Kategorie: News
A somewhat different obituary by Gerhard Wegner
Erich's death surprised me and affected me personally. When Herbert Gfrörer from Taucher.Net asked me if I would write an obituary, I first asked for time to think about it. The diving scene in particular knows that Erich and I were terribly at odds and any statement I made about his death would certainly be viewed very critically.
In the rather sleepless night that followed, I had so many good memories of our time together that I accepted the next day. I would like to tell you a story about this:
It began on Walker`s Cay. The evening before Erich's shark accident we sat at the bar and discussed. About shark protection and shark accidents. I presented him my philosophies of a shark protection organization that was revolutionary for those times and he listened patiently.
"The basic problem of shark protection is the image of sharks. We have to turn the monsters in our heads into normal animals before we can protect them," I argued.
He looked at me thoughtfully and replied: "Would it help if we could prove that sharks talk? Because that's what I'm working on right now."
We understood each other right away!
What would have happened if Erich hadn't been bitten by a bull shark the next day? I'm sure a thousand everyday problems at home would have given the idea a miss and SHARKPROJECT would never have been born.
But it all started with the accident. I stood next to it when Erich was bitten and witnessed all the bloody details. In the evening I sat with the other guests around the campfire. Deeply hurt, we waited for news whether Erich had survived the bite. Suddenly the phone rang at the bar. The bartender took the call and looked around searching. Since he knew that I was from Germany, he passed the phone to me. "An urgent call from Germany," he said in explanation.
At the other end was the employee of a well-known German tabloid newspaper who was desperate to talk to a survivor of the "Shark Massacre". I was shocked. Of all things, the accident of the man who was doing all he could to protect the sharks was well on its way to further destroy the image of the animals.
That evening I wrote my idea. Back in Germany, together with like-minded people, I founded the shark protection organization SHARKPROJECT, which initially had only one task: to decriminalize sharks.
When Erich was allowed to use the phone again, I was the first to speak with him. We stayed in close contact and after his recovery we became the "dream team of shark protection", as the diving media called it. Sold-out lectures, press appearances, two groundbreaking books together, two joint documentaries, unique experiences with sharks and humans and countless nights of discussions made us best friends.
Then we were struck by lightning - or rather, the dispute between two alpha animals fighting for the future path of the future flared up. From today's point of view not understandable, not understandable at all.
And the worst thing: in all these years, the two of us did not manage to reconcile.
I regret this from the bottom of my heart.
RIP Erich.