Erich von Däniken

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Erich von Däniken (2009)

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken (born April 14, 1935 in Zofingen ) is a Swiss author who made pseudoscientific pre-astronautics known to a broad reading public.

His books have been translated into 32 languages ​​and with a total circulation of 63 million copies sold (as of 2010), some of them have achieved bestseller status. Two of his books were made into films, and other films are based on von Däniken's ideas. His theses, which are derived from archaeological finds and findings , are not scientifically proven by von Däniken, but merely presented in the style of “narrative non-fiction ” and therefore also referred to as “fantastic science”.

Life

Von Däniken spent his school days in Schaffhausen and Freiburg in Üechtland . There he attended the college of St. Michael of the Jesuit order from the age of thirteen . He was particularly interested in books on philosophy, theology and archeology. He then completed an apprenticeship as a chef . While he was working as a hotel management apprentice at the Bernese Schweizerhof , he made his first trip to Egypt. Jobs in various hotels followed. Since 1960 Erich von Däniken has been married to Elisabeth Skaja (* 1937), whom he met as a waiter at the Hotel Ascot in Zurich . After a trip to the Knorr soup factory , von Däniken became managing director of the Mirabeau restaurant in Bern. In 1964 he took over the Hotel Rosenhügel in Davos . Von Däniken published pre-astronautical considerations in newspaper and magazine articles for the first time in the 1960s and worked on his first book.

His book Memories of the Future was published in early 1968 after 20 publishers had rejected it. The Econ Verlag had agreed to it after revision by Wilhelm Roggersdorf (pseudonym of Utz Utermann to publish). It was an unexpected success. Sales soared, and within a short period of time von Däniken was a millionaire . Von Däniken was arrested at the end of 1968, charged and sentenced on February 13, 1970 to three and a half years in prison for fraud and forgery . The lengthy process against the bestselling author was also reported in the media outside of Switzerland; the court proceedings, in particular the approach taken by the psychiatric expert Erich Weber, was the subject of criticism.

With the success of the first book, the accusation of plagiarism arose that von Däniken had copied and made extensive use of the ideas of other authors, for example Robert Charroux . Von Däniken was also accused of supporting his theses with manipulated interpretations of scientific sources and falsified illustrations.

While von Däniken incarceration in the future memories of Harald Reinl filmed. The film received an Oscar nomination. A second film followed in 1976. Von Däniken gave up the hotel and devoted himself entirely to pre-astronautics. He has published over 20 other books to date, undertook research trips and gave lectures on several continents. A supporter of his speculations, the American lawyer Gene Phillips, founded the Ancient Astronaut Society (AAS) in the USA in 1973 , which hosted several international congresses.

In 1983 a collection of short stories and travel experiences appeared for the first time. Novels and other short stories followed; however, the author remained mainly active in the field of non-fiction. In the 1990s von Däniken produced a 25-part television series On the Trail of the All-Powerful for Sat.1 as well as three TV documentaries in collaboration with RTL Television and the American Broadcasting Company . After several years of planning, the Mystery Park in Interlaken opened its doors in 2003 . The pre-astronautic theme park attracted around one million visitors in the next three and a half years, but was closed at the end of 2006 due to financial problems. The park was reopened in the 2009 summer season before it was redesigned by the new owners and reopened as JungfrauPark in 2010 . In 2005 von Däniken released the CD World of Mysteries together with the musician Norbert Reichart , which made it to number four on the Swiss charts .

Erich von Däniken has been claiming since 2006 that he had contact with an alien in 1987 . He first published this claim in the novel Tomy and the Planet of Lies and later corroborated it in interviews.

In November 2008 von Däniken was a guest on the ProSieben- produced TV show Uri Geller Live: UFOs and Aliens - The Unbelievable TV Experiment . Due to enormous criticism of the program and numerous letters to him, he distanced himself from the show in early 2009 in the magazine Sagenhaft Zeiten on behalf of his research association for archeology, astronautics and SETI (AAS) and stated his point of view.

Von Däniken has a daughter and lives in Beatenberg near Interlaken.

