Archibald Reiss

Archibald Reiss

Dr. Archibald Rudolph Reiss (Serbian: Арчибалд Рајс/Arčibald Rajs) (8 July 1875, Hechtsberg, Baden, Germany - 7 August 1929, Belgrade, Yugoslavia) was a publicist, a chemist, a professor at the University of Lausanne and a famous forensic scientist.

His family was in the agriculture and wine business. He was 8th child of 10, 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 forensic science books "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 has celebrates 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.

When Serbia was overrun in 1915 he joined the Serbian Army in its retreat across Albania to return with the victorius 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 he stayed to 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 went as a member of Serbian Government at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. He found propaganda postcards of the Austrian-Hungarian Army showing atrocities against Serbian people.

After the war he tried to modernize the Belgrade police. Over time he seems to have become somewhat disillusioned and withdrew from public life but continuing to live in Belgrade. He was one of the founders of the Red Cross of Serbia. As a legacy to the Serbian people, he left an unpublished manuscript "Ecoutez les Serbes!". It was finished on 1 June 1928, and in 2004 was printed in Serbia in large number of copies and distributed for free.

After his death, his body was buried in the Topčider cemetery and, at his own request, his heart was buried on the Kajmakčalan hill, later demolished as a revenge by Bulgarians in World War II.

He became honorary citizen of Krupanj in 1926. In several cities of Serbia, particularly in Vojvodina, streets carry his name.