On first looking into Loewe’s papers Michael Piggott

In an obituary for the June 1974 issue of The University Gazette, ‘D.J.’ noted that Fritz Loewe ‘founded this University’s department of Meteor- ology’ and for 25 years he ‘helped train many present well-known Australian meteorologists, conducted research into both glaciology and meteorology (he was a co-discoverer of the Southern Tropical Jet Stream), and achieved international recog- nition for the department.’1 What follows aims to profile one of our most important collections and the man behind that obituary’s masterly summary. Who was Loewe; what is in his collection; why is it significant; and what is its contem- porary relevance? Finally, I want to share some reflections, if not a Keatsean sonnet, prompted by looking systematically into the 70 or so boxes of the Loewe collection in the Archives. Life If the name Fritz Loewe2 is recognised at all (and not confused with the composer of Broadway fame), most likely it would be because of . In particular, for his part in a famous and tragic expedition crossing western Greenland in 1930– 1931, and to a lesser degree for his before and after involvements there,

18 University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 3, December 2008 Johannes Georgi, Photograph of Ernst Sorge and Fritz Loewe in their ice cave at Eismitte station in Greenland, Christmas 1930, photographic print, 16.7 x 11.0 cm. UMA 88/160 (oversized items), Loewe Collection, University of Melbourne Archives.

In Greenland journey (p. 195; see note 4), Sorge, a Berlin secondary school teacher and Eismitte’s glaciologist, describes this minus 10°C scene as follows: ‘Christmas was celebrated in simple fashion but with sincere feeling. A box was set up beside Loewe’s bunk and three candles set on it served for Christmas illuminations, while cheerful colour was provided by artificial flowers and two- coloured prints and boxes of sweets, confectionery and fruit. We gave out Christmas letters from our people, gave each other presents of small books and read aloud.’ The sleeping bag under Loewe is also in the University of Melbourne Archives. the ‘practice run’ in 1929–1930 and as senior lecturer in meteorology, to the of considerable variety including adviser in 1932 to the movie based on University of Melbourne’s prints, negatives and 35mm slides; the previous expedition, S.O.S. Eisberg Department of Natural Philosophy. diaries and notebooks; research data, starring Leni Riefenstahl.3 This was Even during his tenure there, until his again of considerable variety; personal based on the real life story of the retirement in 1960 he was often on documents and certificates; printed 1930–1931 expedition which was led the move. For example there were and near print material including by Alfred Wegener, the German three expeditions to , two offprints, theses, tourist brochures, meteorologist whose exploration and representing on French maps, newspapers and newsletters; research ‘launched a revolution in the research trips, and a UNESCO and a small number of objects. earth sciences’ including development sponsored consultancy to Pakistan’s The correspondence, easily of continental drift theory,4 and meteorological service. After so-called numbering several thousand letters whom Loewe temporarily replaced as retirement, there were several more and many in German, covers a leader after he perished. Loewe was visits to Greenland, further research number of subjects impossible to list the expedition’s meteorologist, an papers, and a long association as a here. Broadly however it is divided expertise which belied a classical and visiting professorial fellow with the between scholarly associations and legal education and formal Institute for Polar Studies at Ohio the private sphere, the former qualifications in physical education, State University. revealing the span of Loewe’s geography and physics (the basis of academic and scholarly networks. His his Doctor of Philosophy awarded in The collection correspondents included many of the 1923). The features of those The Fritz Loewe collection in the world’s leading scientists and research Greenland involvements—strenuous University of Melbourne Archives institutes specialising in glaciology, physical and often dangerous comprises seven accessions, the meteorology, geography and polar engagement to collect scientific data transfer of the most important nego- studies. Most, in the collection at for subsequent scholarly reports—had tiated by the Archives with Loewe’s least, were received after his already been evident in expeditions family in the decade following his Melbourne appointment in the late and travels in the 1920s in the death in 1974. Collectively the 1930s until well into the 1960s. Atlantic, central Anatolia and Iran. accessions include all the formats They feature long sequences with After the early 1930s, Fritz traditionally found in the papers of a colleagues who became life-long Loewe’s life (as well as those of his prominent academic in an era before friends, including Alfred’s brother wife and two young daughters) was email, excel spreadsheets and digital Kurt Wegener, and the German dislocated, beginning with dismissal cameras. They include letters, meteorologist Johannes Georgi, a as a Jew from the German postcards, cablegrams and aerograms, fellow member of both the 1929 and Meteorological Service, employment and a few copies of replies; hand- 1930–1931 Greenland expeditions with the Scott Polar Research written and typed drafts of verse, and with whom he shared an ice cave Institute, Cambridge, and articles and lectures, some with glass at the Eismitte station. It was while appointment in 1937, initially as a slides to illustrate them; photography there that Georgi, without anaesthetic

University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 3, December 2008 19 Loewe in the observer’s seat about to take off in an open, metal-clad, vintage Junkers monoplane, 1926, photographic print, 11.8 x 16.4 cm. UMA 88/160, box 70, Loewe Collection, University of Melbourne Archives.

