Carl Weyprecht
Carl (Karl) Georg Ludwig Wilhelm Weyprecht (born September 8, 1838 in Darmstadt , † March 29, 1881 in Michelstadt ) was a naval officer , polar researcher and geophysicist in the Austro-Hungarian service. His preferred place of residence was Trieste .
With the cartographer Julius Payer , he led the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition from 1872 to 1874 , during which the arctic archipelago Franz-Josef-Land was discovered. In 1875, Weyprecht demanded that longer series of measurements should begin there instead of temporary polar expeditions . Logically, he founded the International Polar Commission in 1879 with Georg von Neumayer , whose research projects 1882–1883 led to the first International Polar Year .
Life
Origin and school education
On September 8, 1838, Carl Weyprecht was born in Darmstadt as the third son of the court attorney Ludwig Weyprecht and his wife Marie Magdalene Sophie born. Hohenschild was born. For health reasons, his father went to König, today's Bad König in the Odenwald, as chamber director of Count zu Erbach-Schönberg with the family . The children were initially taught by private tutors. From 1852 Carl Weyprecht attended the humanistic grammar school in Darmstadt, but after only one year switched to the higher trade school, from which today's Technical University of Darmstadt emerged.
Military career
At the age of 18, Weyprecht joined the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1856 . Promoted to ensign in the sea in 1861 , he sailed on the frigate Radetzky under the command of Wilhelm von Tegetthoff , who promoted his natural science inclinations. In 1865 he studied the lecture of the geographer August Petermann , which he had given on July 23rd at the geographic meeting in Frankfurt am Main . Petermann had stated that a German north voyage should be equipped to penetrate - as he assumed - the ice-free waters between Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya and perhaps even as far as the North Pole . Weyprecht promised Petermann his support and in March 1866 offered him to finance and lead such an expedition with 2000 thalers. However, with the outbreak of the German War , the plan did not take concrete shape.
Weyprecht distinguished himself in the naval battle of Lissa, won against the Italian fleet, as a navigational officer on the armored frigate Drache . He was then sent to Mexico on the paddle steamer Elisabeth to support Emperor Maximilian . When Elisabeth returned to Pula in 1868 , he traveled to Petermann to implement his Arctic plans. It was agreed that Weyprecht should lead a small ship to the east coast of Greenland to gain first experience in the Arctic. But when Weyprecht suffered a relapse of the malaria disease he had acquired in the Caribbean , Petermann commissioned Captain Carl Koldewey to lead the First German North Polar Expedition .
First trip to the Arctic
In 1869 and 1870 Weyprecht mapped the eastern Adriatic coast . In 1870 he was posted to Tunis for the scientific observation of the total solar eclipse of December 22nd . Weyprecht had already met Julius Payer in autumn , who had just returned from the second German polar expedition . The men arranged a joint exploration trip to the area northeast of Svalbard for the summer of 1871. The exact arrangements were made with Petermann in the spring of 1871. On the one hand, Petermann, who still had funds from donations for the previous expeditions, and on the other, Count Hans Wilczek , Emperor Franz Joseph I and the Frankfurt Geographical Society acted as donors . The expedition left Tromsø on board the Isbjørn on June 21, 1871. The ice conditions were favorable that year, and the ship reached the position of 78 ° 43 'N and 42 ° 30' E in the Barents Sea on September 1, with only a light Drift ice . Petermann saw his theory of the ice-free Arctic Ocean confirmed and pushed for another expedition with a larger ship.
Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition
In the spring of 1872 a central committee for the promotion of the Austrian North Pole expedition was founded in Vienna, which was able to raise enormous private funds in a short time. Count Wilczek was again the most important sponsor. It was decided that Weyprecht should be in command at sea, but Payer on land. On June 13, the screw steamer Admiral Tegetthoff lifted anchor in Bremerhaven . In Tromsø , the ice cream master Elling Olaf Carlson was taken on board, the rest of the team consisted exclusively of Austrians of different nationalities.
On August 21, the Admiral Tegetthoff was trapped in the ice and drifted to the northwest with it. The ship was not released in the summer of 1873 either. On August 30th, land was sighted in the north, which Weyprecht named " Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Land ". On November 1, 1873, the ship had approached Wilczek Island so far that the crew could go ashore. While Payer explored the newly discovered country in the spring of 1874 and almost reached the 82nd parallel at Cape Fligely , Weyprecht stayed on the ship. On May 20, he gave up the Admiral Tegetthoff and led the crew south with sledges and boats. At Novaya Zemlya they met Russian ships that were bringing them back to Norway.
