Lotte Möller

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Sophie Charlotte "Lotte" Juliane Möller (born June 17, 1893 in Koblenz , † June 22, 1973 in Göttingen ) was a German geographer , hydrograph and marine biologist . She was the first female professor of oceanography in Germany.

Life

School and study

Lotte Möller was the daughter of an official in the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture and, after his transfer and the relocation of the family, attended a public girls' school and an upper lyceum in Berlin-Friedenau and Steglitz. In 1914 she finished school and was admitted to university with the teacher examination. She studied mathematics, natural sciences and geography at the University of Berlin . Möller attended the lectures and exercises of mathematicians Konrad Knopp , Friedrich Schottky and Issai Schur and the physics lectures of Max Planck . After her studies were initially mainly focused on mathematics, she soon turned to geography. She took part in the lectures and excursions of the head of the Institute for Oceanography, Albrecht Penck , and in the seminars on oceanography by Alfred Merz . In a résumé preserved in the personal files, she later stated: "I chose oceanography as a specialty because it is the only specialty of geography that allows me to present the phenomena in an exact mathematical and physical manner, which I prefer."

As a student, she has been concerned with limnology since 1916 , namely with temperature measurements on Lake Sacrow . In 1917 and 1918 she worked in the development of telegraph technology and undertook tidal research in the North Sea. In 1920 she obtained the first and in 1921 the second state examination in geography. She then taught as a teacher in Berlin, but continued to take part in university events.

Career

In the summer of 1921, she conducted research on a research ship in the southern North Sea. In 1923 she became assistant to Alfred Merz in the Institute for Oceanography at the University of Berlin and received her doctorate in February 1925 with a thesis entitled The Deviation in Current Measurements in the Sea . In 1926 Möller received a scheduled assistant position. Together with Merz, she prepared the German Atlantic Expedition of the research vessel Meteor to the South Atlantic, which lasted from 1925 to 1927 . As a woman, she could not take part in the research trip herself because the German Navy refused to do so. Instead, she took the samples on land and analyzed them in Berlin. In 1928 she received the Meteor Medal of the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft for her work on this .

After Merz's death in 1925, Möller completed his work on the hydrography of the Bosporus and Dardanelles and published it in 1928. In 1926, she was able to travel on a research ship in the Mediterranean and carry out meteorological measurements. In 1927 and 1928 she visited the marine research institute in Bergen, Norway, where she researched internal waves in fjords , their water stratification and hydrography. She published the results of her research in 1931. After Merz's death Möller came into conflict with her colleague Georg Wüst , who became a curator but was annoyed that Lotte Möller von Merz had been entrusted with the processing of his estate in her will. Ultimately, Möller withdrew from processing the meteor data and switched from marine research to limnology in order to avoid conflict with Wüst.

In July 1929 Möller completed his habilitation in the subject "Geography with special consideration of hydrography". Her habilitation thesis The Circulation of the Indian Ocean based on temperature and salinity depth measurements and surface current observations was examined by Albert Defant , Norbert Krebs and Albrecht Penck. In his assessment, Defant highlighted the scientific achievements made by Möller, namely the processing of the published publication by the late Merz, the support of the Meteor expedition and the research on Lake Sacrow. In his report, Krebs compared Möller directly with Georg Wüst, who had recently completed his habilitation as the first in this field in Germany with a thesis on stratification and deep circulation in the Pacific. Krebs highlighted Möller's better abilities, the greater diversity of her fields of work and the satisfaction of the students. Möller's habilitation was only the fourth woman at the University of Berlin. The results of her habilitation were included in the textbook The Oceans by Harald Sverdrup in 1942 . In particular, Möller showed that the deep-sea currents depended on the surface currents, which she mapped with monthly variations. In addition, it was the first to describe the Indian circulation .

