206
H. von Storch, J. S ¨
undermann, and L. Magaard
water exchange between the Baltic and the North Sea which I did then for three years.
We made a lot of measurements in the Fehmarn Belt and elsewhere, with paddle
wheel current meters to study water movements. I analyzed data. Interpretation of
data was always what interested me.
When the three years of the research grant were finished I was looking for a
job. Neither W¨ ust nor B¨ onecke had one for me. A friend of mine, Willi Brogmus,
got a letter from Indonesia asking whether he wanted to come to Indonesia as a
scientist.
May I ask something between before you go to Indonesia? I noticed that you had this
project from German Science Foundation. Who were the reviewers in those days?
There were only very few oceanographers in Germany.
Honestly speaking, I think it was done on the recommendation of W¨ ust. He was the
professor at that time. There were no reviewers. Reviewing was an unknown matter,
also reviewing for journals was not in existence. When a senior professor told a journal
to publish something it was published.
Was that only so in Germany?
I would say that was in France and elsewhere, maybe not in England.
Could you say a few names? What persons worked in oceanography just after the
war at that time?
After the war there was Hansen, at the DHI,
6 Joseph in physical oceanography, there
was of course Dietrich. There was Neumann and Roll at the Institute of Geophysics
at Hamburg. There were some more people. Tomczak, the father. Weidemann was
assistant to W¨ ust.
They mainly worked in the German Hydrographic Institute?
Yes.
We stopped at Willi Brogmus. He declared he would rather go to the North Pole than
into the tropics. So he gave me that letter. I wrote to Indonesia, a few months later I
was on the way to Indonesia. This went all pretty easy. When I arrived in Indonesia,
they were phasing out the Dutch at that time and they were looking for other people.
Since Germany had no colonial attachments we were somewhat welcome in these
countries. In Indonesia I found myself not only the only scientist in the institute,
because all the Dutch had left, but I was also the director of it. I had a research
vessel of about 200 tons, a nice yacht type vessel, the “Samudera”. I made many
voyages with it, with very little instrumentation. We did a few surveys with Nansen
bottles down to a few hundred meters but could not reach the deep sea basins in
Indonesia because of a lack of a long wire, and that restricted us to the surface
layers.
6 Deutsches Hydrographisches Institut = German Hydrographic Institute in Hamburg.
H. von Storch, J. S ¨
undermann, and L. Magaard
water exchange between the Baltic and the North Sea which I did then for three years.
We made a lot of measurements in the Fehmarn Belt and elsewhere, with paddle
wheel current meters to study water movements. I analyzed data. Interpretation of
data was always what interested me.
When the three years of the research grant were finished I was looking for a
job. Neither W¨ ust nor B¨ onecke had one for me. A friend of mine, Willi Brogmus,
got a letter from Indonesia asking whether he wanted to come to Indonesia as a
scientist.
May I ask something between before you go to Indonesia? I noticed that you had this
project from German Science Foundation. Who were the reviewers in those days?
There were only very few oceanographers in Germany.
Honestly speaking, I think it was done on the recommendation of W¨ ust. He was the
professor at that time. There were no reviewers. Reviewing was an unknown matter,
also reviewing for journals was not in existence. When a senior professor told a journal
to publish something it was published.
Was that only so in Germany?
I would say that was in France and elsewhere, maybe not in England.
Could you say a few names? What persons worked in oceanography just after the
war at that time?
After the war there was Hansen, at the DHI,
6 Joseph in physical oceanography, there
was of course Dietrich. There was Neumann and Roll at the Institute of Geophysics
at Hamburg. There were some more people. Tomczak, the father. Weidemann was
assistant to W¨ ust.
They mainly worked in the German Hydrographic Institute?
Yes.
We stopped at Willi Brogmus. He declared he would rather go to the North Pole than
into the tropics. So he gave me that letter. I wrote to Indonesia, a few months later I
was on the way to Indonesia. This went all pretty easy. When I arrived in Indonesia,
they were phasing out the Dutch at that time and they were looking for other people.
Since Germany had no colonial attachments we were somewhat welcome in these
countries. In Indonesia I found myself not only the only scientist in the institute,
because all the Dutch had left, but I was also the director of it. I had a research
vessel of about 200 tons, a nice yacht type vessel, the “Samudera”. I made many
voyages with it, with very little instrumentation. We did a few surveys with Nansen
bottles down to a few hundred meters but could not reach the deep sea basins in
Indonesia because of a lack of a long wire, and that restricted us to the surface
layers.
6 Deutsches Hydrographisches Institut = German Hydrographic Institute in Hamburg.