First International Polar Year
In 1875 Weyprecht submitted the proposal to systematically explore the Arctic in international cooperation. For this purpose, research stations should be built around the North Pole. Weyprecht's incessant work on this project ultimately led to the decision to hold an International Polar Year at the 2nd International Meteorological Congress in Rome in 1879. Weyprecht became a member of the International Polar Commission, initially headed by Georg von Neumayer , which took care of the preparation. As a result, eleven states set up 14 stations (12 in the northern and two in the southern hemisphere ), in which a coordinated scientific program was carried out over a period of twelve months in 1882/83.
Carl Weyprecht did not live to see the culmination of his life's work. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis on March 29, 1881 in Michelstadt . His brother, the doctor Robert Weyprecht, took him to his home when he was already dying in a saloon car belonging to the Austrian Emperor of Vienna. He was buried on March 31, 1881 next to his father in the cemetery in König in a grave of honor .
Honors
Carl Weyprecht was honored many times during his lifetime. The Royal Geographic Society in London awarded him their gold medal in 1874. Fiume made him an honorary citizen , the Frankfurter Geographische Gesellschaft an honorary member.
Weyprecht was able to prevent Petermann from naming an island Franz-Josef-Lands after him, but later geographical locations were nevertheless given his name, such as the Weyprecht glacier on the island of Jan Mayen , the Weyprecht fjord in northern Greenland, the Weyprecht mountains in the East Antarctica and a cape in the east of the island of Svalbard on the Hinlopen Strait .
The German Society for Polar Research has been awarding the Weyprecht Medal for outstanding scientific achievements in the polar regions since 1967 .
Bad König grants Carl Weyprecht an honor grave . The local integrated comprehensive school across all school types bears his name, as does a circular hiking trail run by the Odenwald Club .
There are streets named after Carl-Weyprecht in Bad König, Vienna, Graz , Munich , Darmstadt, Michelstadt and Alzey, among others .
Museum reception
The Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition is documented in detail in the marine hall of the Vienna Army History Museum . You can see numerous paintings by Julius Payer, including the monumental painting “Never Go Back”. This picture shows the situation when the commander of the expedition ship, lieutenant of the line Carl Weyprecht, persuaded the crew to march south after leaving the ship.
literature
- Julius Payer: The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition in the years 1872–1874, together with a sketch of the second German North Pole expedition 1869–1870 and the polar expedition of 1871. Hölder, Vienna 1876, DNB 575622644 .
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Weyprecht, Karl . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 55th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1887, pp. 198–203 ( digitized version ).
- Friedrich Ratzel : Weyprecht, Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, pp. 763-774.
- Günter Tiggesbäumker: Carl Weyprecht 1838–1881 . (PDF; 607 kB). In: Polar Research . 51 (2), 1981, pp. 213-218.
- Andreas Pöschek: Secret North Pole. The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition 1872–1874 . (PDF; 1.3 MB). Vienna 1999.
- Christoph Höbenreich: Expedition Franz Josef Land. On the trail of explorers to the north . Verlag Frederking & Thaler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89405-499-1 (expedition photo book about the Payer-Weyprecht memorial expedition 2005, the Austro-Hungarian north polar expedition 1872–1874, the polar journey of the icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn 2006 and a comprehensive expedition chronicle) .
- Frank Berger: Frankfurt and the North Pole. Researchers and explorers in the eternal ice . Ed .: Jan Gerchow (= writings of the Historisches Museum Frankfurt am Main . Volume 26 ). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-86568-285-7 .
- Frank Berger, Bruno P. Besser, Reinhard A. Krause: Carl Weyprecht (1838–1881) . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-7001-4019-1 .
- Helmut Neuhold: Austria's heroes at sea. Styria Verlag, Vienna / Graz / Klagenfurt 2010, ISBN 978-3-222-13306-0 , pp. 142–159.
Web links
- Literature by and about Carl Weyprecht in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Carl Weyprecht in the German Digital Library
- Entry on Carl Weyprecht in the Austria Forum (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
- carl-weyprecht.org , German-language website about Carl Weyprecht
- Research instead of discovery on ORF
Individual evidence
- ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner , Manfred Litscher (Ed.): The Army History Museum in Vienna. Graz / Vienna 2000, p. 89.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Weyprecht, Carl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Weyprecht, Karl; Weyprecht, Carl Georg Ludwig Wilhelm (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Naval officer, Arctic researcher and geophysicist in Austro-Hungarian service |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 8, 1838 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Darmstadt |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 29, 1881 |
| Place of death | Michelstadt |