HUBERT'S DESK
In memory of Jane Goodall
"There is no sharp line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom."
Jane Goodall
My first encounter with Jane Goodall was unforgettable. It was late in the evening, just before Christmas 1994. We were sat, snowed in, in my little wooden house above Goisern, listening to the sounds of a phase of my life that had drawn to a close. I had closed the chapter of the Alpinkatzen a good month before and now I was working on completing the live album Wia die Zeit vergeht. The two of us, my sound engineer Wolfgang Spannberger and I were together when the phone rang.
On the line was Michael Neugebauer, a friend from my youth. He asked if it would be okay for him to drop in. He wanted to introduce me to someone. I told him that we were nearly finished with mixing the Juchitzer and I didn't want to stop at that point. But he could tomorrow? "That's a shame," he answered, he'd liked to have introduced me to Jane Goodall. She was visiting him but had to leave early the next day.
I didn't believe a word he was saying, but nonetheless I said: "If that's true, then of course you can come."
Half an hour later there was a knock at the door and outside, between metre-high walls of snow, stood Michael and beside him, cocooned in a borrowed, oversized grey coat and moon boots that were much too big for her, Jane Goodall. It was so unbelievable, that for a while I could do nothing but stare at her. Until she politely asked if I was going to ask her in.
There was no need for becoming acquainted. We understood each other from the very first moment. It felt more like a reunion. We sat late into the night, drank tea, told each other stories and created hopeful visions of how the world could be saved. I hung on her every word. Particularly when Jane spoke about Gombe, the habitat at Lake Tanganyika, to where paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey had sent her to study chimpanzees in the wild. That was in 1961. At that time, she was 26 and the originally planned three months became three decades. I had read her first book in the seventies: In The Shadow of Man). I remembered that the book was on the shelf in my bedroom on the first floor and fetched the somewhat tattered volume from there so that Jane could sign it. She took the work, looked at me reproachfully and said that the book must not mean too much to me. It was ice-cold and had evidently been kept in the shed. "No!" I contradicted, it was that I sleep all year by an open window, even in the winter, and offered to show her. She declined with a smile. It wouldn't be right to end up in the bedroom on first meeting. She believed me.
To end the night, we drank another glass of whiskey and as she said goodbye, she invited me to come to Gombe. She was going to be there again in February. I promised to come.
But my need for peace was greater than that for any adventure. February came and went. It was soon nearly Christmas again, when there was another knock at the door. There she was once again and asked reproachfully with a smile: "Why didn't you come?"
Two months later the time had come. Together with my friend Michael Neugebauer I disembarked the aeroplane in Kigoma. To the astonishment of us both, we were greeted by a large crowd of people. It turned out that Jane had announced our coming. Michael was coming along with a famous singer. Just at this time Michael Jackson was supposed to be giving a concert in Dar es Salaam. And through Chinese whispers 'Michael and the singer' became 'Michael the singer', and that meant only one person. Never before had people turned away from me with such disappointment.
The two weeks in Gombe went by far too quickly. Stalking through the jungle at Jane's side, listening to her stories, learning the stories of the various chimpanzees, whom, contrary to scientific custom, she had given names. Of the conquering of the alpha position and the associated fighting rituals. It was not always the strongest who prevailed. There was Mike, who held his position thanks to the fact he had acquired empty metal canisters and was able to make such a din that he was given the lead. Or Faben, who had been infected with polio and had a lame arm, which forced him to adopt an upright position in fights, thus becoming the alpha. There was also one, whose name I have forgotten, who made it to the top with friendliness. He extensively groomed everyone's fur, thus earning himself a large following.
When it was time to say goodbye and make the journey home, I promised to come again. I wanted to share what I had experienced with the world and to help carry the messages of this exceptional, charismatic woman. What nobody thought possible was achieved. In less than a year I was back and the film Von Goisern nach Gombe became a reality.
Over the following years I occasionally time to accompany Jane on her lecture tours. I saw her in Taiwan, California, Austria … Then she always used my presence to demonstrate the communication methods of the chimpanzees, the two of us shouting chimpanzee calls across the hall to one another.
We had many opportunities to talk on the long journeys. Her concern for the planet was, at the end of the day, what concerned her the most. "There's a lot of crazy people out there. Some are good crazy, and some are bad crazy. The bad ones are spawning faster."
And yet she lost neither hope nor faith in the creativity and human resources to be able to make things better. She travelled untiringly around the whole world until the very end, giving lectures, raising money for her projects, meeting young people and thrilling all those who saw and met her. With stories of hope, consolation and joy, with examples of overcoming adversity, of recovery and fragility, and above all the miracle of creation.
I still remember the audience member who thanked her for coming after her lecture in Bad Ischl. "I can't speak a word of English, but I'm certain I understood every word of what life is about."
Dame Jane Goodall, you had a wonderful aura. Your graceful shape has left us. Your spirit has remained. Thank you for allowing me to accompany you some of the way.
Hubert von Goisern
Salzburg, October 2025