The Galapagos affair occurred some decades ago when big hotels and Galapagos Cruises did not exist. When the Islands were still sparsely inhabited territory, an episode full of mystery and dubious deaths happened on the Enchanted Islands.

The German couple

Floreana Island postoffice

The Galapagos Islands a destination full of mystery that enchants and beautifies anyone. For this reason, thousands of people travel long hours to reach this paradise. In 1929 the German doctor Friedrich Ritter decided to flee to Galapagos with his lover Dore Strauch, the two settled in Floreana. An island with magical charms but without all the services that Europe offered them. Therefore, the doctor and his lover had several difficulties to build their house and get food (vegetarian). All these acts made him a strong and well-seen man on the Island.

Wittmer family

Time later the Wittmer family arrived in Floreana. A German couple, (Heinz and Margret Wittmer, and their son). The new inhabitants did not have a good relationship with the couple Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch, but they tolerated and helped each other in times of need.

“The Baroness”

The Baroness

However, peace did not last long on the Islands because soon after, a young Austrian woman named Eloise Wehrborn arrived along with her two German lovers Rudolf Lorenz and Robert Philippson, this young woman proclaimed herself “The Baroness” and planned to build a big hotel on Floreana Island.

She was a very attractive woman who flirted with the sailors using scarce garments to lure them to the Island. In the port, she told them stories that demean the other inhabitants of Floreana. This created conflicts between the Wittmer family and the German lover couple. Small conflicts between the settlers escalated until life on the island was intolerable.

First mystery 

On March 27, 1934, “the Baroness” and one of her lovers, Philippson, disappeared. According to Margret Wittmer, they had boarded a yacht that was heading to Tahiti. However, the story was extremely dubious: there was no record of such a yacht entering Galapagos at the time, and they never appeared in Tahiti (or anywhere else).

First death 

floreana island cormorant

Rudolf Lorenz (the Baroness’s second lover) hurriedly tried to return to Germany. He hired a Norwegian fisherman named Nuggerud to take him to San Cristóbal Island, where he could take a ferry to the mainland. Both disappeared until their mummified bodies were discovered months later on the arid island of Marchena.

Second death

Months after the strange disappearances, Dr. Ritter died, apparently from food poisoning. According to the Wittmers family, the doctor had confessed before his death that his wife Dore Strauch had poisoned him: Strauch always denied it. He left the Galapagos soon after and returned to Germany, where he wrote a book about his experiences.

The mystery of the Galapagos affair has never been solved. Margret Wittmer died in 2000. She stuck to her story about the boat for Tahiti her whole life (although she loved dropping hints that she knew more than she was letting on). However, the body of “La Baronesa” and her lover was never found. 

Galapagos affair

Doubts 

What happened to them? 

Why did her other lover also end inopportunely?

Original lovers of Floreana, why did her story have an equally tragic ending?

And then there are the Wittmers, who remained on the island, surviving the construction of “the hotel “and all the accusations of the strange deaths.

Was it a murder, bad luck, or both? 

Some blame it to the Galapagos tortoises, people think the tortoises can see the true intentions of those who arrive on the Islands. Whatever the truth may be, until today it is a completely unknown mystery.