Alfred plunged into action from the moment of selection. He knew he had just ten weeks to make the preparations that would govern his work for the next two years. He sat down and began to write, sending letter after letter of inquiry and appeal. The letters, filled with ambition and naïve delight, convey both urgency and youthful deference. On 28 March 1906, a few days after his appointment to the expedition, he wrote the following letter to Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940), head of the Meteorological Department of the German Marine Observatory at Hamburg:
Esteemed Professor:
I will participate in the polar expedition of Mylius-Erichsen (to East Greenland) as meteorologist and physicist and I intend while there to carry out, as well, kite and balloon ascents. Given the lack of time (the expedition departs Copenhagen at the end of June) and the scarcity of means, it will only be possible for me to accomplish this program if I can obtain generous assistance from those [scientific] institutes that carry out such work. Although I will receive a number of kites from Herr Geheimrat Aßmann, I presume to ask whether you would be inclined to sell me for a modest sum some of the kites of your design, or to have some new ones built for me.…
Hoping you will pardon this importunate request, which comes only from my earnest wish to carry the aerological program of the expedition to a successful conclusion, I am with highest regards
yours very truly.
Dr. A Wegener 4
This was the first of dozens of such letters, and in the following weeks support flowed in. Aßmann immediately gave his blessing and promised twenty kites and three of the precious varnished-cotton captive balloons, all at cost. Arthur Berson was willing to enlist the entire aerological fraternity to equip his young subaltern for this pioneering effort in arctic meteorology. In response to a letter sent with Berson’s endorsement, Teisserenc de Bort not only agreed to sell Wegener two of his meteorographs at cost but also made him a present of two additional meteorographs, “in the cause of science.”5 Alfred’s partner in balloon flight, Hans Gerdien, agreed to loan him instruments for measuring atmospheric electricity, with instructions for their use. If Alfred could operate them and teach others to do so, Gerdien would find someone else to work up the results on the return—the important thing was to pack as much science as possible into the trip.6
Alfred was exhilarated to put together his part of the expedition, but the call had come suddenly and unexpectedly, and he still had a burden of work at Lindenberg, peaking just at this time. He (and Kurt) had been selected by Aßmann and Berson to represent Lindenberg and the German Empire in the Gordon Bennett International Balloon Competition, scheduled for 4 April 1906. Teams of aeronauts all over Europe were to compete for time, altitude, and distance. For the Lindenberg team this was not just a stunt and a sporting event, though it was that, to be sure. They were to exploit their night flight to practice navigation by star sightings. Kurt Wegener, with five previous flights, was the more experienced balloonist and the qualified pilot, as well as the elder brother—he would direct the flight. Alfred (two previous flights) would serve as navigator, instrument monitor, and ballast heaver.
There was another task in the offing for Alfred, more daunting even than the planned balloon contest: he had to tell his parents (who knew nothing whatever of his expedition plans) that he was leaving in a few weeks for a two-year journey to an uncharted and completely unknown portion of Greenland. On 29 March, Alfred and Kurt left Lindenberg for Berlin to arrange for the balloon flight. Arriving in Berlin, they traveled first to the borough of Reinickendorf, where the army’s Airship Battalion was headquartered, and from which they would lift off the following week.7
That evening, Alfred (with Kurt standing by for moral support) broke the news. Richard listened in grim-lipped silence to Alfred’s enthusiastic description of the expedition and then exploded. He was completely opposed to the idea. It was bad enough, he said, that they persisted in their life-threatening and daredevil balloon antics—Kurt had even flown across the channel and crashed in England! Now Alfred was planning to run off—for years!—on an expedition, at precisely the time he should be finding a permanent, pensioned employment and starting a family—something that Kurt should also be considering. Richard pleaded with Alfred to abandon the plan, to no avail. It gradually dawned on him, however, that Alfred was not asking for permission, but announcing a decision. Alfred wanted his parents’ blessing, but he did not need their consent. This was, he told them, a legitimate scientific undertaking, and he was a trained scientist, planning to do what scientists did.
