Werner Kissling

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Werner Kissling actually Werner Friedrich Theodor Kissling (or Kißling * 1895 in Breslau ; † 1988 in Dumfries , Scotland ) was a German photographer , filmmaker and emigrant who lived in Great Britain during World War II .

As a 10-year-old he traveled with his mother to the Hebrides and St. Kilda . He studied law in Berlin and Königsberg . He was a member of the German delegation to the League of Nations and spent a long time as a diplomat of the German Empire in Spain, Hungary, Switzerland and England.

After several visits to the Scottish Isles, Kissling gave up the certainty of a diplomatic career in 1933 and devoted himself to photography , cinematography and anthropology . In 1934 he stayed for a few weeks on the then relatively unknown Hebridean island of Eriskay and described it in his notebook and with his cameras. His 19-minute sound film Eriskay - A Poem of Remote Lives is considered an important document in film history, which stands next to another classic of early Scottish cinema: The Rugged Island - A Shetland Lyric , which Jenny Gilbertson (Brown) (1902–1990), Shot in the Shetlands in 1933 .

After filming was over, Kissling returned to London. He maintained good relations with the Royal Geographical Society, the University of Cambridge and the English upper class. His film premiered on April 30, 1935 under the protection of the Prince of Wales , later King Edward VIII . The performance was attended by the Marquis of Londonderry, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and the Duke and Duchess of York . The proceeds were used to finance the first road on Eriskay. Kissling often came to Eriskay and stood up for the interests of the islanders, so u. a. for the expansion of the road network and the improvement of the water supply. A street built on his initiative is now called Rathad Kissling in Gaelic ("Kissling Street").

In 1938 Kissling made an ethnographic trip to New Zealand where he photographed the traditional skills of the Maori. When he returned to Great Britain in 1939, he was interned as an enemy alien in the Tower of London shortly afterwards . Eventually he was given a job as a social worker for the internees in the largest British internment camp on the Isle of Man. He was released in 1942 and returned to Cambridge to continue his ethnographic work.

Werner Kissling died impoverished on February 3, 1988 in the Moorheads Nursing Home in Dumfries. He left one of the most extensive photographic records in the Scottish Hebrides. In Dumfries Museum , the archive of Werner Kissling is.

literature

  • Michael W. Russell: A Poem of Remote Lives: Images of Eriskay, 1934 - Enigma of Werner Kissling, 1895-1988. Neil Wilson Publishing 1997, ISBN 978-1-897784-46-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eriskay Documentary by Werner Kissling on youtube
personal data
SURNAME Kissling, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German emigrant, photographer and filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH 1988
Place of death Dumfries