Paradise Poisoned: How Utopias Fall Apart

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Pushkin.

In October 1932, a newspaper article landed on doorsteps across the United States.

Modern Crusoe and his wife seek happiness on Lonely Isle.

The piece told of how a doctor and his wife had traded life in Germany for a rocky outcrop 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador.

The pair wanted to be self-sufficient, to live directly off the land, close to nature and without the luxury of modern conveniences.

Here, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they spent their days in philosophical contemplation.

That is, when they weren't tending to their foodstock or repairing their weather-beaten shack.

When the Ritters first went to the island, they carried with them 800 pounds of baggage.

The freighter captain set them ashore with many misgivings.

The modern Crusoe and his wife were married, but not to each other.

Each had left a spouse behind in Germany.

Dora Strauch and Friedrich Ritter were starting afresh, free of the fetters of civilization.

According to the article, the lovers planned to remain on their island until death relieved them of their adventure.

I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Cautionary Tales.

Spring 1927.

From her hospital bed in Berlin, Dora Strouch watched the doctor move from patient to patient.

There was something intriguing about him.

He was small and extraordinarily lithe, and she was struck by his steely blue gaze.

His forehead was ridged with furrows.

This man was a deep thinker.

Dora recognised a kindred spirit.

She was a deep thinker, too, and she had long felt herself to be set apart, different.

As a child, she'd preferred the company of animals to people.

That sense of her own singularity only deepened over time.

A kind of conviction grew in me that there was some task which I was born to fulfill, although I had no notion what it could be.

In search of that essential task, Dora had trained as a teacher, but she was disappointed.

This was not her vocation.

And so she turned next to philosophy.

Reading Schopenhauer convinced Dora that the destruction of life for human nourishment was wrong.

So, for a year and a half, she subsisted on a diet of figs alone.

Her body grew weaker, but it was really her soul, she said, that was starving.

She began to crave another project to feed it.

By 23, she believed she'd found one.

She accepted the marriage proposal of a family friend.

He was a schoolmaster, quiet, serious, many years her senior.

I thought it would be a work worth doing to thaw him out with sunshine.

Dora was positive that, with her own bright disposition, she would lure her husband to a life of youthful cheerfulness.

That confidence was misplaced.

Once they were married, the schoolmaster's sedate solemnity devolved into miserly gloom.

Dora was miserable, and she was also increasingly unwell.

Walking became painful and difficult.

She wondered if her body was rebelling against her bleak home life.

I broke down completely.

The next 17 months I spent in a hospital where the doctors diagnosed me with multiple sclerosis.

She also underwent, or perhaps was subjected to, a hysterectomy.

I do not know whether this really had to be or not,

but I do know that when I learned that I could never become a mother,

something inside me broke and gave up hope.

Dora was 26 and grief-stricken.

She could never carry a child.

Her marriage was a failure beyond repair, and she was facing life with a painful, incurable illness.

It was then, at her lowest ebb, that she crossed paths with Dr.

Friedrich Ritter.

Truth be told, Something about him unnerved Dora at first.

His face was strangely absent of any trace of amiability.

But she quickly pushed this thought aside.

The doctor started visiting Dora every day, speaking of his faith in the power of thought.

After examining her, he told her,

You are not ill, but you desire to be ill.

Dora was impressed.

And exhilarated.

Could a cure really be a simple question of mind over matter?

Other patients had already benefited from the doctor's unique outlook on disease.

And those that resisted the will to mend?

He left them to their own devices.

Dr.

Ritter didn't like sick people, and he certainly wasn't going to nurse dead weight.

As time went on, the pair developed a friendship.

They bonded over their fervent admiration of Nietzsche.

In particular, his concept of the Übermensch or Superman, who transcends society's conventions in favor of self-reliance.

They liked the idea of thriving through discipline and determination, no matter the challenges in their way.

In fact, Dr.

Ritter shunned much of what society had to offer.

He rejected the evil inventions of modern costume.

In particular, the mass-produced civilized shoe.

