Edmund Kiss

Edmund Kiss (* 1886 ; † 1960 ) was a German author and architect .

Life

Edmund Kiss studied architecture and also claimed to have studied archeology (for which there is no evidence). During the First World War , Kiss, who was noticeably tall with a height of 2.10 m, was wounded several times as a soldier and was awarded the Iron Cross first and second class. After the war he became an architect and settled in Münster, Westphalia, where he began to be interested in Hörbiger's world ice theory .

Writing activity

At the end of the 1920s, Kiss won prize money of 20,000 Reichsmarks in an author competition. With this money he financed a longer stay in Bolivia in 1928. Here, in the footsteps of Arthur Posnansky, he explored the ruined cities on the island of Marajo and on Lake Titicaca, the ruins of Pumapunku and the Kalasaya observatory.

During this time, during which, according to unconfirmed information, he was also the director of a museum in La Paz, his conviction of an ancient Aryan-Atlantic culture that stretched as far as South America was consolidated. The researcher's findings, according to which the early South American cultures were influenced by Nordic people, were published in an article entitled “Nordic Architecture in Bolivia” in the magazine “Germanien”, born in 1939, and in his book “The Sun Gate of Tihuanaku and Hörbiger's World Ice Theory ". At the beginning of the 1930s, Kiss became known to a larger audience through a high-circulation novel about the origins of the world ("Das Gläserne Meer", 1930), the first part of a tetralogy about Atlantis ("The Last Queen of Atlantis" 1931, "Spring in Atlantis", 1933, "The Whooper Swans of Thule", 1937). At this point in time, Kiss was already a staunch supporter of world ice theory , which he illustrated vividly in his novels by describing the natural disasters triggered by the collapse of the moon, although he wrote quite sober scientific treatises on topics of Germanic customs in several articles in the Germanien magazine - for example an article on "Old Germanic soil supply economy" - which have no relation to the WEL. Kiss presented himself differently in his books, in which he combined Hörbiger's lunar collapse scenarios with Plato's Atlantis tradition and the prehistory of the Teutons. As early as 1933, his combat pamphlet for world ice theory appeared, in which he passionately defended the new doctrine.

Activity in the "Third Reich"

In 1936 Kiss was one of the signatories of the Pyrmont Protocol. Shortly afterwards, Himmler issued an instruction to unofficially support Kiss in his research through the Ahnenerbe.

When the Reichsführer at that time noticed beach lines during a flight over the Libyan highlands, which for him were a possible proof of the world ice theory, he asked Kiss to undertake a research trip to Libya. At the beginning of 1939, Kiss went on his research trip to Abyssinia. In February 1939, together with an assistant and a cameraman, he reached the capital of Libya, Tripoli, which was under Italian administration. There the Italian governor provided him with a truck and an airplane. Within two weeks, Kiss and his companions gathered a series of evidence for the former existence of enormous masses of water in the Libyan Sahara, which for him could only be explained with Hörbiger's theory.

Shortly before the start of the journey, the adventurer was officially accepted into the office of Ahnenerbe in 1938 on Himmler's instructions and accompanied by a positive report from SD professor Franz Alfred Six , although his published research results were controversial and he therefore did not contribute to the desired increase in the scientific claim of the Ahnenerbe could contribute. Before being transferred to the Ahnenerbe, Kiss, like Wiligut, was already listed as a member of Himmler's personal staff.

In addition to the unconditional support of the WEL, Kiss also stood up for the authenticity of the Ura Linda Chronicle - moreover, in a recently published book about the "Sun Gate of Tihuanaku" (1937), he represented the view of a million year old culture in South America, what nor could it meet with the approval of the prevailing science.

Himmler's attempt to involve Kiss in Ernst Schäfer's “ Tibet research trip 1938/39 ” in order to be able to carry out research on world ice theory in particular failed, however. With reference to the dwindling scientific reputation of the expedition, Schäfer declined the participation of the world ice researcher. In his unpublished memoir, Schäfer noted that Kiss claimed to have found "world ports for aliens" on Lake Titicaca.

