Chapter 13
Interview with Klaus
Wyrtki, 25 February
1999
HANS VON STORCH, J ¨
URGEN S ¨
UNDERMANN,
AND LORENZ MAGAARD
I
Dr. Wyrtki, you started your studies in Marburg just after the war and then you continued in Kiel. Could you explain and tell us a little bit about your university studies?
It was after the war in 1945 and I traveled up and down through Western Germany
to find admission at a university. I finally succeeded in Marburg. When I was asked
what to study I chose physics and mathematics because ship building what I intended
to study was no longer being taught in Germany. After a while I got interested in
applications and I read books about meteorology and in doing so I found out that
oceanography existed. I read Defant’s “Dynamische Ozeanographie” and other books.
Eventually I went to my geography professor—I think his name was Schmitthenner—
and asked him where oceanography was taught. He said that there was a famous
institute in Berlin, but that it was bombed out and that most of the people had probably
moved to Kiel. In the summer of 1947 I went up to Kiel to visit the Institut f¨ ur
Meereskunde
1 . When I climbed up to the tower of the villa, Hohenbergstraße 2,
1 Institute of Oceanography.
203
Interview with Klaus
Wyrtki, 25 February
1999
HANS VON STORCH, J ¨
URGEN S ¨
UNDERMANN,
AND LORENZ MAGAARD
I
Dr. Wyrtki, you started your studies in Marburg just after the war and then you continued in Kiel. Could you explain and tell us a little bit about your university studies?
It was after the war in 1945 and I traveled up and down through Western Germany
to find admission at a university. I finally succeeded in Marburg. When I was asked
what to study I chose physics and mathematics because ship building what I intended
to study was no longer being taught in Germany. After a while I got interested in
applications and I read books about meteorology and in doing so I found out that
oceanography existed. I read Defant’s “Dynamische Ozeanographie” and other books.
Eventually I went to my geography professor—I think his name was Schmitthenner—
and asked him where oceanography was taught. He said that there was a famous
institute in Berlin, but that it was bombed out and that most of the people had probably
moved to Kiel. In the summer of 1947 I went up to Kiel to visit the Institut f¨ ur
Meereskunde
1 . When I climbed up to the tower of the villa, Hohenbergstraße 2,
1 Institute of Oceanography.
203