dated three days after they left Cairo: "Our condition is very bad. We have only eight liters [about two gallons] of water and five cans of mango juice." Then the little VW stalled, and eight miles farther on the Micro Bus bogged down in the sand.

Foolishly, or perhaps delirious in the 140°F. heat, they changed into the bathing suits they had hoped to use to paddle in the salt pools at Siwa, thus exposing their skins to the merciless sun and permitting precious moisture to be quickly evaporated from their bodies. Gudrun snapped the group again, as they drained their few remaining drops of water from plastic containers. Then they split up, Rimm and Hauser staying by the bus, Wanderscheck and the Bohms setting out for help. They staggered 35 miles before dying of thirst and exposure.

Egyptian patrols found their bodies a day or so later. Not far away were Rimm and Hauser, also dead. "The sun is horrible," Gunther had noted on another scrap of paper, while Gudrun's last snapshots showed her husband and Wanderscheck sprawled in the sand, waiting for death.