Richard Wegener’s anger cooled as Alfred explained the scientific program he was mapping out. He would be doing the same work he did at Lindenberg and would be paid a salary for it—he would just be doing the work in Greenland instead of Germany. The expedition was a public-private joint venture under the protection of the Danish Crown, and Alfred’s supervisors, Aßmann and Berson, had already given their professional consent to his departure, even without the requisite notice. Alfred pointed out to his father that he would not even have to resign his post at Lindenberg, but merely to take a leave of absence from 15 April 1906 (two weeks hence) to 1 January 1909. Richard remained uncomprehending—why would anyone do such a thing? Why would one earn a PhD in astronomy at Berlin and then run off to fly kites at the North Pole? He was opposed, but he was resigned to his willful son’s decision, and in the course of the evening, he began to inquire how Alfred would equip himself. The salary for the expedition, Alfred told him, would be paid only on his return, and though the expedition would buy the scientific equipment, he still faced considerable expense preparing himself for the trip. Richard, as a doting (if baffled) father, finally offered to advance Alfred what he needed to outfit himself for the journey. Moreover, he invited Alfred to move back into the house at Halensee while making his preparations—an offer that Alfred gratefully accepted: he was still pleased to be a son of the house.8
In the next days and weeks, though his head was full of Greenland plans, Alfred’s hands were full of his daily duties at Lindenberg and the preparations for the balloon flight on 4 April. He was pushed to the limit just to manage his multiple roles: government meteorologist, balloon navigator, reserve cadet officer, and now expedition member—all of these had to be played out and resolved officially in a matter of weeks. There was also his own scientific program of research and publication, including the observational and theoretical work on Helmholtz air waves, woefully incomplete but promising—what to do with that project now? Kurt pushed Alfred to write up what he had for publication and promised that, if necessary, he would finish the drafting and editing of the text and see it through the press. Arthur Coym also pressed him to get the work out.9
Alfred had too many tasks to see through to the end with too little time, but the crush of work appealed to his sense of struggle. He liked working long hours, and even the labor of calculation; for him, science was a matter of life, not just of work. That is perhaps not the best way to put it. Rather, work was already his life, and he spoke to others of Die Arbeit (the work) as if it were a cause and a mission, not some job to be got out of the way. He did not much care to drink and socialize and, somewhat like Wagner’s Siegfried, had scarcely ever spoken to a woman to whom he was not related. He had successfully integrated his appetite for physical labor into his science, in a way that was about to accelerate remarkably. His physical amusements and hobbies—including the excitement of balloon flight—were part of his work as well. He was overwhelmed by work, even buried in it, but had never been happier.
Aeronautical Interlude
On 3 April, after three more days at Lindenberg performing the dozens of numbingly routine but essential tasks that keep a meteorological station functioning, and after writing many more letters, Alfred traveled with Kurt back to Berlin to prepare for the balloon flight. They carried in their luggage the balloon’s meteorological instrument package and Alfred’s own balloon theodolite for night navigation, as well as a camera and glass plates.
They arrived at Reinickendorf early on the next morning to discover that their balloon, the 1,200-cubic-meter (42,378-cubic-foot) “Brandenburg,” a lovely golden-black globe made of cotton varnished with linseed oil, had sprung a leak while filling and would have to be repaired. The other available cotton / linseed oil balloon owned by the observatory (the “Meteor,” 850 cubic meters [30,018 cubic feet]) was too small to carry the load and have a chance at the competition, so hurried arrangements were made to borrow one of the army’s 1,200-cubic-meter military balloons. This needed to be unrolled and inspected and could not be made ready until the next morning.10
The substitute military balloon, a mass-produced, tested, completely unexceptional design, was unpacked overnight and, in the early dawn hours of 5 April, filled rapidly and uneventfully with 1,200 cubic meters of hydrogen. The instruments were lifted on board and secured to the basket rim and to the trailing cable: the meteorograph had to be suspended away from the balloon basket if it was to be read properly. The ballast sacks, thirty-eight in all, were slip-knotted to the inside of the balloon basket, with their pull toggles at the level of the basket rail. The provision sack for the flight, containing 0.9 kilograms (2 pounds) of chocolate, four smoked pork chops, 2 liters (0.5 gallons) of seltzer in rechargeable siphon bottles, and two oranges, was gently stowed in a corner.11 Setting their watches by the station chronometer and checking the engagement of the catch on the meteorograph recording drum, they jumped aboard, nattily attired in summer suits and their fedoras, and waited for their scheduled liftoff.
