[255]  Kiel was a totally foreign concept for me. I found very little in the encyclopedia. When I arrived I saw a rather ugly, but beautifully placed, port city. The navy, with its wharves on the east side of the fjord, the war ships in the harbor, and the sailors, dominated the city. The Krupp wharf Germania was right across the harbor; next to it was the enormous imperial wharf, and further north the Howaldt wharf. The quite unimpressive commercial harbor was on the west side of the the Kiel fjord. Next to it was the great gray castle in which Peter III, the unhappy  husband of Catherine II was born. Great-Admiral Prince Heinrich lives there now. He is the brother of Kaiser Wilhelm II and married to Irene von Hessen, sister of the Russian Czarina Alexandra. The eldest son was a cripple, but in spite of it he was a navy officer and attended the university in his uniform. [256] The younger son attended the Realschule directly accross from my lodging in the Adolfstrasse. Then there was Prince Adelbert, also in the navy, the only son of Kaiser Wilhelm. The princes were to be seen every day, but nobody paid them much attention. They were officers like all the others.

The University was quite old, but possessed a new spirit. It was one of the summer universities in Germany; in winter there were between a thousand and fifteen hundred students, but in summer the enrollment doubled. There were some quite famous professors, and thanks to the freedom of school choice among the german students, it was fashionable to spend the summer semester in Kiel. There were water sports, including sailing, and one could go on trips to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. [257]

Kiel was an expensive university, not so much for the students as for the professors, some of whom rejected offers from Kiel because they could not afford to participate in the collegial social life. [257] Professor Esmarch, the famous war surgeon, died in Kiel just before my arrival there. He was married to the old princess Henriette von Schleswig-Holtein, known among ordinary people as "Jette vom Barg" . Thus he became an uncle of Kaiser Wilhelm, since Kaiserin Augusta was his niece. Naturally anything he requested was provided, and the school of medicine was richly supplied with equipment and buildings to become a model school. However, the other schools were also spared some of the Prussian stinginess. One beautiful university institute arose next to another, but even more battleships, each of which was worth more than the entire university, appeared at the three wharves on the east side of the bay. At that time England had just developed the Dreadnought type, and [258] thus all the old warships of all the fleets became obsolete. Germany was preparing to pursue the naval politics that eventually led to the first world war. Under the command of Tirpitz, it responded to the change with extremely fast  construction and launching of one  battle ship of the dreadnought typeafter another. I watched several launchings up close, and all the ships mentioned in the press during the war were my old acquaintances, including those which were finally sunk in Scapatlow. At that time I thought very little about these near future possibilities.

Every summer the famous Kiel week took place in the bay. The Kaiser and the cabinet came to Kiel, as well as many war ships and yachts. It was a beautiful, colorful picture. Bulow was finished in Kiel, and I saw Bethmann Holwe, in his major's uniform, give the christening speech at a launching. [259]

The professors were naturally employees loyal to the Kaiser, but not at all were Byzantine in their outlook. Among the professors was Martius, philosophy, whose wife was a daughter of Borsig; Harries, organic chemistry, married to a daughter of Edward Siemens. Others were sons of the champagne companies Feist and Mumm. One can imagine that professors who had to rely only on their salaries did not feel comfortable among such colleagues.

Fortunately the family of professor Erich Klostermann took me in, thus protecting me from the discomfort I would have otherwise felt in those circumstances. Klostermann's father was a theologian. There I was, a Russian Jew among Lutherans, but was always comfortable there. Klostermann was a pleasant surprise. He combined an outer impression of a caricature-like minister with a very educated, many-sided, clever, humorous inner person. He was married to a Russian Lett, Melanie, whom I was helping with translation of Russian geological literature. Thus I came into their house frequently, and a friendship developed which was only interrupted by the current war,

I came to Kiel in January 1909, as assistant in the mineralogical institute. It was an independent building located on a hill on the Schwanenweg. The museum was on the ground floor, and the library, lecture room, and laboratory were on the second floor. It was built by an earlier professor Lehman, a very rich eccentric, who had built a palatial villa on an adjacent "hohenberg" (high mountain), after which he named himself Lehman-Hohenberg. When I came to Kiel he had gone bankrupt, and the villa was occupied by Martius, whose wife, the Borsig daughter, always tried to copy the empress and wore hats the size of wagon wheels that attracted attention from young and old. [261] The only remnant of the Hohenberg fortune in the institute was a beautiful marble statue of Psyche that the heirs and creditors kept arguing about.

