all the people in Vienna! In a country without a coast. Here is the man was born, has influenced our current image of the sea more than any other. He was the Neil Armstrong of the oceans, the first free-swimming divers in the world. Adventurer, Inventor, Explorer, Researcher, Filmmaker, Best-Selling Author, Conservationist. A sex symbol. A Superstar. Hans Hass, who would have been 100 years old.
A man begins in the midst of “man-eaters”
With a holiday on the French Riviera. A water-tight glasses, a look beneath the surface and it is about to happen to him. I can only surmise how he must, at the time, whining at his parents, but he gets them: you allow him in 1939, a trip to the Caribbean. At the time, an unheard-of exclusive pleasure. With a self-constructed underwater camera, he explored the underwater world of Bonaire, and Curacao – and knippst and knippst and knippst. Today, every day bubble millions of recreational and professional diving through the oceans of the world, armed with High-Tech cameras and waterproof mobile phones. On Instagram or Snapchat Hai-photos are no longer a click Monster. But at that time a Sensation! So what had seen the world-actually never. The recordings in the Hans Hass published in his book “Among corals and sharks”, Rob its readers the breath. You can’t believe what you see there: A man among sharks! A man who is approaching fearlessly the “man-eaters”!
This man, however, sees the sharks from the beginning, it is fairly harmless, and says the also. But the stereotype of the “bloodthirsty monsters” and the fearless youth who tames them, fired his adventurer Image. He is 21 years old, making it happen – and is instantly famous.
diving equipment, it was not, so he invents one
Hans Hass looks good, he knows how to present on stage, he can talk to. Also on the political stage of the national-socialist Germany, he moves smooth: The heroes addicts Nazis, he keeps at a distance, without upsetting you too much. He comes around to the military service. The Doctors attest to him a Raynaud’s syndrome. This is, I know this from personal experience, a mostly harmless end of the blood circulation disorder. He can’t March, which, while allegedly, but daring underwater expeditions are obviously not a Problem.
by the Way, he studied law, later he switched over to Zoology.
From a U-boat crews developed Notlufttauchgerät, he is working on a oxygen machine that is not today’s “CCRs” quite dissimilar. In the middle of the war, in 1942, traveling to hatred in the Aegean sea, and dives: With its new development, Hans Hass is a diving pioneer: He was actually the first person who can breathe under water and swim around. Of course, he is adventurous, but the budding zoologist will also explore the behavior of the fish, and wants to be to the horror of his venerable colleagues, “even a amphibious beings.”
Cousteau? Hate has made “almost everything in front of him”
The uncharted Depths of him magically, as shortly after the war, Jacques Cousteau. Constantly hatred must leave with the French compare. This, he noted, occasionally, he did “almost everything in front of him.”
And the hatred also makes it different. During the Maritime expeditions of the former naval officer, Cousteau are often battles true material and more military operations remember, Hans Hass, the ideal projection surface for the Wanderlust and the dreams of the reconstruction Generation. The films of the charismatic Austrian’s have, especially in his early works, have a tendency to be Kitschy, but much more emotional and sensual than that of brittle French. Hatred can compose images beautifully and makes you a virtuoso editing. As a filmmaker, is hatred at the time, the way I see it, at least, of his competitors, he never wanted to compete, clearly superior.
In the 1950s, he creates with “adventures in the Red sea” means the international breakthrough. Of course, because of the under water shots, but also because hatred is a gifted narrator, and his Team for the part of the story. And because he brings his assistant and future wife Charlotte Baierl with in front of the camera. A woman under the sharks! A world sensation, in a well-calculated.
“No cave without Lotte”
Hans and Lotte succeed in “adventures in the Red sea” as a very attractive Couple, the adventure is in tight-fitting swimwear dangerous underwater. A delightful contrast to the blue man in the kitchen coat the reality of the post-war audience. It’s international Cover Stories, offers from Hollywood follow. The Pair has millions of Fans around the world. Although the “mirror etched” in a TV-criticism “No cave without Lotte” and regrets the TV viewers around the world, the reception of converts devices hatred “in aquariums”. However, the barbs damage the success of the Duo a bit.
From 1953 to cross Hans and Lotte with the neat Research vessel “Xarifa” (Arabic: “Beautiful”), through the Caribbean and also to the Galápagos, on behalf of the BBC. Also, the Maldives and many other exotic places you visit. With on-Board scientists, such as last year’s late ethologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, which can operate on the Xarifa journeys actually serious and successful research in the meantime.
His controversial theory destroyed his career
For the film viewer, the trip effect but more like an endless desire to travel. Hatred, after all, had promised his financiers and producers a “game film”. This company Xarifa “as is”, including the dramatic Lotte-rescue. For the sea-watchers, this means than in addition to starring in not always substance the full game scenes involved. Out comes a from today’s perspective, a curious combination of science and entertainment. Always in the middle, Hans and Lotte, the vibrating fins at the end of the dream couple.
Everything seems to be perfect. But then Hans Hass starts to swim against the current. In an Interview, he attributes the change to a kind of Vision he had had on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia: “It was, as I have a major Power would face, the looked at me with a thousand eyes.” This Power not let go of him. He sold at the beginning of the 1960s, the Xarifa, in Public rar and developed the “Energon theory”. This combination of biological knowledge with the functioning of States and corporations, to be his masterpiece. You seems to have, at the time, esoteric. He is accused of working with pseudo-scientific methods. Hardly a researcher takes the theory seriously.
Far-sighted protector of the seas
His career as a scientist is failed, the film career is damaged. Although the hatred produced from the beginning of the 1970s to return to nature films, but in the old Xarifa-can no longer build on successes. The tireless Cousteau has expired long ago, the rank, and more and more filmmakers dare to take a peek under the sea level. And the always re-emerging Energon thing, alienated him to his audience. Hans Hass now acts sometimes like a fish on Dry land, the gasps desperately for air.
the More far-sighted than the Energo theory he shows the environmental issue: Overpopulation, Overfishing, mass tourism – Hans Hass is to reach out early in a committed and knowledgeable caretaker of our Ocean. Especially the fate of the sharks at heart. As he after his film hiatus again goes diving, he is startled at how quickly the destruction has progressed to the underwater world in this short period of time. Particularly, how merciless people hunting sharks to make drives him. After all, you are the animals he admires more than all the others, the fascinate him and which he owes his ascent to global star.
the 2013 Hans Hass, who always wanted to be a fish among the fishes died in his birth city of Vienna aged. In the capital of a country without a coast and more than 300 kilometres from the sea.
More about
loss of Species Vulnerable in the largest marine protected area in the world
Roland Knauer
The author is a diver, nature films and ZDF Moderator of “Terra X”. He is head of the nature-film festival “Green Screen” in Eckernförde. On 9. In March he presented in the Cinemaxx, a “Best of” last year’s contributions. Once he met Hans Hass and asked him, how can you protect sharks in front of people.