Hypotheses

Erich von Däniken is the best known representative of the pseudoscientific branch of pre-astronautics . In his 1977 book Evidence. Lokaltermin in five continents , he claimed aliens had long ago occasionally visited the earth and the great apes refined. Human intelligence was not formed through evolution , but through frequent sexual intercourse , which the astronauts who traveled from foreign planets would have had with the female great apes of the earth until beings were produced that could be made familiar with social customs. With the breeding of people living in caves, things finally got better because the spacemen killed all freaks. With these claims, von Däniken distances himself from the findings of the theory of evolution , which explain the origin of man through mutation and selection, and refers to the arguments of Christian creationists such as Arthur Ernest Wilder-Smith . Von Däniken uses extraterrestrial genetic engineers in the place of God , which is why the sociologist Ingbert Jüdt describes his point of view as “technological creationism”.

Von Däniken assumes that these astronauts were considered gods by primitive humans because of their high technical superiority. Against the background of this assumption, he interprets the most diverse legacies (buildings, legends , etc.) of ancient cultures as evidence for extraterrestrial visitors. For example, he is of the opinion that people of the distant past could not have been able to provide cultural achievements such as the construction of the pyramids of Giza , Pumapunku , monoliths on Easter Island , Stonehenge or the map of the Piri Reis without outside help . He considers some of the gods handed down in religions and mythologies to be extraterrestrials.

The first chapter of the book Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 1  EU ) in the Bible is interpreted by Däniken as the description of the landing of a spaceship . Using the biblical description, NASA engineer Josef F. Blumrich (1913–2002) constructed a model of this "Ezekiel spaceship".

Organizations

The "AAS - Research Society for Archeology, Astronautics and SETI", headed by Erich von Däniken (founded in 1973 under the name Ancient Astronaut Society and newly founded in 1998 as a Swiss GmbH) brings together people who want to prove visits by aliens. The abbreviation SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ("Search for extraterrestrial intelligence"). The AAS publishes a bimonthly magazine and organizes annual meetings.

In 1996 the “Erich von Däniken Foundation” was established. Von Däniken has dedicated part of his extensive archive to the foundation. This includes books, slides, films, manuscripts, pictures, and more. The purpose of the foundation is to research the great mysteries of the world, especially the mysterious relics of bygone cultures. The purpose of the foundation is to promote research that previously seemed impossible: research that adheres to the basic rules of scientific knowledge gain and is carried out by scientists, but that cannot be limited by existing paradigms.

From Däniken's views and attitudes

Erich von Däniken calls on the historians not to limit themselves to one subject (such as Egyptology ), but to recognize interdisciplinary similarities between the ancient high cultures (for example the pyramids in Africa and South America ; see for example Thor Heyerdahl ) to recognize the similarities and explore them in more detail. He criticizes the Catholic Church as well as the governments and authorities of various countries (including Egypt ) for withholding important pieces of evidence that support his hypotheses.

Erich von Däniken sees himself as a believer who prays every day. However, the teachings of all world religions are wrong because they are based on wrong "facts". The reason for this lies in the question of the origin of life, which in his opinion lies in space. Von Däniken also distances himself again and again expressly from all UFO religions and attaches importance to the fact that he is not a ufologist , although he is often referred to as such in the media .

reception

Even after the first commercial success of the books von Dänikens in the late 1960s, there were publications that explained the untenability of his claims. As an author, von Däniken stands outside the scientific community of archeology , anthropology , astronomy and history , which largely ignore von Däniken's work because of its obvious untenability. Daniken's publications were firmly rejected by the skeptics movement .

In the 1980s, many of Dänikens' theses were presented as untenable by the science journalist Hoimar von Ditfurth in the popular science television program Cross Section.

Von Däniken merely postulates hypotheses that he tries to underpin with ambiguous rock art and other cultural artefacts, without using scientifically accepted methods. Another major point of criticism is that von Däniken underestimates or even suppresses the skills of indigenous peoples. His self-criticism on display against his own theses only serves to protect himself against overly critical objections and against the associated demand for a scientifically recognized procedure.

Influences

The idea that human life or its evolutionary precursors can be traced back to extraterrestrial influences was already expressed in HP Lovecraft's novel Berge des Wahnsinns , published in 1936 . Here an ancient race from space once colonized the earth and created ape-like animals alongside other beings.

