Kurt Wegener

Kurt Wegener ( born April 3, 1878 in Berlin, † February 29, 1964 in Munich) was a German polar explorer and meteorologist.

He came from a family theologian. After studying natural sciences in Innsbruck, Kiel and Berlin, he was, as later, his younger brother Alfred, assistant at the Royal Prussian Aeronautical Observatory Lindenberg near Berlin. The two brothers wanted to conduct polar research.

1904 to 1907, he explored the atmosphere by balloon rides. From 5 to 7 April 1906 he undertook with his brother 52stündigen a world record of sustained flight in a free balloon. After that, he was head of the Samoa Observatory and the Geophysical Observatory 1912-1913 Ebeltofthafen on Spitsbergen. Then he was at the Central Meteorological Station of Alsace- Lorraine in Strasbourg. In 1919 he became head of department at the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg. In 1922 he settled in Berlin put where him as an enthusiastic pilot, from the local weather service was offered to the implementation of the first meteorological flights of fancy. After that, he spent several years in South America.

1930/31 he was appointed as a meteorological consultant to the Central Office for weather flight to the Ministry of Transport.

In Greenland, he led the 1931 expedition of his brother after his death in November 1930 to end and then took over his professorship at the University of Graz.

After his retirement he took radiation measurements in South America. He spent his final years at his sister Else in Munich.

Works

• The Theory of Flight, R. Oldenbourg, München 1923
• Scientific Results of the German Greenland Expedition of Alfred Wegener; 7 volumes
• The physics of the earth. An Introduction to understandable representation, Barth, Leipzig 1934
• The basics of gliding, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig 1935