Richard Kandt (17 December 1867, in Posen – 29 April 1918, in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

; original name Kantorowicz) was a German physician and

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

of Africa.

Life

Richard Kandt started as a

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...

and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

. Between 1897 and 1904 he explored the North-West of

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...

and in 1907 was appointed as Resident of Rwanda, where he established

Kigali Kigali () is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali has been Rwa ...

as an administrative capital of

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

. His former house in Kigali is now a natural history museum. In July 1897 he started from

Bagamoyo Bagamoyo, is a historic coastal town founded at the end of the 18th century, though it is an extension of a much older (8th century) Swahili settlement, Kaole. It was chosen as the capital of German East Africa by the German colonial administra ...

and in July 1898 Richard Kandt discovered one of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...

-sources in the

Nyungwe Forest The Nyungwe Forest () is located in southwestern Rwanda, on the border with Burundi, where it is contiguous with the Kibira National Park to the south, and Lake Kivu and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. The Nyungwe rainforest ...

of Rwanda, the essential Nile-source in his opinion. Kandt tells about this in his book ''Caput Nili'', a deliberately more fancy than erudite work. In 1898, he discovered the source of the

Kagera River The Kagera River, also known as Akagera River, or Alexandra Nile, is an East African river, forming part of the upper headwaters of the Nile and carrying water from its most distant source.Stanley, H.M., 1899, Through the Dark Continent, London: G ...

. Between 1899 and 1901 he explored the

Lake Kivu Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes. It lies on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and is in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Lake Kivu empties into the Ruzizi River, which ...

. Since about 1900 he was a close friend with the writer

Richard Voss Richard Voss (2 September 1851 – 10 June 1918) was a German dramatist and novelist. In standard German orthography, his name is printed as Voß. Biography Voss was born at Neu-Grape near Pyritz, in Pomerania, the son of a country squire. Th ...

. On 2 July 1917 Kandt suffered a gas poisoning in World War I on the eastern front. Shortly after, he caught a

miliary tuberculosis To disseminate (from lat. ''disseminare'' "scattering seeds"), in the field of communication, is to broadcast a message to the public without direct feedback from the audience. Meaning Dissemination takes on the theory of the traditional vie ...

in Poland. He died 29 April 1918 in a military hospital in Nuremberg.Deutsches Kolonialblatt, Nr. 9/10, Berlin, 15. Mai 1918

Works

* ''Caput Nili – eine empfindsame Reise zu den Quellen des Nils''. Dietrich Reimer Verlag Berlin, 1904, 6.ergänzte Auflage 1921 * ''Seele klingt''. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1918. Poems, edited posthumously by Franz Stuhlmann.

External links

* Kandt, Richard
''Caput Nili; eine empfindsame Reise zu den Quellen des Nils. Berlin, 1904''
* Kandt, Richard
''Caput Nili; eine empfindsame Reise zu den Quellen des Nils. Band I. Berlin, 1914''
* Kandt, Richard
''Caput Nili; eine empfindsame Reise zu den Quellen des Nils. Band II. Berlin, 1914''
*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kandt, Richard 1867 births 1918 deaths Physicians from Poznań People from the Province of Posen Explorers of Africa German explorers Colonial people of German East Africa Kigali German psychiatrists German male writers German military personnel killed in World War I 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Germany