At 9:00 a.m. the balloon took off rapidly and flew northwest. It headed directly for Brandenburg and flew right over the Ruppiner See, just a few kilometers from die Hütte. From there it proceeded on to Wittstock, Richard Wegener’s birthplace and the destination of many childhood visits; Kurt and Alfred were able to photograph it from the air at an altitude of 500 meters (1,640 feet). From there, still heading northwest, the balloon passed over the Plauer See (scene of many boyhood sailing adventures), then on to the Baltic, and then headed straight for Denmark, crossing into Jylland (the larger, northerly peninsular part of Denmark) at about dark. As the wind dropped, it began to drift east, over the Kattegat (between Denmark and Sweden), and to gain altitude, passing 1,000 meters (3,281 feet). With the coming of night and the increase of altitude, the air turned sharply colder, and it was only then that Kurt and Alfred realized that in the midst of their careful preparations they had left their overcoats in Berlin. The air temperature fell below freezing, and soon their shivering made sleep impossible. They moved about to keep warm as much as they could, and Alfred was able to make two position fixes; monitoring the weather instruments also helped to take his mind off the cold.
By morning they were both nearly frozen. In the dry air they had risen to 2,500 meters (8,202 feet) and were drifting slowly back south in slack wind. Not until noon on 6 July did the wind pick up again, and then the balloon began to rise and fall in the convecting air: down to 300 meters (984 feet), up to 1,000 meters, down again. They began to drift away to the west, and at about 8:00 p.m. they passed back over the Danish coast. They had now been in the air for thirty-five hours—and they had been up most of the night previous to the flight, while the balloon was being filled. They were dehydrated, very cold, and very tired. It looked that evening (6 July) as if the balloon was going to head directly west across Jylland to the North Sea, and they knew that once past that coast, it was 500 kilometers (311 miles) of open ocean to England. Consequently, they began to pack the instruments and prepared to set down. Just then, however, the balloon changed course and began to gain altitude and fly south toward Hamburg. It continued on this course through the night, traveling at very low altitudes, sometimes sinking to 100 meters (328 feet); this was hair-raising, as it put them repeatedly within a few seconds of crashing to the ground. At least it was warmer at the lower altitude, and this was fortunate, for they were weakening badly and beginning to cramp in their arms and legs from dehydration and almost forty hours of bracing against the swaying of the basket.
As dawn broke, they passed over Kassel (halfway between Hannover and Frankfurt). They were by then shivering uncontrollably, having been at −16°C (3°F) for three hours or more. They were out of food and water. They decided, exhausted as they were, to make a final push for altitude before ending the flight. Their target altitude was above 5,000 meters (16,404 feet), and they calculated that they could make it in spite of the cold and their rapidly dwindling stamina. However (as Ulrich Wutzke has remarked), this time cold and hunger were stronger than will: they were so weakened that when they tried to drop ballast, neither of them could push a sack over the rim of the balloon basket. They were done, and they drifted to a landing near Aschaffenburg, east of Frankfurt. They sent the following telegram to Aßmann: “Today at one-thirty landed very smoothly at Laufach near Aschaffenburg after 52 hour flight over Aalborg on Jutland [Jylland] around 3000 [meters] minus 16 degrees.”12 They had stayed aloft for fifty-two and a half hours, having broken the world record for time aloft by seventeen hours.13
Their flight was a major event in the early history of aeronautics and was treated as such by newspapers around the world. Everyone involved got a share of the rewards—Aßmann was delighted, as was his principal patron, Kaiser Wilhelm. The German army was pleased that their balloon had accomplished the feat while a civilian balloon had proven unreliable. It was a public delight in Berlin that the record broken by these novice German balloonists had previously been held by the accomplished French aeronaut, the Comte de la Vaulx (1870–1930). It gave Kurt Wegener a tremendous boost in landing the job he desired at Frankfurt, and it gave Alfred something priceless at the moment: widespread name recognition while he was writing letters to numerous officials who had never heard of him, asking them for large and expensive favors. It gave him a distinctive achievement as an explorer before he had even gone anywhere. Alfred and Kurt were the first to recognize that their exploit was in part a lucky accident, especially the grand looping flight path that had allowed a sustained north-south flight. Yet their skill and daring, their parsimonious use of ballast, and their willingness to come dangerously close to the ground had also determined their success, as had their hardiness in the face of physical discomfort and privation. Whatever luck they had enjoyed, they had struggled fiercely to make it work for them.
