Concept

Research, inventive genius and masterpieces of engineering played an important role in Bremerhaven since it was founded in 1827. Five pioneers from different fields, who are closely linked to Bremerhaven's history and the various institutions around the location of the historic commercial port, are acknowledged on information boards on the Bremerhaven Reserach Mile.

The commercial port is the nucleus of the town of Geestemünde, which originally belonged to the Kingdom of Hanover. It was established in 1849 to compete with the Bremen port of Bremerhaven, with which it was finally united in 1939.

 

Today the newly designed quayside invites to go for a walk along the water's edge.

Protagonists

Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, www.fotomarburg.de
Alfred Wegener
Metternich, Michael Count Wolff (1997). German rocket vehicles on road, rail and ice 1928-1931. Lorch: Hermann E. Sieger GmbH.
Friedrich Wilhelm Sander
Historical Museum Bremerhaven
Johann Friedrich Christian Busse
City Archives, Hameln, Best 602 H No. 34-003
Adolf Buchholz
Historical Museum Bremerhaven
Georg Wilhelm Claussen

Alfred Lothar Wegener

 

Alfred Wegener was born on the 1st November 1880 in Berlin. He studied Science with a major in Astronomy in Berlin and Heidelberg. From 1906 to 1908 he participated in a Danish Greenland expedition. After which he continued his academic career in Marburg. At this time, he developed his theory of continental drift, which did not become universally recognised until the 1960s with the help of findings from deep sea Research. After a second Danish Greenland Expedition in 1912/13, he married Else Köppen, the reputable Meteorologist Wladimir Köppen's daughter. After the First World War, he worked at the German naval observatory in Hamburg as successor to his father-in-law, with whom he worked closely on scientific Topics. In 1924 Wegener became a professor in Graz. From there he planned two other, this time German, Greenland expeditions. The smaller pre-expedition in 1929 was followed by the main expedition in 1930 on which Wegener lost his life in November 1930.

FRIEDRICH WILHELM SANDER

 

Friedrich W. Sander was born on the 25th August 1885 in Glatz (Silesia). After training as a mechanical engineer, he became an engineer. Later he started working for an engineering works in Geestemünde. After he then set up his own business, he worked at the Tecklenborg shipyard for some time before he took over the former workshop of the gunsmith Hermann Gerhard Cordes in 1921. Sander took the cannons which Cordes designed for sea rescue operations and developed these with new technology. He occupied himself intensively with the construction of rockets. This is how he got to know Fritz von Opel, the junior boss of the Opel plants at the time. They worked together on developing vehicles with rocket propulsion.

JOHANN FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN BUSSE

 

Friedrich Busse was born on the 24th May 1835 in in Sibbesse (District of Hildesheim). Initially he trained as a ship's carpenter and then went to sea. Following that, he first became a fishmonger and then a fish wholesaler. He was one of the first people in Germany to take sea fish inland. When in 1885 the growing market could no longer be served reliably, even with fishermen who worked exclusively for him, he ordered the first German Trawler 'Sagitta' (lat. arrow) to be built based on the English model. At the beginning, fishing lines, that were also common in Holland, were used for fishing, however, the following year the ship was equipped with trawls, also based on the English model. Later Busse also ran a smokehouse, a rain oil factory and ice houses among other businesses.

GEORG HEINRICH ADOLF BUCHHOLZ

 

Adolf Buchholz was born on the 13th December 1803 in Hameln. The hydraulic engineer worked in Hameln and Emden, among other places. After the foundations of Bremerhaven, the Kingdom of Hanover, to which the city belonged at the time, wanted to develop the harbour in Geestemünde. Until this point, ships mainly docked directly on the shore of the Geeste. Buchholz had the overall responsability for the planning and construction of the harbour and the associated railway construction. At that time, the railway station was in the Klußmannstraße and the market place in Geestemünde was at what is now the Berliner Platz. The main canal would have separated the main road between the railway station and the market. Therefore, Buchholz planned a swing bridge there, based on the model of the first bridge over the Geeste at Fährstraße. The Geeste bridge no longer exists today as it was replaced by the current bridge in 1904.

GEORG WILHELM CLAUSSEN

 

Georg W. Claussen was born on the 23rd January 1845 in Bremerhaven. After he finished his training to become a ship's carpenter at the Tecklenborg shipyard, he went to live in Scotland for four years. There he became familiar with shipbuilding using iron and steel. After his return to Bremerhaven, he worked as a design engineer at the Tecklenborg shipyard. There he designed several polar research vessels, tankers and cargo steamers, passenger ships and several of the largest cargo sailing ships in the world, including the 'Preussen', the largest five-mast full rigged ship and the longest sailing ship in the world. In the meantime he was promoted to partner and was partly responsible for the change from wooden shipbuilding to the use of iron and steel at the shipyard.

Map

Contact/Directions

Köperstraße/ Borriesstraße
27570 Bremerhaven

Phone.: 0471 94646 923
Email: kiupel@bis-bremerhaven.de

Imprint

BIS Bremerhavener Gesellschaft für Investitionsförderung und Stadtentwicklung mbH
(Bremerhaven Economic Development Company)
Am Alten Hafen 118
27568 Bremerhaven 

Phone: +49 471 94646610
Fax: +49 471 94646690
mail@bis-bremerhaven.de

Bremerhavener Gesellschaft für Investitionsförderung und Stadtentwicklung mbH is based in Bremerhaven and is registered in the Commercial Register of Bremen under HRB, No. 2514 BHV.
The Managing Director is Dipl.-Ing. Nils Schnorrenberger.
VAT identification number: DE 173584721

Responsible for content according to German media law: Uwe Kiupel (Phone: +49 471 94646 330)
kiupel@bis-bremerhaven.de

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