Photograph Album of German astrophysicist Johannes Geiss (Apollo 11: Solar Wind Sail) (Sept. 4, 1926, Pomerania - Stolp (Slupsk), Poland - Jan. 30, 2020 Bern, Switzerland). Includes 6 photos of Geiss in Wehrmacht uniform, groups, photos of relatives][...

By Johannes Geiss
WIKIPEDIA: "Johannes Geiss (4 September 1926 - 30 January 2020) was a German physicist. Geiss was born in 1926 in modern-day Poland, the son of farmers Hans Geiss and Irene Wilk. In 1955, he married Carmen Bach. Geiss studied physics in Göttingen from 1947 to 1950. He published his doctoral thesis in 1953, titled Isotopenanalysen an "gewöhnlichem Blei." He then conducted research on geochronology at the University of Bern and University of Chicago. From 1958 to 1959, Geiss was an associate professor at the University of Miami before returning to Bern, working there until 1991. From 1995 to 2002, he was co-director of the Institut international des sciences spatiales. In 2019, a bronze statue of Geiss was erected on the University of Bern campus by Horst Bohnet. Johannes Geiss died on 30 January 2020 at the age of 93. Awards and Honors: Honorary Member of the French Academy of Sciences (1978); Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1978); Honorary Member of the Academia Europaea (1989); Albert Einstein Medal (2001); William Bowie Medal (2005)." Geiss was President of the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences, Committee on Space Research." Elsewhere: "Geiss was head of research in various spacecraft experiments. In the 1960s, he was the first to supply the composition of noble gases in the solar wind and was scientifically active on five Apollo missions (including Apollo 11). Together with Hubert Reeves, Geiss determined the cosmic frequency of deuterium and calculated the baryonic density of 0.2 atoms per cubic meter." The Wikipedia entry quoted above, has very little information about Johannes' early years and none about his military service in the German Wehrmacht during World War Two. His parents are described as "farmers." It made me think his parents were humble folk who worked the soil with their hands. In fact they owned an agricultural estate and lived in a manor. If Johannes' father, Hans Geiss, (24.09.1897 Schloss Pollnow, Pomernia, Poland - 1953) ever used a spade in World War II, or had others do so, it was not a farming endeavor. He was an officer, a Major, in Hitler's army. And his son Johannes also served in Hitler's Wehrmacht, as some of the photos in the album show. There are 67 photos here. Most are affixed in the album's pages, a few are loose. Most of the photos are Black and White, a few are in color. Some of the earliest are from 1944 showing a smiling Geiss in the Wehrmacht uniform, with a Swastika, the Nazi symbol. They span c. 4 decades, including one of his Gymansium, into which all the Jews in his hometown were herded before being loaded into cattle cars and shipped to their death. It also includes a photo taken in 1963 at the international Cosmic Ray Conference he attended in Jaipur, India.
Published by: [63 Photos taken, mostly, between 1944 and 1972, and 30 baby pictures 1971 to 1978], 1978
Vendor: Meir Turner