Hermann Dietrich (1895-1936) was a German Heer colonel and member of the Nazi Party assigned in 1936 to the expedition of the Ark of the Covenant in Egypt. He went missing at Geheimhaven, Greece, after accompanying the Ark to a ritual site there.
Biography[]
Early years[]
Hermann Dietrich was born in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany in 1895. Dietrich joined the Imperial German Army in 1913, fighting in World War I in the German East Africa campaign under the command of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck.
Career[]
After the war, he joined the German Freikorps and then the Sturmabteilung of the Nazi Party, where he became acquainted with Adolf Hitler. In 1936, the Führer sent him to Egypt with the objective of finding the Ark of the Covenant. The archaeologist under Dietrich's orders was René Belloq, a French archaeologist; Dietrich found him disgusting due to his prejudice against the French, though reluctantly worked with him.
Death[]
He later went on an expedition to Geheimhaven off the coast of Crete in the Aegean Sea, with the supposed Ark of the Covenant in tow, from where he would never return. It is believed that Dietrich was killed by Indiana Jones, who infiltrated the island, though a more outlandish theory says that he was killed by ancient Israelite spirits for breaking the Covenant by opening the Ark.