| Abstract: | In 1913 the Berlin Observatory was moved from the center of the city to Babelsberg on the outskirts of Berlin, now part of Potsdam. The new observatory was considerably larger in size and with respect to its staff, and it had got a completely new equipment. At that time it was the most modern astronomical observatory in Germany and possibly even in Europe. However, the scientific results achieved afterward were not comparable to that of other institutions, especially in the USA. A main reason was the conservative concept for the observatory, drawn up by Wilhelm Foerster and his colleagues, and restricting the work to classical fields of astronomy. Foerster's successor Hermann Struve tried to follow rather strictly this concept as well as the traditions of his family of astronomers. This led to conflicts with his collaborators Eugen Goldstein, Erwin Finlay Freundlich and Paul Guthnick, who were interested rather in astrophysics than in the classical problems. |
