Archibald Reiss
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Through Agriculture, Switzerland and Chemistry
Early life and studies
The Reiss family was in agriculture and winemaking. Archibald was the eighth of ten children, son of Ferdinand Reiss, landowner and Pauline Sabine Anna Gabriele Seutter von Loetzen. After finishing highschool in Germany, he went to Switzerland for his studies. He had received a Ph.D. in chemistry at the age of 22 and was an expert in photography and forensic science. In 1906 he was appointed a professor of forensic science at the University of Lausanne. In 1909, he was the founder of the first academic forensic science programme and of the "Institut de police scientifique" (Institute of forensic science) at the University of Lausanne. He published two major books on forensic science "Photographie judiciaire" (Forensic photography), Mendel, Paris, in 1903 and the first part of his major contribution "Manuel de police scientifique. I Vols et homicides" (Handbook of forensic science I: Thefts and homicides), Payot, Lausanne and Acan, Paris, in 1911. The Institute he created celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009 and has grown to become a major school, "Ecole des sciences criminelles", that includes forensic science, criminology and criminal law within the Faculty of Law and Criminal Justice of the University of Lausanne.
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Serbia
With the advent of World War I, Reiss was commissioned by the Serbian government to investigate atrocities committed by the invading Central Powers against Serbs. Dr. Reiss would end up extensively documenting his findings in two reports. The first, "Report upon the atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the first invasion of Serbia" was completed in 1915 and published in 1916, focusing on the crimes committed by the Austro-Hungarians against the Serbs during their invasion and occupation of Serbia in the first few months of World War I in 1914. The second Reiss report focused on the second round of the invasion and occupation of Serbia and crimes committed against the Serbs which began in 1915, this time by the combined forces of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Germany, but in Bulgaria the results of Rice's investigations are rejected on the arguments that he did not take any photographs of victims of "Bulgarian atrocities", while making them for the Austro-Hungarian and German ones - moreover that he was one of the pioneers of forensic photography and the fact that he fought in the ranks of the Serbian army during the war compromised his impartiality as an expert. This second report, "Infringement of the Rules and Laws of War committed by the Austro-Bulgaro-Germans: Letters of a Criminologist on the Serbian Macedonian Front", was published in 1919. Reiss also attributes the burning of the Albanian villages in the Preševo Valley, carried out by the Serbian army during the First Balkan War and described by the then war correspondent of the "Kiev Thought" Lev Trotsky, to the Bulgarian army and presents the villages as "Serbian".
When Serbia was overrun in 1915 he joined the Serbian Army in its retreat across Albania to return with the victorious Serbian Army when it liberated Belgrade in the final days of the war. He was known as a great friend of Serbia and the Serbian people and after the war decided to stay and live in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Upon the invitation of the Serbian Government, he carried out an inquiry on Hungarian, German and Bulgarian atrocities in Serbia during World War I and published the reports in European papers. He was part of the Serbian Government's envoy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. He found propaganda postcards of the Austrian-Hungarian Army showing atrocities against Serbian people.
After the war, Reiss helped establish the first police academy in Serbia and teach forensic sciences. He was one of the founders of the Red Cross of Serbia. He became an honorary citizen of Krupanj in 1926. In 1929 Reis enters in a street quarrel next to his house in Belgrade and had been beaten by his Serbian neighbour's with wooden sticks. - He died before reaching the hospital.
After his death, his body was buried in the Topčider cemetery and, at his own request, his heart was buried on Kajmakčalan hill. The urn containing his heart was later demolished as revenge by the Bulgarians in World War II.
Legacy
As a legacy to the Serbian people, he left an unpublished manuscript Ecoutez les Serbes! ("Listen Serbs!", sr. Čujte Srbi!). It was finished on 1 June 1928, and in 2004 was printed in Serbia in a large number of copies and distributed for free.
Several streets across Serbia, particularly in Vojvodina carry his name. There is a primary school in Karaburma, Belgrade named after him. In November 2013, he was nominated for the French Forensic Science Hall of Fame by the Association Québécoise de Criminalistique.