Alfred Wegener: Difference between revisions -

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Born in 1843, Richard Wegener was ninth of the eleven children of Friedrich Wilhelm Wegener, an owner of a military uniform factory in Wittstock, in the northwest corner of Brandenburg, about 90 kilometers from Berlin. Richard realized his father's ambition to study theology and become an evangelican clergymen. After his seminary study and ordination in 1868, he spent a year as an assistant pastor to parish in Kolmar, Posen -- the Prussian province centered on the historic Polish city of Poznan. Carefully saving his annual salary and his Christmas bonus, he returned to Wittstock and asked Anna Schwarz to marry him. Anna was herself an orphan, born in the tiny hamlet of Zechlinerhutte and raised by relatives in nearby Wittstock. She and Richard had met as students.

~~For the next five years, Richard supported himself and his wife on the salary of an assistant pastor. Later,~~ Richard studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew and earned a PhD from the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1873. In that same year, Richard and Anna took over the Schindler Orphanage<ref>The Schindler Orphanage (''Schindlersches Waisenhaus''), a privately endowed orphanage for sons of clergy, teachers, civil servants, landowners and merchants. It was all but indistinguishable from a small, upper-class boarding school. The orphans were, after all, upper-class sons of professional and well-to-do landed families. The mission of the institution was to see that these boys should not lose their hereditary educational and social advantages by a mischance of fate. The orphans, after completing their primary schooling within the walls of the Schindler Orphanage, went on to the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, one of Berlin's oldest (1574) and most prestigious secondary schools. That is, those capable of meeting its standards did some. Meanwhile, those who had fared somewhat less well in primary school went on to a Realgymnasium, a six-year course with less emphasis on classics. Finally, those with no discernible academic ability were apprenticed out to craftsmen and left the orphanage altogether.</ref>. Richard began his parallel career teaching Greek and Latin at the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, the illustrious secondary school that the older orphans attended along with the children of Berlin's cultural elite. Richard also fed his other interest and commitments by teaching German literature at a nearby Mädchenschule (girl's school) and holding a chaplaincy at the criminal court in the nearby neighborhood of Moabit.

Richard studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew and earned a PhD from the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1873. In that same year, Richard and Anna took over the Schindler Orphanage<ref>The Schindler Orphanage (''Schindlersches Waisenhaus''), a privately endowed orphanage for sons of clergy, teachers, civil servants, landowners and merchants. It was all but indistinguishable from a small, upper-class boarding school. The orphans were, after all, upper-class sons of professional and well-to-do landed families. The mission of the institution was to see that these boys should not lose their hereditary educational and social advantages by a mischance of fate. The orphans, after completing their primary schooling within the walls of the Schindler Orphanage, went on to the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, one of Berlin's oldest (1574) and most prestigious secondary schools. That is, those capable of meeting its standards did some. Meanwhile, those who had fared somewhat less well in primary school went on to a Realgymnasium, a six-year course with less emphasis on classics. Finally, those with no discernible academic ability were apprenticed out to craftsmen and left the orphanage altogether.</ref>. Richard began his parallel career teaching Greek and Latin at the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, the illustrious secondary school that the older orphans attended along with the children of Berlin's cultural elite. Richard also fed his other interest and commitments by teaching German literature at a nearby Mädchenschule (girl's school) and holding a chaplaincy at the criminal court in the nearby neighborhood of Moabit.

Later, Alfred Lothar Wegener was born in Berlin, 1 November 1880. Alfred was the fifth and youngest child of Richard Wegener and Anna Schwarz. His birthplace was a converted Austrian embassy at 57 Friedrichsgracht, a scant few blocks from the Imperial Palace, facing the Spree Canal, on the southeastern side of the island. This structure was home to Schindler Orphanage. The spacious interior of the building was more than adequate to house the Wegener family, the thirty or so orphans in their charge, Richard Wegener's assistants in the teaching and daily supervision of the orphans, and the resident domestics under the direction of Anna Wegener.

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This place, "die Hütte" as Alfred and the other children called it ,was the family home ever after. It was their vacation and summer residence until about 1910 and afterward the year-round retirement home of the parents. When the Wegeners set out for "die Hütte", they traveled out of Berlin by train through industrial sububs with their smoke-belching stacks and furnaces, out into the surrounding farmlands as far as Gransee, 60 kilometers north of Berlin. From Gransee, the parents proceeded through country lanes with the baggage wagon, while the children hiked the final 20 kilometers from the Gransee Station to Zechlinerhütte through the Menzer Forest, passing only scattered farms and lakes and the minuscule hamlet of Menz on the way.

The children loved the succession of stages in the journey. To leave the bustling train station in Berlin with a mountain of luggage and provisions, to disembark two hours later at the village already "at the end of the line" and from there just to walk away out of the town, and keep walking until the road diminished into a sandy cart track with a grassy median and disappeared into the depth of the Menzer Forest. This great wooded tract, completely cut over in the 18th century to feed the glassworks, had sprung back with the dense character of second-growth evergreen forest.

== Note ==