After her habilitation, Möller became a private lecturer in the hydrography of inland waters. She headed a research station at Lake Sacrow , which she founded in 1927 , where students were also trained. In 1931 she drew up instructions for the naval management for calculating tides in the German Bight , and in 1933 she published a description of the tides in this area. In 1933 she was one of the few assistants at the University of Berlin and joined the NSDAP in order not to fall behind her colleague and competitor Wüst, who also followed this path, and to avoid her position as the only remaining woman (of six) with an assistant position to keep in the sciences at the university. In 1934 she became custodian at the Institute for Marine Research, of which Albert Defant was head, in 1935 extraordinary professor and in 1939, at the same time as Wüst, extraordinary professor. In April 1942, Möller's competitor Wüst, who thus became an associate professor, became head of the newly created department for continental hydrography due to the war. Defant intended Möller for this position, but could not be considered by the Ministry of Science, Education and National Education for fundamental considerations. Instead, she became a group leader in Wüst's successor and received a paid teaching position.

World War II and post-war years

During the Second World War Möller worked for the German Navy . In 1941 she made tide maps of Heligoland and the Bay of Biscay . Their evaluations of hydrographic data from the occupied eastern territories concerned, for example, the river basins of Bug and Prypiat , and in 1942 a planned canal from the Vistula to the Dnepr . During a stay in occupied Poland in 1942, she fell seriously ill with relapsing fever . She was responsible for the Spree and Havel at the Hydrographic Institute in Potsdam and later moved to the nautical department of the naval management after bombings made work at her institute impossible and the library and instruments had been stored in a salt dome. There she was responsible for measuring tides and currents.

Because of her NSDAP membership, Möller was dismissed without notice at the end of December 1945. In February 1946 she went to the Academy for Spatial Research and Regional Planning in Göttingen, where she carried out regional groundwater analyzes.

In 1950 Möller applied in vain for early retirement so that he could devote himself to research. In 1952 she received an unpaid teaching position at the University of Göttingen. She was unable to take up a position as head of the marine science department at the Hydro-Meteorological Institute in Stralsund due to the consequences of her relapsing fever and a traffic accident. It was not until 1956 that she completed her habilitation in Göttingen and became an adjunct professor of geography and hydrography. In the winter semester of 1957/1958 she held a lecture with exercises at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and then went into retirement. She spent her last years in Göttingen.

Memberships

Möller was active in the German Association of Women Academics (DAB) in Berlin from 1926 and on its board from 1929. She was the chairwoman of the Association of Female University Lecturers in Germany.

In 1940 Möller was appointed to the Leopoldina thanks to the support of Albrecht Penck .

In 1953 she became a corresponding member of the Geographical Society of Hanover .

Fonts (selection)

  • The deviation in current measurements in the ocean. (= Publications by the Institute for Oceanography at the University of Berlin, Series A, Geographical and Natural Science Series, NF Issue 13). ES Mittler, Berlin 1924. At the same time dissertation: University of Berlin, Philosophical Faculty 1925, ZDB -ID 520750-2 .
  • Florida and West Indies currents. A hydrodynamic study. In: The natural sciences. Volume 13, No. 27, 1925, pp. 600-603, doi: 10.1007 / BF01578193 .
  • Alfred Merz (edited by Lotte Möller): Hydrographic investigations in the Bosporus and Dardanelles. (= Publications by the Institute for Oceanography at the University of Berlin, Series A, Geographical and Natural Science Series, NF booklet 18.1 (text volume) and 18.2 (atlas)). ES Mittler, Berlin 1928, ZDB -ID 520750-2 .
  • The circulation of the Indian Ocean based on temperature and salinity depth measurements and surface current observations. (= Publications by the Institute for Oceanography at the University of Berlin, Series A, Geographical and Natural Science Series, NF booklet 21). ES Mittler, Berlin 1929. Also habilitation: University of Berlin, Philosophical Faculty 1929, ZDB -ID 520750-2 .
  • Water stratification and movement in straits. In: Annals of Hydrography and Maritime Meteorology. Volume 59, 1931, pp. 8-17, ISSN  0174-8114 .
  • The tidal area of ​​the German Bight. The vertical component of the tides, (= publications by the Institute for Oceanography at the University of Berlin, Series A, Geographical-Scientific Series, NF Issue 23). ES Mittler, Berlin 1933, ZDB -ID 520750-2 .
  • Stechlin-See and Sakrower See. A contribution to the characteristics of eutrophic and oligotrophic lake types. In: Archives for Hydrobiology. Volume 29, 1935, pp. 137-156, ZDB -ID 459-5 .
  • Hydrographic investigations in the Frischen Haff 1933 to 1936. Methodical remarks on the recording of currents and their fluctuations. In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin. No. 7/8, 1937, pp. 262-277, ISSN  1614-2055 .
  • The devices and procedures used in the individual Baltic Sea states for discharge and flow measurements. Discussion of some new features. In: Reports and communications of the VI. Baltic Hydrological Conference. Volume 2, Part 18, Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, State Institute for Hydrology and Main Leveling , Berlin 1938, ZDB -ID 575331-4 .
  • The natural structure of Lower Saxony based on the chemical composition of the ground and surface waters. In: New archive for Lower Saxony, magazine for urban, regional and state development. 1949, pp. 787-802, ISSN  0342-1511 .
  • The chemical composition of the ground and surface waters of northwest Germany in relation to the geological conditions. In: Wilhelm Rodhe (Hrsg.): Negotiations International Association for Theoretical and Applied Limnology. Proceedings International Association of Theoretical and Applied Limnology. Travaux Association Internationale de Limnologie Théorique et Appliquée. Congress in Switzerland, August 1948 (10th General Assembly). Schweizerbart, Stuttgart 1949, pp. 317–334, ZDB -ID 201642-4