Daniken's main themes, such as “the gods were astronauts” or “ Atlantis ”, were already described in detail in 1951 in the science fiction novel Reich im Mond by Manfred Langrenus ( pseudonym of Friedrich Hecht , a geochemist from Vienna ). In France, Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier spread similar theses in the 1960s with the start of the third millennium . In his film Stargate, the German director Roland Emmerich resorted to some theories of Danes, which were later discussed again with the series Stargate - Kommando SG-1 , Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe . Glen A. Larson was also inspired by von Däniken for the concept of his Battlestar Galactica series . Likewise, let Ridley Scott for his science fiction film Prometheus - from 2012 inspired, find where scientists in a cave Stone Age wall paintings showing strange creatures and a star formation. Against the background of the Däniken wave, Rainer Erler's thriller Die Delegation was created in 1970 and the American television series In Search of ... , moderated by Leonard Nimoy , in 1977 . The idea was picked up in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well.

Awards

In 1991 von Däniken received the satirical Ig Nobel Prize in literature "for his explanations of how human civilization was influenced by primeval astronauts from space" .

In October 2012 he was awarded the “ Golden Board in front of the head ” for the “most amazing pseudo-scientific nonsense of the year” and for his life's work as a person “who has made a name for himself for decades with particularly impressive resistance to scientific facts”. This negative prize is awarded annually by the Society for Critical Thinking , the Vienna regional group of the Society for the Scientific Investigation of Parasciences .

plant

Non-fiction

  • Memories of the Future , 1968 ( No. 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list from December 9, 1968 to March 2, 1969 )
  • Back to the Stars, 1969, Econ, 1986 ( # 1 on Spiegel's bestseller list in 1969 and 1970 )
  • Aussaat und Kosmos, 1972 ( No. 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list from October 2 to 8 and from October 23 to November 26, 1972 )
  • My world in pictures, 1973
  • Apparitions, 1974
  • Visitors from the Cosmos, 1975 (anthology)
  • Evidence, 1977
  • Cross-examined, 1978
  • Prophet of the Past, 1979
  • Trip to Kiribati, 1981
  • Strategy of the Gods, 1982
  • The day the gods came, 1984
  • Am I wrong ?, 1985
  • We are all children of the gods, 1987, C. Bertelsmann
  • The eyes of the Sphinx, 1989, C. Bertelsmann
  • The traces of the aliens, 1990, (illustrated book)
  • The Stone Age was very different in 1991
  • Memories of the Future, 1992, (special edition with new foreword)
  • The gods shock, 1992
  • Ancient space travel, 1993
  • In the footsteps of the Almighty, 1993, C. Bertelsmann
  • Messages and signs from the universe, 1994, C. Bertelsmann
  • Judgment day has long since begun - the Messiah expectation and the aliens, 1995
  • Signs for Eternity - The Message of Nazca, 1997
  • On behalf of Zeus, 1999
  • The gods were astronauts, 2001
  • Mysteries, 2005, (illustrated book)
  • (with Cornelia von Däniken) The Mystery Park. The stories, the people. All texts - all sources. Detailed comments, 2005
  • Wrong informed! From the world's most impossible book, Enoch's magic gardens and a hidden metal library, 2007
  • Götterdämmerung - The Return of the Aliens. 2012 and beyond, 2009
  • Greetings from the Stone Age - If you don't want to believe, see !, 2010
  • What's wrong in Mayan land? - Hidden Technologies in Temples and Sculptures, 2011
  • The Mediterranean region and its mysterious prehistoric times - puzzling buildings, unbelievable facts and doctrines exposed as false, 2012
  • Impossible Truths: From South America to Elsewhere, 2013
  • The End of Silence, 2014 (E-Book)
  • The unholy book, Rottenburg 2014
  • What I hid for decades, 2015
  • The gods were astronauts, 2015
  • Messages from the year 2118, 2016
  • Galactic Horizons: The Search for the Ancient Aliens, 2018
  • New Findings: Evidence of Alien Visits in Prehistoric Times, 2018

Entertainment literature

  • I love the whole world, 1983, (short stories)
    • extended new edition: For 100 francs the whole world and other stories, 2003
  • The Riddles in Old Europe, 1991, (youth novel)
  • The Legacy of Kukulkan, 1993, (youth novel)
    • New edition: The Strange Tale of Xixli and Yum - A Novel of Facts, 2002
  • Tomy and the Planet of Lies - The Novel That Couldn't Be a Non-Fiction Book, 2006

