"Ursache der Entlassung war: Verlust des Schiffes": Gedanken auf einer Reise im Ostgrönlandstrom

Abstract

ln 1879, one of the two ships participating in the second German polar expedition, the HANSA, was encircled by ice off the eastern coast of Greenland and lost. For the crew a dramatic journey by ice flow and boat began; over 200 days passed before they finally reached a missionary station of the Herrnhuter order in South Greenland. The captain and the two officers of this adventurous expedition wrote diaries which have survived the times (one of them in the German Maritime Museum) and were published in 1997 by Reinhard A. Krause under the title 'Zweihundert Tage im Packeis', Volume 46 of the series 'Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums'. During a voyage through the same waters on board the fisheries research vessel WALTER HERWIG III, the biologist Gerd Wegner read the records kept by the men of the HANSA and drew comparisons between the challenges that faced them and present-day maritime Operations. Our awareness and appreciation of the deeds accomplished by the HANSA seamen nearly 130 years ago are thus further heightened.