FILCHNER, WILHELM (1877— ), German traveller, was born at Munich on Sept. 13, 1877. He was educated at the Prussian War academy, entered the army and was for some time attached to the general staff. He travelled in the Pamir region in 1900; was head of the German China-Tibet expedition of 1903 ; conducted the German Antarctic expedition of 1910-12, which discovered the south-western continuation of Coats Land ; and in 1913 made arrangements to accompany Amundsen on his polar expedition the following year. The outbreak of the World War, however, recalled him to military duty. In Dec. 1925 he went on an expedition to Tibet, from which he returned in May 1928, after having made complete maps of the region traversed and established 157 magnetic stations.
His works include accounts of his travels, among the most important being Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisser der Expeditionen Filchner nach China and Tibet (II vols. and four large maps, 19o7-14) .