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Welteislehre

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Pseudoscientific cosmological theory by Hanns Hörbiger

The 1925 "Journal of World Ice Theory"<br>Welteislehre (WEL ; "World Ice Theory" or "World Ice Doctrine"), also known as Glazial-Kosmogonie (Glacial Cosmogony), is a discredited cosmological concept proposed by Hanns Hörbiger, an Austrian engineer and inventor. According to his ideas, ice was the basic substance of all cosmic processes, and ice moons, ice planets, and the "global ether" (also made of ice) had determined the entire development of the universe.[1] Hörbiger did not arrive at his ideas through research, but said that he had received it in a "vision" in 1894. He published a book about the theory in 1912 and heavily promoted it in subsequent years, through lectures, magazines and associations.

History<br>[edit]

Hanns Hörbiger<br>By his own account, Hörbiger was observing the Moon when he was struck by the notion that the brightness and roughness of its surface were due to ice. Shortly after, he dreamt that he was floating in space watching the swinging of a pendulum which grew longer and longer until it broke. "I knew that Newton had been wrong and that the sun's gravitational pull ceases to exist at three times the distance of Neptune", he concluded.[2] He worked out his concepts in collaboration with amateur astronomer and schoolteacher Philipp Fauth whom he met in 1898, and published it as Glazial-Kosmogonie in 1912. Fauth had previously produced a large (if somewhat inaccurate) lunar map and had a considerable following, which lent Hörbiger's ideas some respectability.[3]

It did not receive a great deal of attention at the time, but following World War I Hörbiger changed his strategy by promoting the new "cosmic truth" not only to people at universities and academies, but also to the general public. Hörbiger thought that if "the masses" accepted his ideas, then they might put enough pressure on the academic establishment to force his ideas into the mainstream. No effort was spared in popularising the ideas: "cosmotechnical" societies were founded, which offered public lectures that attracted large audiences, there were cosmic ice movies and radio programs, and even cosmic ice journals and novels.[4]

During this period, the name was changed from the Graeco-Latin Glazial-Kosmogonie to the Germanic Welteislehre [WEL] ("World ice theory"). The followers of WEL exerted a great deal of public pressure on behalf of the ideas.[citation needed] The movement published posters, pamphlets, books, and even a newspaper The Key to World Events. Companies owned by adherents would only hire people who declared themselves convinced of the WEL's truth.[citation needed] Some followers even attended astronomical meetings to heckle, shouting, "Out with astronomical orthodoxy! Give us Hörbiger!"[5]

Supporters of the idea were Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the leading theorist behind the early development of the National Socialist Party in Germany in 1923, and later both Hitler and Himmler.[6][7] Esoteric and pseudo-scientific views were quite popular among the Nazi elite at the time, and WEL appealed to them because it represented a "Germanic" all-encompassing alternative to a natural science viewed as Jewish and soulless.[7]

Despite Hitler's claim that the WEL constituted an "Aryan" theory, a number of Jewish intellectuals supported the theory: for example, Viennese author Egon Friedell, who explained the World Ice Theory in his 1930 Cultural History of the Modern Age.[8][9] Hans Schindler Bellamy, a Jewish member of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, was also a proponent.[10] He continued to advocate the viewpoint after he had fled Vienna following the Anschluss. On the left wing Raoul Hausmann also supported the theory, and corresponded with Hörbiger.[11]

Two organizations were set up in Vienna concerned with the idea: the Kosmotechnische Gesellschaft and the Hörbiger Institute.[7] The first was formed in 1921 by a group of enthusiastic adherents of the idea, which included engineers, physicians, civil servants, and businessmen. Most had been personally acquainted with Hörbiger and had attended his many lectures.[8]

Premise<br>[edit]

According to the idea, the Solar System had its origin in a gigantic star into which a smaller, dead, waterlogged star fell. This impact caused a huge explosion that flung fragments of the smaller star out into interstellar space where the water condensed and froze into giant blocks of ice. A ring of such blocks formed, that we now call the Milky Way, as well as a number of solar systems among which was our own, but with many more planets than currently exist.

Interplanetary space is filled with traces of hydrogen gas, which cause the planets to...