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Brosin : Lotte Möller (1893–1973) and the hydrological work at the Institute for Oceanography Berlin. In: Historisch-Meereskundliches Jahrbuch. Volume 6, 1999, pp. 19-34, ZDB -ID 1165794-7 .
  • Cornelia Lüdecke: Lotte Möller (1893–1973). First oceanography professor in German-speaking countries. In: Luminary. Volume 35, 2004, pp. 39-42, ZDB -ID 644291-2 .
  • Cornelia Lüdecke: Möller, Sophie C (h) arlotte Juliane (Lotte). In: Noretta Koertge (Ed.): New Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Volume 5: Mac Lane-Owen. Scribner, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-684-31325-2 , pp. 171-174. (on-line)
  • Annette Vogt: On the scientific doctorates of women at the Philosophical Faculty of the Berlin University between 1898 and 1945 - overview and individual examples. In: Gabriele Jähnert (Red.): On the history of women's studies and female professional careers at the Berlin University. Documentation of a workshop, organized on November 25, 1995 by the Center for Interdisciplinary Women's Research and the women's representative at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Center for Interdisciplinary Women's Research, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-9805294-0-1 , pp. 34–57.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Annette Vogt: On the scientific doctorates of women, p. 52.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Cornelia Lüdecke: Lotte Möller (1893–1973). First oceanography professor in German-speaking countries. P. 39.
  3. ^ Alfred Merz (edited by Lotte Möller): Hydrographic investigations in the Bosporus and Dardanelles.
  4. ↑ Lotte Möller: Water stratification and movement in straits.
  5. ↑ a b Annette Vogt: On the scientific doctorates of women, p. 53.
  6. ↑ Cornelia Lüdecke: Lotte Möller (1893–1973). First oceanography professor in German-speaking countries. Pp. 39-40.
  7. ↑ Cornelia Lüdecke: Möller, Sophie C (h) arlotte Juliane (Lotte).
  8. ↑ Cornelia Lüdecke: Lotte Möller (1893–1973). First oceanography professor in German-speaking countries. P. 40.
  9. ↑ a b c d Cornelia Lüdecke: Lotte Möller (1893–1973). First oceanography professor in German-speaking countries. P. 41.
  10. ↑ a b Cornelia Lüdecke: Lotte Möller (1893–1973). First oceanography professor in German-speaking countries. P. 42.
  11. ↑ Member entry by Sophie Charlotte Juliane Möller at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 30, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Möller, Lotte
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Möller, Sophie Charlotte Juliane (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geographer, limnologist and oceanographer
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1973
Place of death Goettingen