An expedition to South America was planned for 1940, which, under the direction of Kiss, was to carry out excavations in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia and thereby gain knowledge from bone and calcareous segments, fauna and flora as well as beach lines and cinematographic recordings. State-of-the-art equipment had already been provided for this expedition, which was to consist of archaeologists, zoologists, botanists, astronomers, cartographers, geologists and a film team: A deep-sea photography device was available for exploring Lake Titicaca for old ruins the company Zeiss provided an aerial photo recording device with which prehistoric structures should be found. With reference to the war situation, the expedition was officially canceled in early 1940.

Despite the consideration of being able to catch up on the research trip at short notice after Germany's quick victory, the final rejection was sealed at the end of 1941. Kiss himself had already been called to active military service in October 1939 with the rank of captain.

post war period

After four years of military service and subsequent service in the guard battalion at the Fuehrer's headquarters in Wolfsschanze, Kiss fell into Allied captivity in 1945 and was transferred to the Dachau prison camp near Munich. From here he was taken to an internment camp near Darmstadt, from which he was released in 1947 due to his rapidly declining health due to an earlier malaria disease. In 1948 he was classified as a “fellow traveler” in a denazification process and acquitted against payment of a fine of 501 DM.

Fonts

• The reconstruction of the Puma Punku mausoleum and the Kalasasaya solar observatory in Tihuanaku in Bolivia . In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , vol. 80, 1930, pp. 64–68 (digitized version of the Central and State Library Berlin )
• The glass sea , Leipzig 1930 (4th edition 1941)
• The last Queen of Atlantis , Leipzig 1931 (4th edition 1941)
• Fruehling in Atlantis , Leipzig 1933 (2nd edition 1939)
• The Whooper Swine from Thule , Leipzig 1939 (3rd edition 1941)

literature

• Michael H. Kater: The ancestral inheritance of the SS 1935–1945. A contribution to the cultural policy of the Third Reich. 3. Edition. Munich 2006
• Dennis Krüger: The occult 3rd Reich. SS research projects between German studies , occult science and secret weapon technology. Bottrop 2011
• Peter Mierau: National Socialist Expedition Policy. The German expeditions to Asia. Munich 2006
• Manfred Nagl: Science Fiction in Germany: Investigations into the genesis, sociography and ideology of fantastic mass literature. Tübingen 1972
• Heather Pringle: The Master Plan. Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. New York 2006
• Rüdiger Sünner: Black Sun. Unleashing and abuse of the myths in National Socialism and right esotericism. TB. Freiburg 1999
• Franz Wegener: The Atlantid worldview and the integral tradition. National Socialism and the New Right in search of the sunken Atlantis. Kulturförderverein Ruhrgebiet KFVR, Gladbeck 2000. 3. heavily revised. Edition ibid. 2014 ISBN 1493668668 ; available in online bookshops

Web links

• Literature by and about Edmund Kiss in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pringle (2006), p. 178 f.
2. ↑ This information is confirmed by both Hans Behm (preface to "Das gläserne Meer" 1930) and Sünner (1999), who estimates Kiss' stay in South America in 1928.
3. ↑ cf. on this Krüger (2011), p. 159.
4. ↑ Nagl (1972), pp. 179-180.
5. ↑ Kater (2006), p. 52 cit. according to memorandum Kiss, T-580, 207/733 (old signature!)
6. ↑ see Pringle (2006), p. 374.
7. ↑ Kater (2006), p. 69
8. ↑ Sünner (1999), p. 46.
9. ↑ see Krüger (2011), p. 160.
10. ↑ Mierau (2006), p. 342.
11. ↑ Kater (2006), p. 69.
12. ↑ Mierau (2006), p. 345.
13. ↑ cf. Pringle (2006), p. 310.