Editing

  • Lexicon of Pre-Astronautics, arr. U. Dopatka, 1979
  • Cosmic Traces, 1989 (anthology of articles from Ancient Skies magazine )
  • New Cosmic Traces, 1992, (anthology of articles from Ancient Skies magazine )
  • Strangers from space, cosmic traces. New Finds, Discoveries, Phenomena, 1995, (anthology of articles from Ancient Skies magazine )
  • The Legacy of the Gods, 1997, (anthology of articles from Ancient Skies magazine )
  • Raiders of Lost Knowledge, 2003, (anthology of articles from Ancient Skies magazine )
  • Explosive Archeology, June 2008, (History without Dogma - Cosmic Traces, Volume 6)
  • The other side of archeology. Fascination of the Unknown, 2011
  • Curiosity forbidden! Questions Finds Facts, 2014
  • Galactic Horizons: The Search for the Ancient Aliens, 2018

Audio books

  • Ancient gods - as strange cosmonauts? (Record, 1972)
  • Secrets of Sunken Worlds, 2003 (audio book, moderated by Rainer Holbe )
  • Mr. Däniken, how did you manage that ?, 2012
  • The gods were astronauts, 2016

DVD (multimedia lectures)

  • Mysterious Egypt. Something is wrong in ancient Egypt - and nobody talks about it. 2006
  • Götterdämmerung. The return of the gods? 2008
  • Erich von Däniken - Total, 2010

Comics According to the theses of Dänikens, The Gods from Space was implemented as a comic series by Boguslaw Polch (drawings), Arnold Mostowicz and Alfred Górny (texts) and published in eight albums by Bastei Verlag from 1978 to 1983.

Movies

According to books

Other

  • Torsten Sasse , Erich von Däniken - The video biography. Updated ARD documentation, 2005

literature

General

  • Karl-Heinz Bernhardt : Are we astronaut children? Erich von Däniken's false sensations in the light of biblical archeology. Union-Verlag, Berlin 1978.
  • Gilbert A. Bourquin, Sergius Golowin : The Däniken story. Herbig, Munich / Berlin 1970 - mainly on the allegations of plagiarism
  • Burchard Brentjes : White Gods? Culture, human work or extraterrestrial civilizations? New life, Berlin 1980.
  • Pieter Coll: Business with the Imagination. Why there couldn't have been spaceflight thousands of years ago. Arena-Verlag, Würzburg 1973, ISBN 3-401-01226-6 .
  • Gerhard Gadow: Memories of Reality. Erich von Däniken and his sources. reviewed and expanded edition, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1972, ISBN 3-436-01348-X (1982, ISBN 3-596-21197-2 ), originally published in 1969 as typescript as special edition No. 2 of the SLAN-Nachrichten, Berlin; a review of Däniken's "Memories of the Future"
  • Linus Hauser : Critique of the neomythical reason , Volume 3: The fictions of "science" on the way into the 21st century , Paderborn (Ferdinand Schöningh) 2016. ISBN 3506781979 . ISBN 9783506781970 .
  • Christian Heermann : Secret weapon flying saucers. Crooks - jugglers - gangsters. A crime report on business and crime with stupidity . Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1981
  • Peter Kaufhold: In the footsteps of Erich von Däniken. Simon, London 1982, ISBN 0-907384-05-6 .
  • Ernst von Khuon (Ed.): Were the gods astronauts? Scientists discuss Erich von Däniken's theses . Edited & introduced by E. von Khuon. Afterword by E. von Däniken. With texts by: Wolfgang Fr. Gutmann, Jürgen Nienhaus, Harry O. Ruppe, Winfried Petry u. a .; Econ, Düsseldorf 1971, ISBN 3-430-15382-4 .
  • Markus Pössel: Fantastic Science. About Erich von Däniken and Johannes von Buttlar . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2000, ISBN 3-499-60259-8 .
  • Jens Rohark, Mario Krygier: Don Eric and the Maya - December 23, 2012 - Will the gods come again? docupoint, Magdeburg 2006, ISBN 3-938142-72-3 .

Biographies

  • Peter Krassa : Däniken intimate. The image of a colorful personality. Bauer, Freiburg i.Br. 1976, ISBN 3-7626-0198-4 .
  • Peter Krassa: The god researcher Erich von Däniken and his world. MG-Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-931164-00-4 .
  • Jürgen Mai: Mr. Däniken, how did you manage that? 1st edition, Gebrüder Mai, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-9809143-0-5 .
  • Peter Rocholl, Wilhelm Roggersdorf: The strange life of Erich von Däniken. Econ, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-430-17811-8 .