He chose to wear homemade leather slippers instead.

He was convinced that a carnivorous diet was the enemy of the nervous system, and he was therefore a strict vegetarian.

Dora was still in pain and limped when she walked, the will to mend proving elusive.

But she was nevertheless full of admiration for the doctor.

While some have thought him an eccentric, I know that he was one of the world's geniuses.

Friedrich, in turn, recognized Dora's potential as an acolyte.

Soon, they were in love.

Our happiest hours together were spent in unforgettable and endless talks, during which I sat at the feet of this man who looked on me as his disciple.

Like Dora, Friedrich was unhappily married, and the pair dreamt of running away together, of fleeing civilization for solitude and radical independence.

Germany seemed to have little to offer them.

Not only did social mores dictate that they remain with their spouses, but the early 1920s had seen astronomical inflation.

As the German mark became all but worthless, many people had found their life savings wiped out.

Now the forces of nationalism and fascism were on the rise.

The paramilitary wing of the growing Nazi party, the thuggish Sturmup Teilung, had begun to attack its enemies on the open streets.

Germany seemed poised to descend into darkness.

Dora and Friedrich spent many secretive hours together poring over maps in the State Library of Berlin in search of an island paradise.

They agreed it should be tropical.

In not having to spend our energy in the rough struggle against inclement weather, we should have the more left for that higher struggle in which we were engaged.

Eventually, they settled on the small Galapagos island of Floriana.

They'd read about its diverse flora and fauna and its freshwater spring in the work of naturalist William Beebe,

and they liked the fact that he had described the archipelago as the world's end.

We had chosen a place where no one was, for we had learned that it is the contact with unlike natures that destroys the inner harmony of lives.

They began to prepare for island life, choosing only the most necessary of their possessions.

Bedding, cooking utensils, carpenter's tools, Nietzsche's Zarathustra, some Greek and Latin textbooks.

Dora packed a few simple dresses of artificial silk, believing the fabric would keep her cool in the intense tropical heat.

Anticipating dental problems and committed to a life without the extravagance of healthcare services, Friedrich had all of his teeth pulled out.

He was fitted with a set of steel dentures, part pragmatism and part experiment.

He had a scientific desire to find out whether gums might be so far toughened as to become a substitute for teeth in chewing.

There was one final problem for the couple to solve before they left Germany.

Their jilted spouses would no doubt suffer grievously in their absence.

It was Dora who came up with the solution.

Their partners could simply set up house together.

Somehow, perhaps fearing scandal, Dora's husband and Friedrich's wife agreed to move in together.

And in July 1929, Dora and Friedrich set sail for Ecuador.

In her book, Eden Undone, Abbott Kayla describes how their ship cruised through the Bay of Biscay and passed the dramatic cliffs of the Azores.

Eventually, they crossed the Panama Canal and landed on the mangrove-fringed coast of Ecuador.

Here, they boarded a boat for Floriana.

From the deck of their schooner, Dora and Friedrich watched the island they'd read about draw closer.

Its rugged volcanic mounds rising from the ocean.

We landed.

Our hopes as cloudless as the sky against which the great extinct volcano darkly rose.

Night was already falling, and Dora observed how the red rays of the sun gilded the ocean, where black shark fins cut through the surface of the water.

A cacophony of unseen birds and insects mingled with the roar of the surf.

Friedrich and I, forgetful of all matters, took each other by the hand and started to go inland.

The two children of our German fairy tale, setting forth to find the treasure at the rainbow's end.

A German fairy tale?

Perhaps so.

What awaited them was a story worthy of the brothers' grim.

Cautionary tales will return.

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And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

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Learn more at supermobile.com.

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Cautionary Tales is proudly sponsored by Amika Insurance.

As Amika says, Empathy is our best policy.

From listening to your insurance needs to following up after a claim, Amica provides coverage with care and compassion.

Because as a mutual insurer, Amika is built for its customers and prioritizes you.

Isn't that the way insurance should be?

At Amika, your peace of mind matters.

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In 2016, the British television network, Channel 4, launched a reality television experiment.

