German Seewarte
The Deutsche Seewarte (also Reichsinstitut Deutsche Seewarte ) was the central institute for the promotion of maritime meteorology in Germany from 1875 to 1945 . The head office of the facility was in Hamburg . The Deutsche Seewarte was first operated by the German states and then by the German Reich .
The Deutsche Seewarte was the official predecessor of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency and the German Weather Service .
history
A forerunner of the Deutsche Seewarte was the private institution of the North German Seewarte founded by Wilhelm von Freeden in Hamburg in 1867 . This was dissolved in February 1875 and its area of responsibility was taken over by the newly founded Deutsche Seewarte in 1874. As a Reich Institute, it was subordinate to the head of the Admiralty of the Imperial Navy ; the first director from 1875 to 1903 was Georg von Neumayer , who had previously been involved in the North German Seewarte.
The head office was in Hamburg and from 1881 in the Seewarten building on the Stintfang . “The Seewarte”, as the building was generally called in Hamburg, was built according to plans by the architects Gustav Jacob Kirchenpauer and Ludwig Hermann Philippi and was inaugurated on September 14, 1881 in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm I after a two-year construction period .
The Seewarte was subordinated to the Reich Ministry of Transport from 1919 . The assumption of the presidency by Vice-Admiral a. Was of great importance for the Deutsche Seewarte, whose reputation had declined somewhat over the years . D. Hugo Dominik in September 1926. Above all, Dominik initiated the union of aerology and oceanography and was active in reforming and was also instrumental in the organization of the 2nd International Polar Year in 1933. He headed the Deutsche Seewarte until his death in September 1933. From 1934, the Seewarte was again under the command of the Navy .
In the spring of 1945 the building on the Stintfang was destroyed by the effects of the war. After 1945, the tasks of the Deutsche Seewarte were divided: the hydrographic part was given to the German Hydrographic Institute (DHI, 1945–1990) and its successor, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH); each also based in Hamburg. In the GDR , these tasks were taken over from 1950 by the GDR Sea Hydrographic Service until 1990. The meteorological tasks were initially transferred to the Meteorological Office for Northwest Germany (MANWD), which was integrated into the newly founded German Weather Service (DWD) on January 1, 1953 .
A hostel of the German Youth Hostel Association has been located on the site of the former Seewarte building since 1953 .
Organization and tasks
The Seewarte primarily pursued the promotion and safety of maritime traffic . It consisted of four departments:
Maritime meteorology
The first department worked on the maritime meteorology, collected the observations on the physical conditions of the sea and on the meteorological phenomena on the high seas, distributed the meteorological ship's journals (weather books) to the ship's captains who wanted to contact the sea control common international scheme, gave instructions for the correct management of these weather books and collected and discussed them for the purpose of drawing up general and special sailing instructions as well as the travel routes to be taken.
Instrument testing
The second department took care of the procurement and testing of nautical, meteorological and magnetic instruments and apparatus. She checked the sextants , octants and ship compasses , dealt with the practical application of the theory of magnetism in navigation and managed the collection of models and instruments, which were primarily intended to explain new inventions in the field of nautical science and to educate the nautical public.
Central office for practicing meteorology
The third department was responsible for coastal meteorology and storm warning systems in Germany. Since 1906 (under the head of department Wilhelm Jacob van Bebber ), your main tasks have been the daily collection of telegraphic weather reports, the daily reporting based on them, mostly telegraphic reports, and the creation of forecasts. This was immediately followed by the drafting, production and sending of " harbor telegrams ", weather reports and weather maps to newspapers , authorities and private subscribers.
Chronometer testing institute
The fourth department of the Seewarte, the Chronometerprüfungsinstitut , was supposed to promote the interests of the German chronometer industry and determined the course of the chronometers of the German merchant navy handed over to it for observation and testing at different temperatures. From time to time competitor tests of chronometers were also held, in which the suppliers of the best chronometers were offered the prospect of significantly higher prices than the usual purchase prices.
Branch offices, branches and overseas stations
In order to be able to solve the tasks assigned to the sea observatory with regard to coastal meteorology , it required a number of branches , agencies (main and subsidiary agencies), normal observation stations and signaling stations in addition to the central office in Hamburg .
The agencies had to examine the various nautical and meteorological instruments, investigate the deviation (deviation of the compasses on board iron ships) and give advice to skippers on the routes of the ship, important works and maps as well as everything that was necessary to keep the ship's meteorological journals has a relationship.