Hurried Preparations
Returning to Lindenberg on 9 April, still very tired but very pleased with himself, Alfred found a great pile of correspondence—from individuals, firms, and institutions, all quoting prices and asking for further specifications on equipment. On 10 April he wrote to Mylius-Erichsen asking for the right to make the purchases of kites and balloons and instruments without asking for permission each time: “We just don’t have enough time, I believe, for you to place the order personally in each case.”14 This was far from the last time that Mylius-Erichsen’s passion to control everything at all times asserted itself. Passion for control and the micromanagement of affairs are evil twins, especially in leaders (like Mylius-Erichsen) gnawed by an insatiable craving for honor and fame. Such leaders fear that without them something will go wrong, and that they will have to accept responsibility for a failure. Even more, however, they fear that without them something may go right, and that they will have to forego credit for a success.
Time, or the absence of it, was on Wegener’s side in prying some small purchasing authority away from Mylius-Erichsen. Alfred had been conferring with Erich von Drygalski (1865–1949), Germany’s Antarctic hero and a great Greenland explorer as well, to see what of the Gauss Expedition’s equipment (since parted out to German scientific stations) might be reassembled for the Danmark Expedition.
On 15 April, with the application for leave from Lindenberg approved, Alfred packed his clothes and papers and left for Berlin, moving back into his parents’ home at Georg Wilhelmstraße 20. The reprieve from daily scientific duties was an intense relief, freeing him for travel, correspondence, and negotiat
ion. Aßmann remained helpful, interceding two weeks later to arrange the purchase of the hydrogen gas canisters from the military. He was very pleased with his young assistant and slashed paths through bureaucratic formalities that Alfred could never have cut himself.15
Alfred’s plea for assistance aroused the interest and concern of the senior meteorologist at Hamburg, Wladimir Köppen, from whom Alfred had requested the right to purchase some kites, and with whom he had wished to discuss his planned program for Greenland. In May and early June Alfred exchanged several long letters with Köppen, requesting advice and help on getting his kite winch finished, asking him to examine instrument correction curves for error, and asking for samples of Köppen’s field-notebook format for observations—the sorts of things he needed to know but had little time to find out. He wanted to come to Hamburg to talk with Köppen, though he feared that the crush of work would prevent it. Yet he was clearly touched by Köppen’s generosity with time, advice, and materials, and he realized that Köppen had a genuine interest in him and his work, far above and beyond any pro forma professional courtesy or national pride.16
By early June he was almost ready to go. His commission as a lieutenant in the reserves came through in late May, and he now had the essential permission from the military to proceed.17 Friedrich Bidlingsmaier (1875–1914), the young geophysicist who had accompanied Drygalski in the Gauss, helped Wegener to acquire a self-recording declinometer. This iron-free instrument, to be housed in a prefabricated iron-free hut, could record variations in magnetic declination (the horizontal angle between true and magnetic north) through twelve- and twenty-four-hour periods, using photographic recording paper on a clockwork drum.18 Bidlingsmaier also arranged for Wegener to be able to purchase the ice corer that Drygalski had used in Antarctica.19
Alfred Wegener Page 19
