"This biography vividly shows the fascination of the Arctic for Alfred Wegener: the reduction to the essentials, which stands in a sometimes-beneficial contrast to our affluent society, and becomes nowhere more urgent than in the struggle for survival."
——Arved Fuchs

Schools, streets, foundations, research institutes, and even a moon crater bear his name. Rightly so: When it came to curiosity and daring, the physicist, meteorologist, and astronomer Alfred Wegener, born in Berlin in 1880, was on par with adventurers like Amundsen, Scott & Co. He set spectacular endurance records in ballooning, and narrowly escaped starvation during the longest land crossing to date. His brilliant idea of continental drift laid the foundation for the theory of plate tectonics, even in a field that wasn't originally his. In 1930, he died on the inland ice of Greenland. He had been trying to reach the coast on skis to conserve the supplies of scientists overwintering at a research station in the middle of the ice.

Günther Wessel, born in 1959, is a multi-award-winning author of radio features and numerous non-fiction books. He predominantly writes about environmental and cultural history topics and regularly reviews non-fiction for Deutschlandfunk Kultur. After various postings in Germany and abroad, Günther Wessel now lives in Berlin.