Herbert Schröder-Stranz (9 June 1884 – 15 August 1912) was a German officer and

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

polar region The polar regions, also called the frigid zones or polar zones, of Earth are Earth's polar ice caps, the regions of the planet that surround its geographical poles (the North and South Poles), lying within the polar circles. These high latitu ...

s. He led the German Arctic Expedition of 1912.

Biography

Schröder-Stranz was born at his family estate at Stranz,

West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and from 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonweal ...

(modern Strączno, Poland), and later added the name of his birthplace to his family's name (Schröder is a common name in Germany). His original name was Herbert Schröder, but later he added Stranz to it to reflect his village's name. Schröder-Stranz joined the

German Army The German Army (, 'army') is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...

and was deployed in

German South-West Africa German South West Africa () was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German rule over this territory was punctuated by ...

, he later travelled the

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Kola peninsula The Kola Peninsula (; ) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is border ...

, where he began to plan an expedition to discover the

Northeast Passage The Northeast Passage (abbreviated as NEP; , ) is the Arctic shipping routes, shipping route between the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Pacific Oceans, along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia. The western route through the islan ...

. In 1912 a preliminary expedition started aboard of the

schooner A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...

''Herzog Ernst'', a ship under the command of

Alfred Ritscher Alfred Ritscher (23 May 1879 in Bad Lauterberg – 30 March 1963 in Hamburg) was a German polar explorer. A ''Kapitän zur See'' in the ''Kriegsmarine'', he led the third German Antarctic Expedition in 1938–39, which mapped the New Swabia () ...

and named after

Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg Ernst II (31 August 1871 – 22 March 1955) was the last reigning duke of Saxe-Altenburg and a German general active during World War I. Early life He was the fourth child and only son of Prince Moritz, the youngest son of Georg, Duke of Saxe- ...

, the main sponsor of the project. The crew, among them the illustrator Christopher Rave, assembled on 1 August 1912 in

Tromsø Tromsø is a List of towns and cities in Norway, city in Tromsø Municipality in Troms county, Norway. The city is the administrative centre of the municipality as well as the administrative centre of Troms county. The city is located on the is ...

. As the public fund-raising had been less successful than expected, Schröder-Stranz searched for a way to improve the publicity. He changed the initial plans and proposed to cross

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...

Nordaustlandet Nordaustlandet (Anglicised as North East Land) is the second-largest island in the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, with an area of . It lies north east of Spitsbergen, separated by Hinlopen Strait. Much of Nordaustlandet lies under large ice ca ...

from the South to the North, the first expedition to do so. The expedition left Tromsø on 5 August 1912. On 13 August 1912 the ''Herzog Ernst'' was halted by pack ice three miles beyond Nordaustlandet's North Cape. On 15 August 1912 Schröder-Stranz and three crew members disembarked and tried to cross the pack ice, ten miles away from the nearest mainland, with kayaks and sledges. This was the last time Schröder-Stranz was seen alive, only seven out of 15 members of his crew survived the following winter.

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Schroeder-Stranz, Herbert 1884 births 1912 deaths People from Wałcz County People from West Prussia Explorers of the Arctic 20th-century German explorers Schutztruppe personnel Nordaustlandet German polar explorers