23 men and women were dispatched to the remote reaches of the Scottish Highlands.

They were to remain there for a year, cut off from the rest of society, building their own shelter, growing their own vegetables and raising their own livestock.

The TV show, which was called Eden, contemplated a simpler time, a world untainted by civilization.

It asked, what if we could start again?

How would we create society from scratch?

Many of the participants felt disillusioned with 21st century life.

Among their number was a doctor, a vet, vet, a chef, a carpenter, a shepherdess.

You get the idea.

But after just a few installments, the show went dark.

There were no more dispatches for a year.

Then it returned with a new name.

Eden.

Paradise Lost.

Channel 4's commissioning editor, Ian Dunkley, explained how the experiment had taken on a life of its own.

I don't think anyone expected it to go as feral and dark as it did.

Faced with the physical hardship of the experiment, the group had quickly fractured into cliques.

The women described being bullied by their peers for their perceived physical weakness.

They were advised to stick to trivial tasks like washing, cleaning and gardening, while the men chopped wood and handled the hunting and fishing.

Bickering about rations spiraled.

Raff, a carpenter from London, described how hunger had eroded any shred of group solidarity.

I went in wanting to help everyone and share my skills, but that turned into, if I do this for you, I can get that.

Like many of the women, Ali, a doctor, left the experiment early.

She said,

I saw the darkness coming.

Dora and Friedrich gradually explored their island.

Pirates and pioneers had come and gone over the years, leaving their stamp on Floriana, some barrels at the main bay, a dilapidated hut, an improvised bed in a cave, but at present it was uninhabited.

They built a small settlement on a lush acre of land near the freshwater spring.

Friedrich gave their new home a name.

This is our place, Thor,

and we shall call it Friedo.

It was a portmanteau of their own names, but it also echoed the German word for peace, Friedman.

All my heart went out in happiness to our Eden found and to this man whose dream was my dream.

Friedrich salvaged an old pipe and managed to connect the kitchen of their shack with running water.

Dora rescued some half-starved chickens and kept them as her pets.

Later, she took an old donkey in, calling him Burrow.

Friedrich disapproved.

Your affection for these wild creatures is no more or less than a flattering and cherishing of the animal in yourself.

Friedrich remained on a pedestal for Dora,

but she also began to feel a little uneasy in their relationship.

As they worked together on their new home, Friedrich seemed to disregard her limited mobility.

Everything Dora did was to his eternal dissatisfaction.

They survived mostly on eggs, fruit, and vegetables.

Friedrich, who said he would not touch any food obtained through violence, refused potato and beetroot on account of the brutal force required to wrench them from the earth.

Bananas and other fruit were in plentiful supply on the island, but the couple struggled to get their crops to flourish.

That is the odd thing about the Floriana soil.

It can be made to bear rich life, but is so shallow that nothing can take firm root in it.

Perhaps there was in that an omen for us, but neither of us knew it then.

In fact, at times the island seemed rather hostile to them.

Cockroaches devoured Dora's artificial silk dresses, and ants attacked their scant food stores.

Friedrich railed against this disrespect of private property.

The socialism of the ants is nothing more than a systematic common robbery of all other life.

Vampiric sand fleas burrowed into the soles of Dora's feet, which erupted into painful, festering sores.

Friedrich removed 32 of them.

The operation was excruciating.

Dora and Friedrich had gone to pains to flee civilization.

They had not reckoned on civilization following them.

But when passing ships dropped off food parcels and seeds for things like coffee and cabbages, they weren't displeased.

One wealthy American captain was a regular visitor.

A courier was also specially dispatched by the Ecuadorian Post Office to deliver their mail.

One day, a few months into their adventure, they were astonished to receive a parcel containing 46 letters and a newspaper.

These missives were from total strangers, complimenting the couple's courage and ingenuity.

What was going on?

Hands trembling, Dora opened up the newspaper.

She'd been fearful to read of more political turmoil back home, but what she found on those pages was much more disturbing.

