August Stauch

Who was August Stauch?

August Stauch is considered the discoverer of the diamond deposits near the settlement of Lüderitz in the then colony of German South-West Africa, now Namibia.

August Stauch was the third of seven children of a railway worker's family in Ettenhausen. He was a railway employee in Thuringia, Germany. Stauch arrived in Lüderitz in 1907. He suffered from asthma and received medical advice that the drier desert climate may be suitable for his health. He took up mineralogy as a hobby in his spare time but later worked as a Bahnmeister on the Lüderitzbucht-Aus railway line.

August developed a fascination for diamonds, after listening to the tales about Adolf Lüderitz, who believed there lay diamonds in the desert and obtained a prospecting license from Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft fur Südwest Afrika. He consequently informed his workers, who had been brought in from South Africa because of their experience in railroad workings, to look out for unusually shiny stones. On 10th April 1908 Zacharias Lewala, one of his aides who had previously worked at a diamond mine in Kimberley, picked up a diamond near Grasplatz and dutifully took brought it to him.