People interested in the history of ocean exploration, the history of Earth science and German scientific activity between the World Wars will find this volume to be an intriguing read. Much of the book has been taken from the original cruise report written by Captain Fritz Spiess (1933). In addition, his role has been expanded to demonstrate his essential contribution to the creation of the expedition, its execution and the dissemination of its results upon completion. The present text comments on the captain’s life before and after the expedition.
In 1934 Fritz Spiess started his second carrier as President of the German Marine Observatory (Deutsche Seewarte) in Hamburg. A great number of so far unpublished documents demonstrate Spiess’s ability to run his dignified agency in the turbulent times of Nazi Germany without becoming a Nazi himself.
Readers will learn how this first ocean expedition, dedicated to the study of the physics a whole ocean basin, helped to provide the background for modern physical oceanography.
W. J. Emery is a Physical Oceanographer and an Emeritus Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado.
Walter Zenk is a retired Physical Oceanographer from the former Institut für Meereskunde at the Christian-Albrecht’s-