ARCTICPROHLES / 83 The 1869 / 70 German North Polar Expedition In 1866 the German geographer and cartographer Au-

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Gronland; Norway; Nordpol*; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.694.3175; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic43-1-83.pdf

gust Petermann, enterpriser and promoter of several ex-peditions, to polar regions and to Africa among others, in a so-called "Proclamation to the German Nation " demanded German participation in the exploration of the north polar region (Petermann, 1866). Besides the scientific motivation, Germany wanted to fly the flag on the oceans and overseas in order to establish itself as a great power. In the summer of 1868 the first German North Polar Expe-dition took place under the command of Karl Koldewey and with the ship Gronland, which was bought in Norway. This expedition did not lead to much new scientific knowledge and explored only a few unknown coastal areas in northeast Spitsbergen. Nevertheless navigation experience for sailing in the ice was gained and this provided the basis for a second, more extensive expedition (Venzke, 1988). Emperor Wilhelm I was present on 15 June 1869 when the exploration vessels Gemzania and Hansa, under the command of Captain Koldewey, left Bremerhaven in northern Ger-many. The Gemzania, finished in April, was specially con-structed for the arctic expedition. She was a schooner of 30 m length and 600 tons, with extra strong planks and an auxiliary engine for sailing in the ice. The Hansa, a convoy for the Gemzania, was a smaller schooner without an auxiliary en-gine. Built in 1864, the Hansa had been bought and fortified by the Bremische Comite fiir die zweite Deutsche Nordpolar-fahrt (Committee of Bremen for the Second German Voyage