Death of an emigrant
Why were the German mammoth researcher Bernard von Bredow and his daughter murdered in Paraguay? A search for clues at the scene of the crime – and in the eventful biography of the victim.
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Bernard von Bredow became famous for finding parts of a mammoth skeleton at the age of 16. He converted his parents’ house in Chiemgau into a private museum, called the Mammutheum. The photo is from 2008, the museum has been closed since the beginning of the corona pandemic.
Photo: Oliver Lang / ddp
There is an old legend in Paraguay. It goes back to the time of a terrible war. Back then, 150 years ago, troops marched into the country in the heart of South America. The population fled, but the wealthy first buried their most valuable possessions in the ground. Many never came back, they were murdered or carried away by epidemics. And so there are supposed to be treasures all over the red earth of Paraguay that are just waiting to be discovered.
It is quite possible that the German emigrant Bernard von Bredow knew the legend of the plata yvyguy, the buried riches. And even if not, it is very likely that he would have liked it, after all, Bredow himself was a treasure hunter, an excavator, a seeker throughout his life. But now Bernard von Bredow is only one thing: dead. Brutally murdered, as is his daughter. She was not yet 16 years old.
