Through his teacher Breusing and encouraged by
August Petermann Koldewey was given the leadership of the first
Arctic expedition as captain of ship
Grönland. He had the choice of either advancing northwards as far as possible along
Greenland's east coast or to reach so-called
Gillis-Land by travelling around
Spitsbergen. But adverse conditions and strong ice floes prevented him from reaching both destinations. Finally he reached his northmost latitude of 81°5' near Spitsbergen and returned. From 1869 to 1870 he was captain of the
Germania and the leader of another expedition to Greenland and to the
Arctic Sea which intended to penetrate into the Arctic central region. It was equipped with the propeller
steamboat Germania and the sailing ship
Hansa under captain
Paul Friedrich Hegemann. Six scientists joined the expedition: astronomers and physicists
Karl Nikolai Jensen Börgen and
Ralph Copeland, zoologist, botanist and physician
Adolf Pansch, and surveyor
Julius von Payer. On the
Hansa travelled physician and zoologist
Reinhold Wilhelm Buchholz and
geologist Gustav Carl Laube. The expedition left
Bremerhaven on 15 June 1869. Already on 20 July both ships were separated. The
Hansa was crushed by the ice on 19 October 1869 and the crew saved itself on an ice floe. Meanwhile, the
Germania reached
Sabine Island on 5 August 1869. From there the task of mapping out of the coast between
73° and
77° northern latitude was undertaken by taking measurements from the ship or using sleighs and whalers. This work was a continuation of
Edward Sabine's 1823 expedition. Trying to reach the
North Pole, the
Germania reached its northernmost latitude 75°30'N on August 14 northeast of
Shannon Island, where they had to return on account of lack of leads in the ice. Payer carried out the mapping of Shannon island while the astronomers took latitude measurements on it. A wintering camp was established at Sabine island from 27 August 1869 to 22 July 1870. Advancing inland using sleighs, the islands and coast of Greenland were mapped. Further investigations were carried out that provide an insight into the magnitude of Greenland's mountains and glaciers. However, the actual highlight and most considerable geographical achievement of the expedition was the discovery and investigation of
Kaiser Franz Joseph Fjord. ==Later work==