Adolf Lüderitz

After graduating from school, Lüderitz attended the Handelsschule (Merchant's Gymnasium) in Bremen and then worked as an intern in his father's business.

In May 1883, Lüderitz bought the anchorage at Angra Pequena and the land eight kilometres (five miles) around it from Captain Josef Frederiks II of Bethanie for £100 in gold and 200 rifles.

[3] Three months later, on 25 August, Frederiks sold Lüderitz a stretch of land 140 kilometres (87 mi) wide, between the Orange River and Angra Pequena, for £500 and 60 rifles.

Both Lüderitz and the signing witness, Rhenish missionary Johannes Bam, knew that Chief Frederiks had no understanding of geographical miles.

When Frederiks finally became aware that the land he had sold comprised almost his entire tribal area, he complained to the German Imperial Government, but Consul-General Gustav Nachtigal died (1885) on his return voyage to Europe, and the complaint was never delivered.

[7] Imperial Germany's Foreign Office at first hesitated to grant official protection to Lüderitz's acquisitions, fearing immense costs and the military vulnerability of an empire spread across several continents.

When economic considerations became more favourable, and in preparation for the 1884 German federal election, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck changed his mind and from then on repeatedly asked London about Britain's intentions in South West Africa, where London already owned Walvis Bay and several islands in the Atlantic Ocean, including some in the immediate vicinity of Angra Pequena.

He bought land from other chiefs until he owned the entire coastal strip from South Africa to Angola, an area totalling 580,000 square kilometres (220,000 sq mi), and he sent mining engineers to search for exploitable mineral deposits.

They transported two small boats via Aus and Bethanie to Nabasdrift, close to the conjunction of the Fish and Orange Rivers, and continued downstream towards the Atlantic Ocean.

[13] In Germany, several streets are named after Adolf Lüderitz, although repeated calls to rename them have been made, for instance in Bremen,[14] Cologne, Munich,[6] and Berlin.