These are some emails about the passing of Klaus Vogel, pioneer in Expansion Tectonics.

Yellow Roses

and the sounds of Schubert’s music and very intimate words and images: 100 funeral guests prized the merits of Klaus Vogel

Two heavyweights in Expansion Tectonics together: Klaus Vogel, and Dr. James Maxlow

On November 18th 2015 Klaus Vogel peacefully passed away at Werdau within the circle of his extended family. The funeral service and burial took place at the municipal cemetery on November 26th being followed by a reception of the bereaved at the Community Center near to the Church of Our Lady. Klaus Vogel died at the age of 89 years, 6 months and 7 days. The funeral guests first gathered in the cemetery chapel where Klaus Vogel was laid out in a plain light oak coffin adorned with yellow roses. Two Protestant priests celebrated the funeral service and honored the comprehensive lifework of the deceased. It mainly consisted of his more than 50-year old marriage with his spouse Eva-Maria Vogel, née Dorsch, which resulted in 4 children and 8 grandchildren, as well as the confident guidance of the inherited family enterprise, a small concrete factory in Werdau. In addition to his family and work, Klaus Vogel was also a very effective self-educated natural scientist, dedicated over four decades to the study of the variable shape of the Earth’s crust. He designed and constructed palaeoglobes according to his own experimental findings and achieved worldwide appreciation with his results.

His Notabitur (rushed graduation caused by the war) was remembered, as well as “the mercy of the late birth” that ensured that he passed WW2 for only a few weeks as a soldier; and then his trade which he learned from scratch, becoming a civil engineer who even invented a “Standard Treppe” for use inside dwellings as a staircase. He was an upright, industrious man as well as a good husband and father. Highly respected in society as well as in science, he could look back on a long and fulfilled life

The culmination of the reflective funeral was attained by the unanticipated sound of Franz Schubert’s (1797-1828) “Nachtstück”, with words by Johann Baptist Mayrhofer (1797-1836). In an impressive – even frightening – manner this recital comprehensibly showed the funeral cortege the dramatic passage of a perishing being from life to the “fields of completion”.

After the benedictory blessing four coffin bearers took the coffin from the chapel to the excavated family grave where a recent inscription reminded everyone about the death of Eva-Maria that befell one year ago. The coffin was let down while the chant “Christ ist erstanden” (Christ is arisen) was intoned. Then, together with the priest the cortege spoke a powerful Our Father. In the end each funeral guest went to the open grave, bowed a last time to the deceased, threw a handful of earth and a yellow rose onto the coffin and took leave from him. Condolence to the numerous close relatives who waited nearby the grave was gently presented. Thereby grief and sorrow about the loss of a kind person balanced the feeling of thankfulness and inner peace for having had the opportunity to share times with the deceased.

At the following reception given by the extended family at the Community Center near the Church of Our Lady, not only warm soup with bread and coffee with cake were served but also all sorts of fine drinks including “Vier Vogel Pils” (produced by a Dresden brewery). Intellectual nourishment was also offered in the form of a power point presentation with numerous photos taken of Klaus Vogel during his lifetime. The images went on over hours as a silent continuous loop. In a lively, often humorous fashion, all his life beginning with childhood and adolescence, followed by the postwar years including apprenticeship and academic studies, then his wedding to Eva- Maria and family foundation, first-second-third-fourth child, family chums, friends and relatives marched past our eyes. Images of his palaeoglobes were not shown. They were obviously omitted. Not so the scientists though, who found their way to Werdau because of those palaeoglobes, among them the renowned Australian geologist and champion of the Earth Expansion Theory Samuel Warren Carey during the seventies. In table talks people wondered about the reasons why the Earth Expansion Theory fell through. “It did not fall through” was the vehement reply of some guests, “it is only that for the time being it is suppressed by ideologists and dogmatists who are in charge in the field of Earth sciences throughout the world”. The reason is that theoretical physics claims that the famous Einstein formula: E = mxc2 should not apply to the Earth. Accordingly it is postulated that the visible Earth expansion, day by day witnessed by the volcanic activity worldwide, cannot be explained by an increase of the Earth’s mass. The situation may best be illustrated by an old Italian aphorism, which consists of the following wordplay: “„Chi po non vo. Chi vo non po. Chi sa non fa. Chi fa non sa. Il mundo mal va.“ (Translation: Who can, does not want to, who wants, cannot. Who knows, does not make, who makes, does not know. That’s why the world goes wrong.)

And what will be the fate of the numerous palaeoglobes of Klaus Vogel? What will happen to all his writings and works? Which German research institution is intending to preserve them “for coming days”? “None,” is the answer, “the whole scientific inheritance shall be sent to the Austrian National Library in Vienna.”

Ironically, the glassy Vogel-globes illustrating the expanding Earth are to be seen today in museums in Moscow, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Rome, Sydney and shortly also in Vienna, but not in the former “Land der Dichter und Denker” (land of the poets and philosophers). “Good luck, poor Germany!”

Karl-Heinz Jacob

Friends of the Expanding Earth

Hamburg, Germany, 29 th of February 2016

Dear appreciated researchers of the Expanding Earth,

We hope you are all well and of good health. More than one year has passed since we sent our first letter. Again we would like to address to you concerning the subject of the Expanding Earth.

Our first letter was sent to announce the existence of our group in Hamburg and to ask for support to save the scientific and experimental heritage of our friend Klaus Vogel.

Today we would like to tell you about the following:

1. We regret to have to start with sad news. Eva-Maria and Klaus Vogel both have passed away.
2. Where to save the globes and correspondence of Klaus Vogel?
3. Our group in Hamburg, Friends of the Expanding Earth, would like to introduce to you once again
4. A question addressed to all of you

1. Our friend Klaus Vogel has passed away.
“Carlo” Karl-Heinz Jacob who was present at the funeral will tell you about the farewell to Klaus Vogel. You find his report annected to this letter.

2. Where to save the scientific and experimental heritage of Klaus Vogel? The Vogel family has decided to hand over the complete heritage of Klaus Vogel to the globe museum in Vienna. The globe museum is a part of the Austrian National Library.

(http://www.onb.ac.at/globenmuseum.htm ) .

The globes are packed, the documents are bundled up waiting to be transferred from Werdau / Sachsen in Germany to Vienna. Immediately after the arrival at Vienna our group will contact the globe museum to find out how to gain access to Klaus Vogel‘s treasure. We are happy to see that the heritage has found such a worthy place. But we regret very much that there is no institution in our country to appreciate the heritage of our fellow citizen KlausVogel. At least the heritage will stay in the realm of his mother tongue, in one of our neighboring countries.     In addition to the heritage deposed in Vienna there is a lot of correspondence of Klaus Vogel. The letters of KlausVogel sent to Carl Strutinski have already been scanned and first-step-archived by our group. In case you possess some correspondence with Klaus Vogel we would be pleased to add further documents to our archive. (We intend to make some of our documents available in the internet.)

3.  Our group „Friends of the Expanding Earth“