Nikolic: Archibald Reiss was one of us

BELGRADE- A ceremony marking 100th anniversary of the beginning of work of Swiss professor and forensic scientist Archibald Reiss in Serbia was held at Topcider Park in downtown Belgrade on Thursday, during which Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said that Reiss was a comrade and hero who endured the Great War alongside the Serbian army and people.

I am a Swiss volunteer in the Serbian army, a friend of magnificent warriors of Sumadija, Danube, Morava, Timok and Vardar, Nikolic cited Reiss, noting that in this way Reiss described himself and his stay in Serbia since 1914.

"Reiss was born in Hausach, in the Grand Dutchy of Baden in Germany in 1875. He lived in the Canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and died - we are sure about that - as a Serb in Belgrade in 1929," the Serbian president said.

He noted that Reiss arrived in Serbia in 1914 at the invitation of the Serbian government to investigate the crimes that the Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian armed forces committed against civilians, and remained loyal to his profession.

"As a renowned professor and criminologist, he spread the truth, and thus shattered the propaganda image that the Germans and Austro-Hungarians created about the Serbs as a barbaric people," Nikolic underlined, noting this is an opportunity to thank Reiss for numerous articles that he published in European newspapers and magazines, often even on the front page, which he sent as a correspondent during the war.

Mostly thanks to his articles, the European and world public was impartially and timely informed about the truth in Serbia and about Serbia, the president said.

The president said that the admiration that Reiss himself felt toward Serb soldiers and their fair treatment of...