Between 1925 and 1928, as scientific leader of the air division of the Prussian Aeronautical Observatory, Loewe made more than 500 research flights to over 20,000 feet, studying atmospheric conditions but also supporting the Meteorological Bureau in supplying forecasts for air traffic.

and using only a pocket-knife and championing of particular Jewish in the German army, and for which tinsnips, amputated nine of Loewe’s refugee cases during and after World he received the Iron Cross First Class; badly frostbitten toes to prevent War II. and his suffering of dismissal and gangrene.5 Among Loewe’s The collection has dozens of small internment as a German Jew in the Australian correspondents are such gems for the diligent researcher, each mid-1930s. Based purely on the renowned names as Sir in its way as remarkable as the many German component of the collection, and Dr Phillip sidelights of Fritz Loewe’s life. Thus in 2006 the Alfred Wegener Institute Law; his colleague (then successor) in there is correspondence with Dr Fritz for Polar and Marine Research the Department of Meteorology and Wagner, a meteorologist with the (Bremerhaven, ) assessed the coincidentally one of the ‘Dunera armed merchant cruiser Kormoran collection as an ‘immense inheritance’ Boys’, Dr Uwe Radok; and the so- which sank HMAS in 1941. and ‘of outstanding significance, in a called ‘father of long-range weather Wagner was subsequently interned at general historical (political, social, forecasting in Australia’, Inigo Jones. Tatura Detention Centre and Loewe cultural) as well as in a scientific- Born into a Jewish legal family in arranged with him to conduct technical sense (evolution of Berlin in 1895, Loewe’s childhood weather research of value to local fruit meteorology and polar research)’.7 and education are well covered in the growers. Another correspondent from Loewe’s Australian associations collection through photographs, Tatura, Dr Radok, was to become on equally tie him to major historical certificates and printed material, release his technical assistant and developments, including his while his private life is revealed eventually successor as head in the recruitment to Melbourne as a essentially through family letters, Meteorology Department. Thirdly, Carnegie Fellow by the then new spread over many decades and quite there are papers about Loewe’s Vice-Chancellor numerous given that he was often measurement work as an official ‘wind to found the Department of separated from his kin for long steward’ at the 1956 Olympic Games Meteorology, as well as his direct periods. They provide a view of those in Melbourne.6 involvements in policy politics personal relationships which often go regarding the funding and research unrecorded because the parties are Significance roles of the Council for Scientific and living or working together and have The importance of the Loewe Industrial Research, the Bureau of no need to write to each other, collection rests firstly on the depth to Meteorology, various Commonwealth particularly with his wife Else and which it documents his astonishing government departments and the mother Hedwig. One can also life and career and associations. Australian National Antarctic glimpse instances of his religious Central to these is the polar Research Expeditions in its early beliefs in action as a liberal Jew involvements already mentioned and years. through correspondence with Rabbi for which he received the highest Secondly, the collection’s subject Dr Herman Sanger of Melbourne’s British and German honours, the matter, fundamentally, is about what Temple Beth Israel, in letters to the Polar Medal and is one of today’s defining and critical Melbourne Jewish press, and in his Medal; his World War I experiences issues, climate change. Loewe’s life’s

20 University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 3, December 2008 Australian Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, donor’s certificate, 1941–1952, 25.5 x 20.2 cm. UMA 88/160, box 67, Loewe Collection, University of Melbourne Archives.