A headline told of Dora and Friedrich's flight from human society.

It covered the breakup of their marriages in lurid detail.

I felt as though the things that Friedrich and I held most sacred were being dragged mercilessly through the mire.

I was inconsolable.

More letters followed.

Friedrich and Dora tried to ignore them, but more often than not, a horrible fascination compelled them to open up the envelopes.

Dora was filled with the cold horror that some of these tactless intruders might come and find them.

She was right.

Wealthy pleasure seekers, intrigued by the German couple they'd read about in the newspapers, liked to pass by Floriana on their yachting trips.

Most were just passing through.

Then, the Wittmers arrived.

Heinz and Margaret had also wanted to leave behind modern city life in Germany and had been drawn to the Galapagos Islands by the newspaper stories.

They'd brought with them their 13-year-old son, Harry.

This seemed to Dora to be immensely irresponsible.

Worse still, Margaret was five months pregnant.

Having read about Friedrich's medical training, the Wittmers were apparently expecting him to assist in the delivery.

Friedrich was anything but pleased.

But by and large, the new neighbours rubbed along without too much difficulty.

Journalists continued to pitch up on Floriana, casting Dora and Friedrich as modern crusos

and Adam and Eve.

The newspapermen noted that for Eve in particular, paradise seemed a little disappointing.

They commented on the couple's rustic abode.

I saw cracks and chinks in the walls through which I could stick my arm.

And on Friedrich's glittering teeth.

Instead of toothpaste and a brush, he shined them up once in a while with a wad of steel wool.

Abbott Kaler notes a central irony in her book, Eden Undone.

Friedrich and Dora had fled civilization, only to become obsessed with how civilization perceived them.

One journalist, Rolf Blomberg, thought that Friedrich rather liked having his picture taken, although he claimed he had no desire to make a sensation.

In 1932, another tactless intruder arrived, the Baroness Antonia Wagner von Verborn-Bosca.

Dora watched through narrowed eyes as she rode up to Frido on a donkey.

She was platinum blonde.

Her eyes were hidden behind dark spectacles.

She wore a kind of workman's overalls with sandals on her bare feet, and a beret sat jauntily upon her head.

It was all obviously composed for effect, but not without a certain artificial charm.

The Baroness carried a whip and a revolver, and flanking her on foot was her adoring retinue, Robert Philipson, her lover, and Rudolphe Lorenz, who seemed to be a kind of unpaid servant, who was more than happy to fawn on her.

her.

The Baroness hailed from Austria via Paris, or so she said.

Dora doubted her story.

If this were a mere baroness, she certainly behaved as though she were at least a queen.

Dora was convinced that she meant to fight them for conquest of the island, to subjugate them to her rule.

The Imperious Baroness did indeed have something up her sleeve.

We'll find out what after this short break.

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With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients.

And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

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Learn more at supermobile.com.

Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky.

Best network based on analysis by OOCLA of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025.

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Before long, the Baroness had announced her plans.

She was going to build a luxury hotel on Floriana.

Dora and Friedrich were disgusted.

The hacienda paradiso would no doubt draw a deluge of American millionaires, turning their island into a sort of Miami.

This wasn't the utopia they'd had in mind at all.

Elsewhere, cracks became craters.

On one occasion, The Baroness took some bags of rice that the Wittmers had ordered and held them for ransom.

On another, Dora was convinced that the Baroness had stolen her donkey.

When the elderly Burrow was finally returned home, he seemed dejected.

Dora thought his skin had been rubbed raw by ropes and heavy weights.

Overall, life was getting grimmer.

One by one, Dora's teeth began to rot.

Friedrich seized the opportunity to criticise her love of sugar and performed agonising extractions on her without dental equipment or painkillers.

After that, they shared the notorious steel dentures whenever they were in company.

Only the person wearing the teeth would speak.

Friedrich monopolised them for long stints.

and Dora grew ever more silent.

The Baroness steamed ahead with her plans for a luxury hotel.

She gathered flamingos for a Floriana zoo, and she ordered a hundred sheets of corrugated iron to serve as the hotel walls.

