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Geodetic Grids in Authoritative Maps – New Findings About the Origin of the UTM Grid

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Geodetic Grids in Authoritative Maps – New Findings About the Origin of the UTM Grid Cartography and Geographic Information Science ISSN: 1523-0406 (Print) 1545-0465 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tcag20 Geodetic grids in authoritative maps – new findings about the origin of the UTM Grid Manfred F. Buchroithner & René Pfahlbusch To cite this article: Manfred F. Buchroithner & René Pfahlbusch (2016): Geodetic grids in authoritative maps – new findings about the origin of the UTM Grid, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2015.1128851 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2015.1128851 Published online: 12 Jan 2016. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tcag20 Download by: [SLUB Dresden] Date: 12 January 2016, At: 10:35 CARTOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SCIENCE, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2015.1128851 REVIEW Geodetic grids in authoritative maps – new findings about the origin of the UTM Grid Manfred F. Buchroithnera and René Pfahlbuschb aInstitute for Cartography, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany; bBonn, Germany ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Recent discoveries of Wehrmacht Maps in the Military Archive of the Federal Archive of Germany Received 14 May 2015 in Freiburg im Breisgau raised the motivation for further investigations into the history of the Accepted 3 December 2015 internationally employed Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection which actually repre- KEYWORDS – sents a prerequisite for the global use of Global Positioning System (GPS) and thus of any type UTM projection; geodetic of navigation – instruments. In contrast to the frequently stated opinion that this map projection grid; Wehrmacht Maps; was first operationally used by U.S. Americans it turned out that presumably the first operational reference grid; map history maps with indication of the orthogonal UTM grid were produced by German Wehrmacht officers prior to the post World War (WW) II triumph of this projection. Based on the authors´ recent discoveries this article reveals some hitherto hardly known facts concerning the history of cartography of the 1940s. Introduction those into their authoritative topographic map series. In addition to the previously used “Gauss–Krüger Grid”,the Recent discoveries of Wehrmacht Orthophoto Maps in map series had a “UTM Grid”. Based on this act, the German Federal Archive motivated the authors of Germany has, after a gap beginning in 1942, again a this article to investigate into the origin of the Universal joint coordinate system for both civilian and military Transverse Mercator (UTM) Projection (cf. Section purposes. “The findings in the German Federal Archive”). Until today, apart from various Internet links by Neither the seminal textbooks by John Snyder and Lev serious organizations/authors (cf. Section Bugayevskiy (Snyder 1982, 1993; Bugayevskiy and “Development until the beginning of World War II” Snyder 1995) nor the recent U.S. American monographs of this article), many papers dealing with the develop- about datums and map projections by Carnes (2007) ment of the UTM Coordinate System have been pub- and Iliffe and Lott (2008) give any indications about lished (i.a. Snyder 1993; Yang, Snyder, and Tobler the early history of development of the UTM projection. 1999; Kennedy and Kopp 2001; Spata 2011; During the investigations it turned out that this infor- Downloaded by [SLUB Dresden] at 10:35 12 January 2016 Hofmann-Wellenhof, Lichtenegger, and Collins 2001). mation was even missing in the German cartographic All of them claim that this is a U.S. American devel- literature (cf. Heriszt 2001; Linke 2011). opment which, by the end of World War (WW) II, In 2017, a rather important event in German author- arrived in Europe and, hence, also in Germany. The itative cartography1 celebrates its 100th anniversary: the recent discoveries in the Federal Archive of Germany, “Treaty of Budapest” between the Second German Section Military Archive, in Freiburg im Breisgau pre- Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy regarding sent this history in a different light. In this article, they the introduction of a uniform coordinate grid in topo- will be described in some more detail. graphic maps issued by authorities (Mang 1988). Since then, over a period of some 80 years, planar orthogonal coordinate systems were developed for both civilian and Historical development until WW I military applications. In June 1997 the The military topographic survey of the 19th and 20th “Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Vermessungsverwaltungen centuries was based on angular surveys of