work was focussed on weather and to Melbourne—Vice-Chancellor Loewe’s life and times,10 and there climate, and on understanding the Raymond Priestley and Chancellor are several articles dedicated to the record of past changes locked beneath Sir James Barrett—as well as the subject,11 none comprises a full the ice sheets and finding patterns in official archives of the University’s account of his life and work. I would the endlessly changing spheres far Council, central administration, commend as most worthy causes the above them. Its key moment was Meteorology Department and Faculty man’s biography, and just as import- Wegener’s Greenland expedition and of Science. Elsewhere in Australia, ant, support for comprehensive listing its search for answers about the depth there are for example relevant files in of the collection on which it would of the ice, and its climate and weather. the National Archives of Australia depend. The collection, including its hard- and the Mawson collections of the won research data, is thus part of a University of Adelaide, while Loewe Reflections critical area of the history of science.8 is strongly represented in the In his article on Loewe in the renowned collections of the Alfred Australian dictionary of biography, Using the collection and a Wegener Institute for Polar and Mark Richmond wrote, ‘“Most plea for biography Marine Research. Most importantly, learned, tolerant, and kindly”, Loewe Scholars approaching the Loewe the Institute holds the original of his was tall, with a domed forehead, Collection would face a number of 1930–1931 Greenland diary, while prominent teeth and a goatee, and challenges. It is not completely under the University of Melbourne Archives recognizable in later life by his physical and intellectual control. In recently received a transcription.9 awkward gait.’12 A contemporary addition, many documents, including Loewe was one of a group of at the University, the geographer lectures and letters, are handwritten, immigrant men and women who Arthur Wilcock, lamented ‘that not always legible, and over half in joined the University pre- and post- undergraduates from other Depart- German, some in the older Fraktur war—think of Walter Boas, Fritz ments, absently noting the tall and lettering. Nevertheless, those who Duras, Sophie Ducker, Leonhard somehow unmistakably German bring to them appropriate language Adam, Erich Heymann and Frank figure, with head thrust forward and a skills and deep contextual knowledge Knopfelmacher—whose life stories, clumping heavy-booted walk, never of 20th century European and genuinely fascinating and revealing got to know the story of the man’.13 Australian history, culture, education, well beyond the life of the mind, From even a limited acquaintance exploration and science will be amply mostly await full biographies. Loewe with Loewe via his papers, one can rewarded. was also one of Australia’s most not help liking and deeply admiring A biographer facing the collection eminent among the ‘freemasonry of him, untroubled as he was by the would be particularly blessed, the frozen’, yet few could name even standard dichotomies of science and additionally so because the University Dr Phillip Law, Sir Douglas Mawson religion, C.P.Snow’s two cultures, and of Melbourne Archives holds and just maybe Sir . career and retirement. Typically, he complementary material of the key While a number of books died in his mid-seventies returning people behind Loewe’s appointment acknowledge particular aspects of home from research at his old

University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 3, December 2008 21 Detail from Loewe’s handwritten meteorological data ANARE, from exercise book, 1950–1952, 25.5 x 20.2 x 10.3 cm. UMA 88/160, box 66, Loewe Collection, University of Melbourne Archives.

Loewe was the official Australian observer with two French expeditions of the Commandant Charcot to Port Martin in Adelie Land, Antarctica.

Earth Sciences, in his honour. Loewe regarded the world from a richly educated European perspective. The opening paragraphs of his scientific papers often demonstrate a very broad historical knowledge. He loved mountaineering, skiing and flying; he spoke German, English, French and Danish (and could read Italian, Norwegian and Swedish);15 he wrote poetry … and he was a meteorologist! Thus his valedictory reflections of November 1960 are especially interesting,16 and of added interest in light of the University’s new ‘Melbourne model’ curriculum. Loewe points to the mixed benefits of democratisation of higher education, laments the narrowing of his discipline (especially the widening gap between meteorology and geography) and the decline in the number of scientists volunteering for expeditions, and feels that something has been lost as less and less scientific measurement is done by direct human department where he was working on Collins Street (where Antarctic involvement. His address reads now two scientific papers. It is hard to Division used to be) and watching as a wonderful ‘grumpy old man’ imagine he had an enemy; in the Dr. Loewe chaining his battered and summary of the state of his discipline, Archives’ own files is a lovely 1992 squeaking old bicycle to a lamppost which begins by acknowledging, letter of thanks from a researcher to near the Athaeneum. He was a ‘Meteorology is today forging ahead the University Archivist Frank regular visitor to the Division way with enormous strides’ and ends 15 Strahan which ended, ‘As an aside, back when.’14 In 1976 the University pages later, typically, by quoting I remember with some fondness named a lecture theatre, located in the Goethe’s Faust. At one moment he looking out the window of 187 McCoy Building in the School of describes his own secondary and