On the new normal observation stations that are being built in Memel , Neufahrwasser , Swinemünde , Cuxhaven , Kiel , Hamburg , Keitum auf Sylt , Wilhelmshaven (imperial observatory) and Borkum and apart from the usual meteorological instruments with self-registering barometers and anemometers , in some cases also with registering If thermometers were equipped, the observations were made, which provided the third department of the naval observatory with some of the material for their investigations and publications (storm warnings, etc.).
In addition, regular observations were made on them at specific times, as on any ordinary meteorological station. The signal points brought the weather reports and storm warnings from the sea control to the public without delay.
In the course of its history, the Deutsche Seewarte operated more than 1,500 overseas stations in numerous regions of the world. A particularly large number of weather stations were operated in the German colonial areas of the time between 1884 and 1914 . The stations were set up or taken over from the headquarters in Hamburg and equipped with standardized, calibrated measuring instruments.
Publications
Much of the work of the naval observatory was published in the annals of hydrography and maritime meteorology published by the hydrographic office of the imperial navy .
In addition, the management of the sea observatory issued:
- the daily autograph weather reports and weather maps
- the monthly overview of the weather in Northern and Central Europe
- Meteorological observations in Germany from 25 second-order stations as well as hourly records from three normal observation stations at the Seewarte and from Kaiserslautern; the storms after the signal points of the sea control
- the nautical yearbook
The entire activity has been presented since 1878 in the collection and repertory from the archive of the Deutsche Seewarte with regard to the history of the development of the disciplines concerned and the methods and apparatus used for this purpose. In addition, these contained independent treatises by officers of the sea observatory on various areas of nautical and meteorological science.
literature
- Wilhelm von Freeden, Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg (ed.): Annual report of the North German Seewarte for the year 1868 , Hamburg (no year), digitized
- Advertisement no. 494. concerning ... North German sea observation nautical and meteorological institute to be established. In: Hamburg Trade Archive. Collection of the Hamburg treaties, ordinances and notices relating to shipping and trade, second volume, 2nd volume, Gustav Eduar Nolte, Hamburg 1869, p. 896 ff.
- Georg von Neumayer: VII. The scientific institutes and associations . In: Hamburg in natural history and medicine . Dedicated as a festive gift to the members and participants of the 49th Assembly of German Naturalists and Physicians. L. Friederichsen & Co, Hamburg 1876, Die Deutsche Seewarte, p. 187 ff . ( online ).
- A. Kirchenpauer: The new service building of the German sea control in Hamburg. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , 2nd year 1882,
- No. 8 (of February 25, 1882), p. 62 f. (1st part) ( digitized version )
- No. 9 (from March 4, 1882), p. 70 (2nd part) ( digitized version )
- Georg von Neumayer: The activity of the German sea observatory. Hamburg 1887.
- Meteorological Journal , Volume 51, 1934, February 1934 edition, p. 78.
- Peter Ehlers (ed.): Shipping and sea. 125 years of maritime services in Germany. Herford et al. a. 1993.
- Viktor Pröstler: Military watches. Precision pendulum clocks. Time signals for seafaring. In: Klassik-Uhren , ISSN 0947-9287 , edition 2/1998. (via the master clocks of the Deutsche Seewarte)
- Heinrich Walle: The German Seewarte. In: Marineforum , ISSN 0172-8547 , edition 10/2004, pp. 26-28.
- Georg von Neumayer: The German Seewarte . Description of the central office in Hamburg. Annual report on the activities of the Deutsche Seewarte, No. 7 . Hammerich & Lesser, Hamburg 1885, p. 1-30 .
Trivia
Today Seewartenstrasse and Neumayerstrasse are located near the former location of the Seewarte .
On January 21, 2018, a message in a bottle was found in Australia , which had been thrown into the Indian Ocean on June 12, 1886 by the German cargo barque Paula on behalf of the German Seewarte. This makes the find the world's oldest known message in a bottle, with a lifetime of over 131 years.
Web links
- Deutsche Seewarte Hamburg in the Watch Wiki
- Newspaper article on the German Seewarte in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ^ Watch Wiki: Deutsche Seewarte Hamburg
- ↑ Personal details in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ Klaus ways: The development of the meteorological services in Germany. History of Meteorology, Volume 5, Offenbach 2002, pp. 183–186.
- ^ Overseas stations of the Deutsche Seewarte , German Weather Service. Retrieved November 11, 2017.
- ^ German message in a bottle discovered after 132 years in Australia , Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 6, 2018.
- ↑ Australian woman finds message in a bottle from 1886: Trail leads to the Wesermarsch , Nord24, March 6, 2018.
- ↑ 132 year old message in a bottle found on WA beach , Western Australian Museum, March 6, 2018.
Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 47 " N , 9 ° 58 ′ 17" E