Baron in Africa: The Remarkable Adventures of Werner Von Alvensleben

by Brian Marsh

Overview

Werner von Alvensleben comes from a long line of German aristocrats. Yet far from enjoying a privileged and pampered existence, his life plays like a Hollywood adventure movie. Imprisoned in Zimbabwe during World War II, von Alvensleben escaped by digging underneath an electric fence in the rain and making his way by foot to Mozambique.

After founding the famous Safarilandia hunting company, he guided a list of hunting luminaries that included Jack O'Connor and Robert Ruark (who found out he could not bribe Werner!). Follow his career as he attacks a man-eating lion, kills a full-grown buffalo with a spear, and hunts for elephant and ivory in some of the densest brush in Africa. Adventure and experience were what counted to the man they call "Baron," not money or fame; indeed, in the end he left Mozambique with barely more than the clothes on his back.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571574237
Publisher:	Safari Press, Inc.
Publication date:	09/09/1997
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Brian Ewart Marsh was born in South Africa in 1928, and he moved to Rhodesia as a child and took Rhodesian citizenship. He began his professional hunting career in the 1950s, influenced by the books of John "Pondoro" Taylor. When Marsh went to Nyasaland in 1957 to hunt crocodiles, he decided to find the legendary Taylor and introduce himself.. Taylor responded warmly to the young man, even advising Marsh to take up big-game hunting in Mozambique. Marsh's later writing career was to be greatly influenced by Taylor's life and writings. Brian Marsh didn't take Taylor's advice about Mozambique; instead, he joined the ranks of Africa's pioneer game ranchers when granted game management rights of the half-million-acre Nuanetsi Ranch in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the early 1960s. By expanding to include other game areas, Marsh soon held game management rights to over a million acres. When sport hunting for profit was first sanctioned in Rhodesia in 1967, Brian Marsh's company ran the first hunting safari in the country, and he held Rhodesia's prime safari concessions until forced to abandon them due to pressures from the Rhodesian bush war. He then moved to Botswana to hunt for Safari South, and two hunting greats, Harry Selby and the late Tom Henley, both previously of Ker, Downey & Selby of East Africa, became personal friends. Brian Marsh is now semi-retired and devotes his time almost exclusively to writing. He is a regular contributor (over 150 articles) to Magnum magazine in South Africa, as well as Game Coin magazine, SCI magazine, and other U.S. outdoor publications. His first novel, The Last Trophy, was published by St. Martins Press in 1982, and it was his research that resulted in Peter Hathaway Capstick's last splendid book, A Man Called Lion (Safari Press, 1994). His latest work, Baron in Africa (Safari Press, 1997), tells the fabulous adventures of Werner von Alvensleben. Marsh lives with his wife and companion of forty years, Jillie, in Harare, Zimbabwe.