22 University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 3, December 2008 higher education experience, simul- devoted to Riefenstahl, including this film, and Andrew Revkin, ‘Scientists to get down to a vast literature, one of the most recent being bedrock of Greenland ice’, The Age, 9 January taneously illustrating the depth-and- Steven Bach, Leni: The life and work of Leni 2008, p. 9. breadth logic of the University’s new Riefenstahl, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. 9 UMA 107/52, Loewe Collection, UMA. curriculum. ‘My school years’, he says, 4 John D. Cox, Climate crash: Abrupt climate 10 See for example Roger McCoy, Ending in ice: change and what it means to our future, The revolutionary idea and tragic expedition of Washington: Joseph Henry Press, 2005, p. 5. Alfred Wegener, Oxford: Oxford University gave me access to the roots from Loewe’s huge regard for Wegener is evident in Press, 2006; Tim Bowden, The silence calling: which most of the branches and his contribution to Else Wegener and Fritz Australians in Antarctica 1947–97, St Leonards, Loewe (eds.), Greenland journey: The story of NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1997; David Day, The flowers of our society and our Wegener’s German expedition to Greenland in weather watchers: 100 years of the Bureau of culture spring, and this feeling 1930–31 as told by members of the expedition and Meteorology, Melbourne: Melbourne University of ‘rootedness’ has given me the leader’s diary, Winifred M. Deans, Publishing, 2007; and Barbara Falk, Caught in translator, London and Glasgow: Blackie & a snare: Hitler’s refugee academics, 1933–1949, throughout my life much Son, 1939, and his ‘Alfred Wegener: His life Melbourne: University of Melbourne, History personal satisfaction however and work’, Australian Meteorological Magazine, Department, 1998. little my work in meteorology vol. 18, no. 4, December 1970, pp. 177–190. 11 As well as a number of obituaries and studies The expedition is covered in the main Loewe of Loewe’s career in German, the English may have profited from it. Collection, at the University of Melbourne language items include A.A. Wilcock, ‘Fritz It is this wider outlook which Archives (UMA), accession 88/160, through Loewe 1895–1974,’ Australian Geographer, vol. European schools tried to give newspaper and magazine accounts, 13, no. 5, May 1977, pp. 306–310; Mark photographs, correspondence, 1940s–1960s. Richmond, ‘Loewe, Fritz Philipp (1895– which we find lacking in the See especially boxes 45–47. 1974)’, Australian dictionary of biography, vol. majority of our university 5 Wegener and Loewe (eds), Greenland journey, 15, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, students. pp. 176, 183–184. 2000, pp. 113–114; Peter Schwerdtfeger, ‘Fritz 6 Much of Radok and Loewe’s correspondence, Loewe: 1895–1974’, Journal of Glaciology, vol. including letters about Tatura and the 14, no. 70, 1975, pp. 191–193; Peter Pockley, Michael Piggott recently retired from his roles Olympics, is complemented in Radok’s history ‘Snapshot: Fritz Loewe’, Australasian Science, as Manager, Cultural Collections Group and UNIMET: The Meteorology Department in the vol. 20, no. 1, January/February 1999, p. 46; University Archivist at the University of University of Melbourne 1937–1990, and [author not named], ‘Obituary Fritz Melbourne. Before joining the University in 1998 Melbourne: Meteorology Section, School of Loewe’, Australian Meteorological Magazine, he worked in Canberra in a variety of positions at Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, vol. 22, no. 1, March 1974, pp. 21–23. the National Library of Australia, the Australian 1993. Copy in Special Collections, Baillieu 12 Richmond, ‘Loewe, Fritz Philipp (1895– War Memorial and the National Archives of Library, University of Melbourne. 1974)’. Australia. 7 Dr Reinhard Krause, letter to the University of 13 Wilcock, ‘Fritz Loewe 1895–1974’, p. 108. Melbourne Archives, 4 October 2006. Copy in 14 Elizabeth Chipman, letter to Frank Strahan, Loewe file 2007/106, UMA. 30 April 1992. Copy in Loewe file, 8 For the historical context of Wegener’s ideas, Individuals/Alphabetical series, 1990–, UMA. see H.E. LeGrand, Drifting continents and 15 The languages are listed in one of Loewe’s few Notes shifting theories, Cambridge: Cambridge extant autobiographical pieces, covering his life University Press, 1988. The continuing to the late 1930s. See [Biographical sketch], 1 ‘D.J.’, ‘Obituary. Dr Fritz Loewe (1895–1974)’, relevance of Wegener and Loewe’s work in four-page foolscap typescript, n.d. [late 1940s]. The University Gazette, vol. 30, no. 2, June Greenland was perfectly illustrated during the UMA 88/160, box 67, Loewe Collection, 1974, p. 11. preparation of this article by the announce- UMA. 2 Loewe (sometimes spelt ‘Löwe’) pronounced ment of the Council’s decision to 16 Fritz Loewe, Meteorology in retrospect. Address his name ‘ler-va’. Löwe is the German word commission a report on Greenland’s to the Meteorological Colloquium, 24th November, for lion. environmental trends, to be completed before 1960, typescript, 15 pages, copy in accession 3 Inevitably there are now many websites the 2009 climate treaty talks in Denmark. See 88/160, box 32, Loewe Collection, UMA.

University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 3, December 2008 23