Web links

Commons : Erich von Däniken  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Erich von Däniken welt.de, April 12, 2010
  2. ↑ Joachim-Felix Leonhardt et al. (Ed.): Media studies: A handbook for the development of media and forms of communication. 2nd volume, De Gruyter, 2001, pp. 1599-1602 ISBN 978-3-11-016326-1
  3. ↑ Pössel 2000
  4. ↑ The Däniken knew it. Retrieved November 11, 2017 .
  5. ↑ The Däniken knew it. Retrieved November 11, 2017 .
  6. ↑ cf. Wilhelm Utermann in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
  7. ↑ Gerhard Mauz: As our Explorand shows very nicely . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1970, pp. 98 ( online - February 9, 1970 , critical trial report). - reprinted in this: The game of guilt and atonement. The future of criminal justice , Düsseldorf / Cologne: Diederichs 1975, pp. 196–204. Rocholl / Roggersdorf (1970; see Lit.verz.) Also deal in detail with the process and the offenses that Däniken was accused of.
  8. ↑ Däniken's account of the legal proceedings can be found in: Peter Krassa 1976 (see Lit.verz.) And as an essay So it was . A review of the process can be found in: Jürgen Mai: Mr. Däniken, how did you accomplish that? The exploration of the earthly Erich von Däniken , Berlin 2003, pp. 30–33.
  9. ↑ cf. Gadow 1969
  10. ↑ cf. Bourquin / Golowin 1970
  11. ↑ Early reviews among others in: Tat v. April 27 & June 11, 1968; Süddeutsche Zeitung v. March 8, 1969; In: Der Spiegel No. 12 v. March 17, 1969, p. 184; G. Gadow: Memories of Reality . Berlin 1969; early reply from Däniken in fact v. June 22, 1968 (letter to the editor)
  12. ↑ Memories of the future. In: deutscher-tonfilm.de. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007 ; accessed on January 6, 2015 .
  13. ↑ 6000 visitors on the first weekend in the Mystery Park . news.ch. May 25, 2003. Retrieved October 11, 2013.
  14. ↑ http://www.exopolitik.org/index.php/exocommunity/videos/954-Erich+von+D%C3%A4niken+amp%3B+Tomy%3A+Interview.html?groupid=124
  15. ↑ Sabine Doering-Manteuffel : The occult. A success story in the shadow of the Enlightenment. From Gutenberg to the World Wide Web . Siedler, Munich 2008. p. 223ff.
  16. ↑ Sabine Doering-Manteuffel: The occult. A success story in the shadow of the Enlightenment. From Gutenberg to the World Wide Web . Siedler, Munich 2008. pp. 225f.
  17. ↑ Ingbert Jüdt: Aliens in the cultural memory? The projective reconstruction of the past in the discourse of pre-astronautics . In: Michael Schetsche , Martin Engelbrecht (Ed.): From humans and extraterrestrials. Transterrestrial encounters as reflected in cultural studies . transcript, Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-8394-0855-1 , p. 88 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  18. ↑ JF Blumrich: Then the sky opened up. The spaceships of the prophet Ezekiel and their confirmation by the most modern technology , Düsseldorf: Econ 1973, ISBN 3-430-11353-9 .
  19. ↑ cf. Coll, 1970
  20. ↑ Weirdos, jugglers and gurus have an easy game: no di always earns a lot of money from superstition: the trained Homo sapiens . In: The time . No. 20/1979 ( online ).
  21. ↑ http://www.fernsehlexikon.de/1794/querschnitte
  22. ↑ OBITUARY: Hoimar v. Ditfurth . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1989 ( online ).
  23. ^ Johann Thun: Visit of the old gods. From HP Lovecraft's 'Cthulhu Myth' to Erich von Däniken's 'Pre-Astronautics'. A search for clues from a literary perspective . In: Pawel Walowski (Ed.): The (new) man and his worlds. Fantastic German-language literature and science fiction . 1st edition. Frank & Timme, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-7329-0237-8 , pp. 47-61 .
  24. ↑ Alejandro Rojas: Ridley Scott's New Alien Movie Influenced by Ancient Astronaut Theory . In: The Huffington Post , December 2, 2011; Retrieved October 5, 2013
  25. ^ The 1991 Ig Nobel Prize Winners. Retrieved October 2, 2014 .
  26. ^ "Goldenes Brett vorm Kopf" for German university professor. In: derstandard.at . Retrieved March 3, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Däniken, Erich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Däniken, Erich Anton Paul von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss writer of pre-astronautical theories
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Zofingen