triangula- (AdV) der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” tions with the calculation of geographic coordinates of (Consortium of the Surveying and Mapping Authorities the geodetic data or control points on a mathematically of the Federal Republic of Germany) decided to integrate CONTACT Manfred F. Buchroithner [email protected] © 2016 Cartography and Geographic Information Society 2 M. F. BUCHROITHNER AND R. PFAHLBUSCH constructed Earth body (ellipsoid). It resulted in the trigonometric nets and the data. The coordinates detailed-scale topographic map series. These maps, generated this way were called “Schreiber however, did (mostly) not yet display orientation Coordinates”, named after the initiator of this calcu- grids, and if, then only regionally. They were designed lation method, Oskar Schreiber (1829–1905) (Mielert in different map projections: Prussia, the small North- 1981). Geometric basis were the earth dimensions German countries and Saxony had ordnance maps at a derived from numerous arc measurements carried scale of 1:25,000 in polyedric projection, while Baden out between 1735 and 1834 by Friedrich Wilhelm had a 1:25,000 topographic map series in polyedric Bessel (1784–1846) which he published in 1841 and projection, Hessen had an elevation contour map a which later found international use under the name scale of 1:25,000 in Cassini Cylindrical Projection, the “Bessel Ellipsoid”. In order to reduce the distortions first Kingdom and then Free State of Bavaria a 1:5,000 in the Gauss Projection which increased in the cadastral survey in Soldner Projection, and West–East direction with increasing distance from Wuerttemberg had a “Höhenflurkarte” (topographic the tangent meridian, the German Professor land-register map) at a scale of 1:2,500 in Cassini Wilhelm Jordan (1842 –1899) suggested to limit the Cylindrical Projection (cf. Deetz and Adams 1921). Schreiber Coordinates of the Gauss Projection to They served as basis for the derivation of a number “konforme Koordinaten bis auf 200 km rechts und of map series of smaller scales which were published links vom Meridian mit den gewöhnlichen Formeln without any grid. Due to the development of modern für ebene rechtwinkelige Koordinaten” (conformal weapon systems, which permitted the abatement of coordinates limited to 200 km to the right and left targets over large distances, the military needed a of the meridian, using the common formulas for means to quickly determine the exact position of tar- planar orthogonal coordinates). gets on topographic maps. In 1909, surveyor Heinrich Böhler (no lifetime Since the modern topographic land surveys have information retrievable in available literature, cf. been carried out according to rigid mathematical meth- Hafeneder 2008) drew upon this idea when introducing ods, as of the beginning of the nineteenth century a 3°-wide meridian strip system for the surveying of planar coordinate systems and projections evolved farm land in Deutsch-Südwestafrika (German South– (primarily) for the cadastral survey, which were West Africa). Also Louis Krüger (1857–1923) who, in adopted and modified for the purposes of topographic his 1912 publication “Konforme Abbildung des survey and map production. The map projection which Erdellipsoids in der Ebene” (Conformal Projection of was for the first time developed and applied by the Earth Ellipsoid into the Plane) proposed so-called Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) for his large world “Meridionalstreifen” (meridian strip) for the surveying map entitled “Nova et aucta orbis terrae descriptio ad of larger regions, adopted Jordan’s idea. In honor of his usum navigantium” displays the earth in the form of a development the new projection was named “Gauss– cylinder in polar-axial vertical position, i.e. parallel to Krüger Projection”. After 1912 the Prussian Survey the equator, where the projective cylinder touches the introduced his projection for the triangulation in “ ” Downloaded by [SLUB Dresden] at 10:35 12 January 2016 equator. Mercator Projection , however, greatly German East Africa. enlarges regions which are far from the equator. Hence, Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) pro- posed a country-specific transversal axis of the cylin- From Budapest 1917 via Kassel 1923 to der, i.e. transverse to the poles and oriented along a Moscow 1930 meridian, whereby the projective cylinder touches this meridian (tangent meridian). The Frenchman Adrien During the position warfare of WW I topographic Germain (1866, 347) called this Lambertian Projection maps with indicated uniform coordinate grids gained for the first time “Transverse Mercator Projection”. enormous importance. This caused the meeting of This term was then picked up by Carl Friedrich representatives of the “Oberste Militärische Gauss (1777–1855) and also for the first time practi- Vermessungsstelle
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