Carl Koldewey

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Carl Koldewey

Carl Christian Koldewey (born October 26, 1837 in Bücken near Hoya , † May 17, 1908 in Hamburg ) was a German polar explorer.

biography

Koldewey was the son of the businessman Johann Christian Koldewey and his wife Wilhelmine Meyer. Following his school days at Clausthal High School , Koldewey hired as a cabin boy at Easter 1853. At the age of 22 he attended the seafaring school in Bremen , where he became one of Arthur Breusing's best students . He later went back to sea and returned to the seafaring school in 1861. Trained as Captain Koldewey studied from 1866 to 1867 at the Universities of Hannover and Göttingen , among others, mathematics , physics and astronomy .

Robert Koldewey , archaeologist and architectural historian, was his nephew.

Expeditions

Route of the First German North Polar Expedition
The expedition ship Greenland , 1868
Departure of the ships Germania and Hansa for the second German polar expedition on June 15, 1869 from Bremerhaven. Lithograph after a drawing by Carl Justus Harmen Fedeler
The Hansa in Not, 1869

Through the intercession of his teacher Breusing and at the suggestion of August Petermann , Koldewey was entrusted as captain of Greenland in 1868 with the management of the First German North Polar Expedition . He should either advance along the east coast of Greenland as far north as possible, or reach the so-called Gillis Land around Svalbard . However, adverse conditions and heavy icing prevented him from both goals, he was finally able to reach the highest northern latitude of 81 ° 5 ′ near Spitzbergen and then turned back.

Route of the sledge excursion to Germanialand during the Second German North Polar Expedition

From 1869 to 1870, as captain of the Germania, he was the leader of the second German north polar expedition to Greenland and the Arctic Ocean with the intention of penetrating the central Arctic region. Six scientists joined the expedition, equipped with the screw steamer Germania and the sailing ship Hansa under Captain Friedrich Hegemann : Karl Nikolai Jensen Börgen (astronomer, physicist), Ralph Copeland (astronomer, physicist), Adolf Pansch (zoologist, botanist, doctor) and Julius von Payer as a topographer , Reinhold Buchholz (doctor and zoologist ) and the geologist Gustav Carl Laube rode the Hansa .

The expedition left Bremerhaven on June 15, 1869 . Both ships were separated from each other on July 20. The Hansa was enclosed by the ice, crushed by the ice on October 19, 1869 and sank. The expedition members were able to save themselves on an ice floe, drifted 1500 kilometers south and landed in Friedrichstal after more than 6 months , while the Germania reached Sabine Island on August 5, 1869 . From there, partly by sledge, partly by ship and boat, the further unveiling and recording of the coast between 73 ° and 77 ° N. Br. Continued the work of the Sabine expedition. On its advance to the North Pole, the Germania reached the highest latitude below 75 ° 30 'N on August 14, in the northeast of the Shannon Island , where completely closed ice made it necessary to turn back. Payer took a picture of Shannon Island, and the astronomers began their degree measurements on this island. For the period from August 27, 1869 to July 22, 1870, a winter harbor was set up on Sabine Island. On toboggan trips you penetrated deeper into the interior, where not only the islands and the coasts were recorded, but all kinds of investigations were carried out, giving an insight into the alpine and glacier nature of Greenland. The real highlight of the expedition was the discovery and exploration of the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Fjord .

Later work

After the expeditions were over, Koldewey worked as a writer and participated as an author in scientific publications. From 1871 on he worked at the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg, whose department of nautical instruments he took over in 1875. On July 31, 1905, he retired as Admiralty Director.

The Koldewey-Station , a German research station in Ny-Ålesund on Spitzbergen , is named after Carl Koldewey. It is operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute . The primary school in his birthplace Bücken has been named after Carl Koldewey since 2011, as has the small Koldewey Island (остров Кольдевея) in Franz Josef Land and the islands of Lille and Store Koldewey off the coast of East Greenland.

Honors

Works

literature

Web links

Commons : Carl Koldewey  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Homepage of the Kapitän Koldewey Primary School Bücken, accessed on March 26, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Koldewey, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koldewey, Carl Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH Stooping
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1908
Place of death Hamburg