Albrecht Moll, commander of the weather station Bansö.
For centuries, Svalbard was a neutral territory. Nevertheless, the archipelago was profoundly affected by the Second World War, and Germany established a number of weather stations on Svalbard during the war. The first of these was the “Bansö” station, located in Adventdalen. The station leader, Albrecht Moll, kept a diary during the wintering period of 1941/42 and returned to the site forty years later.
Barbara Schennerlein has recently published the book Spitzbergen Tagebücher 1941/42 – 1982 (Svalbard Diaries 1941/42 and 1982). Through her work with the Polar History Working Group of the German Society for Polar Research, she came into contact with Albrecht Moll’s daughter and gained access to his diaries.
Schennerlein will visit the Svalbard Museum to talk about how the diaries were discovered and what they reveal. She will also present photographs that belonged to Albrecht Moll himself. In addition, she will place the diaries in the broader historical context of the Germans’ construction and operation of weather stations on Svalbard during the Second World War.
The event will be hosted in English.