Max Robitzsch

Vocation

Notable

German meteorological scientist and university professor who invented the "Robitzsch Actinograph", a type of pyranometer, and wrote numerous scientific books and articles. He undertook an expedition into the Scandinavian arctic to research atmospheric phenomena, spending the 1912/1913 winter in Spitsbergen, Norway. His mission, together with Kurt Wegener, brother of Alfred Wegener, was to set up a meteorological observatory for the German Geophysical Observatory, which they did at the Crossbai, Ebeltofthafen (Ebeltofthamna in Norwegian). During the long winter stay, they and two helpers performed 275 pilot balloon soundings, 98 tethered balloon soundings and 19 probe launches with the help of a hang glider. As of 2000, only some archeological remains of the obersvatory could be found. For much of his life (since at least 1917), he worked as a professor at the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg, Brandenburg. During the Cold War, he there undertook numerous extensive radio sounding studies of the atmosphere with weather balloons, reputedly at the behest of the Soviet occupation forces in East Germany. From January to May 1950, he was director of the Meteorologisches Observatorium Lindenberg, before becoming professor at the Geophysical Institute of Leipzig, later subsumed into the University of Leipzig. He died on 10 June 1952 in Brotterode, aged 65. Link to Wikipedia biography