The institute was in a garden. On the north side there were four giant walnut trees. Grapevines climbed on the south side. There were many fruit trees and roses in the garden. The surrounding lots where all villas in beautiful parks, and the spring glory of all the fruit flowers was indescribable. Except for the first few months, I lived with Miss Charlotte Mess, whom I have referred to as aunt Mess, the whole time I was in Kiel. She was only 45 years old at the time, but acted as old then as she is now. She then moved to hamburg, where your uncle Erich and I lived before, during and after the fist world war. [262]

Privy Councillor Rinne was an specialist in the german Potassium industry. I met him in Schnebeck on the Elbe river, near Magdeburg, where a state salt mine was located. The salt was extracted with a proprietary process. The salt was dissolved out by spraying water on the walls and ceiling of the tunnels. Thus, for kilometers right and left, hemispherical domes about 10 m diameter were leached out. The brine was then pumped up and evaporated into kitchen salt. The salt strata were slanted, either gray or all kinds of red nuances. Walking through these domed corridors illuminated by magnesia lamps made a fairy-tale like impression. [263] I was to do my doctor's thesis on these salt operations. I traveled into it several times, but nothing came of the doctor work. Ritte was called away to Leipzig; his successor, professor Johnsen, had no interest in salt. Johnsen was interested in volcanic rocks so then I did my thesis on potassium nitrate feldspars [Kalinatronfeldschpalte]. The mineralogical institutes in Germany were very active enterprises at that time. The examination subject of chemistry included mineralogy. No chemist was admitted to the state exam without certifying lecture and lab experience in mineralogy. Since the study of chemistry was very widespread, and all prospective head teachers of natural science took either physics or chemistry as a second major, there were always many students in both lecture and practical chemistry. This situation was natural - chemists, especially the inorganic ones had to know the chemistry of lifeless nature before anything else; a few centuries ago every pharmacist [264] knew the natural chemicals: the minerals.

Professor Johnsen was called to Berlin after the first world war, and soon became the pope of german mineralogy. He succeeded in separating chemistry and mineralogy, and making them independent examination (major) subjects. After that the chemists no longer needed to experience mineralogy. Since chemistry had always been sufficient, this change was the death knell of the study of mineralogy. Johnsen did not live long after the change, but still had to experience the desertion of the mineralogy lecture halls and of the beautiful institutes and laboratories. But at my time the institute still had about 50 students. Then the director asked the most able ones to take the state exam in mineralogy rather than chemistry.[265] He claimed the work would be easier, surer, and faster, and was suited to be converted in a short time to a doctor thesis. There were always applicants, and thus co-workers for the institute director. Then he arranged the work so that each assistant got part of the task, such as polishing, measuring, getting fracture indices, and so on. Then the chief published one paper after another without crediting any of the co-workers (including me). After they had done this slave-work for a few semesters they were allowed to publish something themselves, then took the state exam, received the doctorate, and were released to the youth as teachers. The professors got dozens of new assistants this way. I chanced into this treadmill and felt quite well. Between preparation for lectures and the other work there was little time for ones own work. On holidays we went on excursions [266] either in the marvelous surroundings of the Kiel fjord, surrounded with wonderful old beech forests, to the water on the fjord, or in the further area, Lubeck, Hamburg, were easily reached, and the unforgettable wandering in the lake district of Holstein Switzerland [Seengebiet der Holsteinischen Schweitz] [maybe the lake area near Kiel was locally known as "Switzerland"?.

Outside of the home of Klosterman I had no contact with other families, but at the same time I came to Kiel my student friend Willy Hirsch (250) moved there and our friendship became closer during the 3 years I spent there. He comes from a rich Augsburg family. His father had moved to Munchen, and died during my Freiberg time. He was a mining engineer, especially interested in mineralogy, though in a different direction from mine. He had an older brother who was schizophrenic and lived harmlessly in his mother's house. He also had a sister Kate whom I liked a lot, who did not even notice me among her suitors. She had a sad fate. She fell from a stair [treppe] broke her kneecap in such a way that the leg had to be amputated. [267]. She found a prosthesis that worked so well that with it she could climb the cupola that rose over her villa in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The Nazis expelled everyone after the pogrom of 1938; her younger brother Alfred fled illegally to Belgium, and at the outbreak of WW II came to France into the Les Milles concentration camp, where, still at the beginning of 1942, he tried very hard to leave for the US.

But back to Willy Hirsch. He decided to open a mineral business to supply institutes and museums with specimens. He got together with two friends, both mining engineers, Adam and Blomberg. Blomberg was a pleasant Finn. His task was to travel the Finnish islands and Scandinavia, looking for material to collect and return to the business.

