He was the first to describe the Agulhas Current in detail, he provided essential contributions to the understanding of bottom water exchange in the North Atlantic and he shaped marine research in Germany after World War II.
[Ref 2] This work provided the first detailed description of the Agulhas Current System, based on observational data available at the time.
The South African oceanographer Johann Lutjeharms later called him "the first true oceanographer of the Agulhas Current System" in his book on the Agulhas Current[Ref 3] [Ref 4] From 1935 to 1943 he was scientific assistant at the de:Museum für Meereskunde (Berlin) (Institute and Museum for Oceanography) and participated in four cruises on the German survey ship Meteor in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea.
He was in charge of 12 cruises on the navy survey ships "Triton" and "Börgen" in the Baltic Sea and off Norway.
After the end of WWII and some time as prisoner of war, he was employed by the British Navy occupying forces, partly at their headquarters in Hamburg-Blankenese, from April 1946 to August 1950.
He was responsible for regional oceanography and participated in several cruises on the survey and research vessels "Gauss" and "Anton Dohrn".
He also became a lecturer in oceanography at Hamburg University in 1953 and adjunct professor in 1957 [Ref 1] [Bib 2] In 1959 he became the successor of Georg Wüst in Kiel.
During a time when the tides in the open ocean had to be determined solely from coastal gauges, his tidal maps were considered a standard in the field.