Soon a penciled sign appeared at the island's main bay.

Friends, two hours from here lies the Hacienda Paradiso, where the weary traveler can rejoice.

In Paradiso you have only one name, friend.

Yet for all these promises of friendship, it was clear that there was trouble at the Paradiso.

The Baroness's servant, Rudolf Lorentz, became increasingly frail and unhappy.

His whole manner expressed a terrible resignation.

Lorentz confided to Dora and Friedrich that the Baroness was violent towards him and was holding him prisoner.

Heinz Wittmer agreed that the Baroness was a menace.

Dora recorded his raving fury.

We let her get away with everything.

What I want is for us to all get together now and put an end to this rottenness.

We are our own law here on Floriana.

And then.

Quite suddenly,

the Baroness disappeared.

The Vitmers believed that she and Robert Phillipson had sailed to Tahiti.

Perhaps they had.

Strangely, though, they'd left all of their belongings behind, including the Baroness's most prized possession, her copy of A Portrait of Dorian Gray.

Good riddance to foul rubbish, said Lorenz.

Then he calmed.

He asked Dora if she'd like to buy any of the Baroness's effects from him.

He too was about to leave the island, and he needed the money.

That year, 1934, a punishing drought blasted Floriana.

A strange wind rose, like a vast fan of invisible fire.

Everything perished under its sweeping breath.

The earth burned as though a furnace blazed beneath the rocky ground, even at night.

The leaves withered on the trees, and the fresh water spring at Friedo dried to a weak trickle.

Gathering evil was closing in upon the island.

Friedrich brooded over his philosophical writings.

Dora tended to the animals and the garden alone.

Their relationship broke down even further.

Friedrich started whipping Dora and she felt her passion for him turn to hate.

In the Channel 4 television series, Eden, Paradise Lost, things go from bad to worse.

Bullies deride experts and moonshine fuels fistfights.

The group hasn't caught as many fish as hoped, and boatman Anton is suspected of sabotage.

Soon, he becomes the focal point of everyone's ire.

He goes off to live in a log cabin he's built for himself in the woods.

Later, Anton is voted out of the community.

Before he leaves, he burns his carefully constructed cabin to the ground.

If he can't have it, no one else will either.

Next, members of an all-male clique calling itself the Valley Boys make fun of cameraman Matt because he dates men, not women.

Their language is obscene, but confronted, they dismiss it all as mere banter.

The Valley Boys embark on an all-meat diet and start slaughtering the communal livestock at an alarming rate.

Veterinarian Rob is horrified.

Just before he leaves Eden, he sees decomposing animal heads hanging from trees around the valley boys' camp.

The valley stinks of rotting meat, he says.

It's a muddy, dark, stinking hellhole.

The idea that civilization has corrupted us can be a tempting one.

It's easy to imagine that without the demands and complications of modern society, life would be blissful.

That if we could just shake off the rules, a more authentic existence awaits us.

But the story of Floriana suggests that without the machinery of civilization, abuse, opportunism, and brute force can win out.

The rules might seem like shackles, but they can also help keep us safe.

So perhaps it's worth being wary of people who fantasize about throwing off the rules.

Perhaps we should question their motives.

What is it that they want to do once they're cut off from the rest of society?

How might they treat other people?

After all, the isolated setting of Eden, Paradise Lost amplified some of mankind's ugly traits Selfishness, homophobia, bigotry, misogyny.

We had the opportunity to show some of humanity's strengths, Carpenter Raff reflected.

Really, we showed a lot of society's weaknesses.

No one on or off Floriana ever saw or heard from the Baroness and her lover Robert Philipson again.

Perhaps they did start afresh on Tahiti.

Perhaps.

But it seems unlikely when she was so excited about her new hotel.

Rudolf Lorentz vanished too, but his mummified body was eventually found.

In his haste to get away from Floriana, he had blundered onto another island, one without any access to fresh water.

He died of thirst.

In December 1934, an American captain landed on Floriana.

