German Atlantic Expedition, 1925–1927

The 1919 Peace Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I (1914–1918) required Germany to take the blame for the war and to pay “reparations”—a large sum of money for the damages suffered by some of the nations it had fought against. These payments were hard for the Germans to make, for economic conditions were difficult in their country following the war. Alfred Merz, a geologist at the University of Heidelberg, thought that he might have a solution to Germany’s debt problems. After studying samples of water taken from the South Atlantic Ocean, he felt that gold and silver might exist there in amounts large enough to extract and use. With the support of the German government a research steamer ship, the Meteor, was prepared to go to the South Atlantic to investigate Professor Merz...