Edelweiss company and Zugvogel company
The company Edelweiss , company Edelweiss 2 and companies migratory goods by the company Bass Geiger further attempts of the armed forces , in World War II on the politically Denmark belonging island Greenland a weather station to build.
course
At the end of August 1944, a German weather team headed by meteorologist Dr. Gottfried Weiss, who was already with the Holzauge company , on the way to the east coast of Greenland with the former fishing steamer Kehdingen . Shortly before landing on the island of Store Koldewey , the expedition was stopped by the icebreaker Northland of the American Coast Guard . The German escort boat U 703 shot down several torpedoes without hitting, however, and had to retreat. The crew of the Kehdingen sank their ship and went into captivity.
The German Navy then sent a group to East Greenland, originally intended for wintering on Franz Josef Land . The edelweiss 2 weather group , led by meteorologist Karl Schmid, reached the island of Lille Koldewey on the fishing steamer Externsteine in early October 1944 . On the way home, the expedition ship ran into pack ice off the island of Shannon and was caught there by the USCG icebreakers Eastwind and Southwind .
Shortly afterwards, the weather station was also discovered by USAAF reconnaissance aircraft . On the night of November 3rd to 4th, around 200 American coast guard soldiers landed and captured the Edelweiss 2 company. The depot on the east coast of Lille Koldewey immediately north of Røseløbet (the arm of the sea that separates the two parts of the double island) was later called Tyskerdepot ("German Depot ") by the Danes and was also used in emergencies.
In October 1944, too late to land in the Arctic, the Kriegsmarine set off another floating station. On board the fishing steamer Wuppertal , the weather group Zugvogel crossed between Greenland and Spitsbergen under the direction of the meteorologist Inspector Hofmann . In its last radio message on December 8, 1944, the Wuppertal reported engine failure. The ship and crew were lost a few hundred kilometers from the North Pole.
Wehrmacht weather stations in the Arctic
- Company Haudegen
- Company bud
- Company wooden eye
- Company bass violinist
- Treasure digger weather station
See also
literature
- Wilhelm Dege : War North of 80. The Last German Arctic Weather Station of World War II. Translated from the German and edited by William Barr. Arctic Institute of North America (Northern lights series 4). Calgary, Alberta (University of Calgary Press) and Boulder, CO (University Press of Colorado) 2004. ISBN 1-55238-110-2
Web links
- www.wlb-stuttgart.de : The naval war in Greenland
Remarks
- ↑ Dege 2004, p. 286.