[ 268} Adam was a Dutch-Indian half-blood. The father was from holland, the mother from Java. He was tall, with brown complexion, noticeably mixed blood. Since he was called Adam, and came from Java, his nickname was Pithecantropus Erectus, after the name of the bone fragments found in Java by Du Bois that were thought to be the missing link between monkeys and people. He was a charming person and colleague, of outstanding talent and intelligence. He spoke at least four languages perfectly, and set his poetry to music. He was also excellent in his academic subjects, but messed up his final exams. He got so upset about a remark by Wilski, the professor of surveying, that he threw the chalk at Wilski's head.[msp 269] He repeated his diploma exam many years later. Adam also joined the company, and was assigned to work the San Piero de Campo tourmaline mine on the island of Elba (where Napoleon had his first exile). Hirsch himself took on the warehouse and sales, and they picked Kiel for the business location. So I was with Hirsch all three years in Kiel. The firm dissolved soon afterwards. Blomberg vanished first, and was not seen again after WW I. Adam had to give up the operation of the tourmaline mine, since it never paid for itself. Hirsch stayed in Kiel for a while; then he moved to Munchen, where he had a mineral business, first with Kusche, then alone. He only dissolved it after the 1938 pogrom, before going to Oruro. More of him, his wife Goggy, and Adam, later.

So I lived and worked in Kiel, without further progress in my work. [270] Then Rinne got the call to Leipzig, and I remained alone in the institute, until the newly hired Professor Arien Johnsen arrived. At first it did not look like I would stay long, but we got along and I remained his assistant. I did not feel or suffer from anti-semitism, but it was clear that the authorities were constantly aware of my Jewishness. When Rinne left, I was amused to find, in a waste basket, the reference for me that Beck sent to Rinne. It stated that I was of German-Russian Jewish origins, but had not yet displayed the associated characteristics. Johnsen was a pure scientist, with no ties to industry; an odd man, I noticed soon that I would not be able to do my doctorate work while being his assistant. In a roundabout way he declined leadership of the Salt work Rinne had been doing, since he [271] did not understand it. I then found a new subject: Contribution to the knowledge of Potassium Nitrate Feldspars, which I completed in 1911. The working material was ores he collected from the islands of San Pietro and San Antioco. The work, especially the washing out of the tiny, sugar grain sized feldspar kernels, was laborious. After I gave up the assistant work to work exclusively on the thesis work it went faster. I passed my exam in July 1911, and then several more months went by for typesetting. This was 9 years after my graduation. I was 26 years old, helped the whole time by my father, since even in Kiel the Prussian assistant pay was inadequate.

So what would happen next? I did not have the connections to get work as a metallurgical engineer. Nothing was available. In summer I went on another trip to Norway, with professor Ewald Wust, with whom I was often confused because of our bearing [habitus] [272]. We went via Copenhagen to Kristiania (Oslo), where we parted. I travelled on to the old silver mine at Kongsberg to obtain samples from there for Willy Hirsch. Then back to Kiel. I was in Berlin a few times, once to Dresden for the Hygiene exposition, once with the Mamachen  and once with  uncle Jacob and aunt Rosa. I still had not found a job. I went to Libau, where my father tried to place me with the local steel works. The weeks went by without activity. Then came a resolution. While still in Kiel I had often visited Hamburg. and the mineralogy professor of their mineralogical institute. There was no University in Hamburg at that time, only a half-academic colonial institute and "General Lectures." Professor Gurich would have liked to have me as an assistant in mineralogy, but lacked the means. [273] A solution appeared; the museum of ethnology [folkerkunde], under professor Thilenius, enjoyed great popularity in Hamburg. A little earlier the palatial building on the the Rotenbaumchaussee was opened, and this museum was well endowed. At that time the thousands of islands in the pacific ocean, the Marianas, the Carolinas, the Marshalls, etc., belonged to Germany, as well as New Guinea, New Pommerania, etc. These were placed under the mandate of Japan after WW I, and were then used by the Japanese during WW II to launch the attack the US in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 Dec 1941. The museum was just then working over the great quantity of material from the Hamburg South Sea Expedition, and I was taken on as scientific co-worker to work on the rock [gesteine] samples. I was being paid by the ethnology museum while working in the Mineralogical Institute. [274]. The pay was average, but adequate. Father hesitated, but then agreed that nothing else was available. So I said farewell to Libau and moved to Hamburg at the end of 1911.
 
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