He had visited the island several times before, and he was used to Friedrich coming to greet him, asking if he had brought anything from the mainland.

But this time, Friedrich was nowhere to be seen.

Eventually, he heard a woman shout, and then he saw Dora stumbling towards him, gripping her cane.

She was crying.

She told the captain a terrible tale.

The long drought had ruined Friedrich and Dora's crops, and reluctantly, they'd decided they must slaughter one of their pet chickens.

There was a certain degree of danger in this, we very well knew, for our chickens had been decimated lately by by a curious sickness.

Friedrich thought they could neutralize whatever poison was in the bird by cooking it thoroughly.

When he was satisfied, they took the chicken to their dining table.

We ate one spoonful of it each for the sake of necessary nourishment and made the rest of the meal of our vegetarian fare.

Later, Friedrich began to complain that he felt ill.

Dora wondered if it could be the chicken, although she herself felt fine.

It may be something else.

But don't worry.

I shall be all right.

Friedrich was not alright.

Nausea set in, and then agonizing pain.

It became clear to Dora that a tide of poison was overwhelming him.

At last, an icy sweat broke out.

It It was the sweat of death.

He knew that he was lost, and I could only look on,

ignorant and helpless.

Never one to waste an opportunity for philosophical enlightenment, Friedrich asked Dora to read to him from Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Mark these lines, Dora,

and remember them always.

In memory of me.

Later, when Friedrich was too weak even to speak, Dora brought him a pencil and paper.

He managed to convey that in no circumstances should she go to their neighbours, the Witmers, for help.

With her difficulty walking, she might not make it on her own.

Dora began to despair.

What if she were left at Fredo alone?

Eventually, she did go for help, but there was nothing to be done.

Dora, Margaret and Heinz watched as Friedrich convulsed and then passed away.

Together, they buried him in his favourite corner of the garden.

The American captain was deeply saddened by the news.

He had been fond of Friedrich.

A few days days later, he helped Dora onto a boat bound for Germany.

It was now under the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

But Dora had nowhere else to go.

Margaret Wittmer remembered Friedrich's demise a little differently.

She was perplexed by the fact that even though Dora and Friedrich had apparently eaten the same meat, one of them was at death's door and the other had suffered no ill effects.

Nor could she understand why Dora had waited so long to come to them for help.

She remembered something else too.

Whenever Dora drew near Friedrich, he would try to hit her, kick her.

His eyes filled with hate.

Mustering all his effort, He had scrawled his companion a final message with pencil and paper.

Margaret saw the note.

I curse you with my dying breath.

Heinz Wittmer and his older son carried Friedrich's body to its final resting place in the garden, and Margaret decorated the grave with flowers.

Dora, said Margaret, did not attend the funeral.

The key sources for this episode are Dora Strouch's memoir, Satan Came to Eden, and Abbott Kayler's book, Eden Undone, a true story of sex, murder and utopia at the dawn of World War II.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at TimHarford.com.

cautionary tales is written by me tim harford with andrew wright alice finds and ryan dilley it's produced by georgia mills and marilyn rust the sound design and original music are the work of pascal wise additional sound design is by carlos san juan at brain audio ben nadaf haffrey edited the scripts The show features the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Gottridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jopp, Masaya Monroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright.

The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Retta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller.

Cautionary Tales is a production of Cushkin Industries.

It's recorded at Wardore Studios in London by Noria Barr and Lucy Rowe.

If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review.

It really makes a difference to us.

And if you want to hear the show ad-free, sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus.

Cautionary Tales is proudly sponsored by Amika Insurance.

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For those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

From Australia to San Francisco, Cullen Jewelry brings timeless craftsmanship and modern lab-grown diamond engagement rings to the U.S.

Explore solitaire, trilogy, halo, and bezel settings, or design a custom ring that tells your love story.

With expert guidance, a lifetime warranty, and a talented team of in-house jewelers behind every piece, your perfect ring is made with meaning.

Visit our new Union Street showroom or explore the range at cullenjewelry.com.

Your ring, your way.

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