Archibald Reiss

Rodolphe Archibald Reiss was a German–Swiss criminology-pioneer, forensic scientist, professor and writer.

The Reiss family was in agriculture and winemaking. Archibald was born on July 8, 1875 the eighth of ten children, son of Ferdinand Reiss, landowner and Pauline Sabine Anna Gabriele Seutter von Loetzen. After finishing high school 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.

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.

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.

Reiss died on August 7, 1929.