TO MASTER LIST

Authors: Hans and Lotte Hass
 

Dr. Hans Hass is a remarkable man, one of the true pioneers of recreational diving and one of the earliest exponents of underwater still photography and cinematography. His many diving expeditions, which commenced in 1938, took him to the Red Sea and the Great Barrier Reef with his charming wife Lotte who features in all his books.  Born Hans Heinrich Romulus Hass in 1919 in Austria, we was eighteen when, on holiday off Antibes, saw a man in goggles diving for fish. His name was Guy Gilpatrick. On returning to Vienna the young Hass constructed a helmet, and was soon diving to sixty feet in the not so blue Danube. Forsaking the career as a lawyer that his father had wished, Hass organised an expedition to the Carbbean in 1939, and in eight months shot some 4000 photographs. He became a student of zoology at the University of Vienna, and continued to raise money for further expeditions, assisted by the publication of his first book in 1939. He aquired a secretary in 1943, a beautiful young girl of seventeen, Lotte Baierl, who soon established herself as an accomplished underwater photographer in her own right. They later married and were inseparable. (For an excellent abridged biography of these two wonderful people, see Stars Beneath the Sea by Trevor Norton.) For a full listing of the German titles of Hans Hass, see http://www.hist-net.de/Titel-Photogalerie/Titelgalerie.htm CGP - Current Going Price is available.

MEN AND SHARKS. First published in 1949; English edition 1954. This is the first of the four classics, and covers his early adventures in the waters off Greece; his forays into cinematography and the usual spearfishing.
DIVING TO ADVENTURE. Fisrt published in 1952. Subtitled ‘Harpoon and Camera Under the Sea' which gives you some indication of its content. It was the first Hans Hass book to reach the English-speaking public, and guaranteed a respected reputation for his ‘aastonishing series of underwater photographs'.	.
UNDER THE RED SEA. The English edition also came out in 1952. ‘When I came to the surface an hour later it was as though I had returned from another world'. As the title suggests, this covers one of his many expeditions into the then virginal Red Sea, one of the first divers to visit this underwater paradise, and the first to make it become known. MANTA - Under the Red Sea With Spear and Camera. Hans Hass. 1953 Published by Rand McNally & Company Translated from the German by James Cleugh. This is exactly the same book as the British edition of UNDER THE RED SEA. [ps]	.
WE COME FROM THE SEA.  English edition 1958. By now Hans Hass has gained a world-wide reputation for his adventures under the sea, his photographs, and his knowledge of marine life. This is the book that covers our Great Barrier Reef. Published in Germany as Wir kommen aus dem Meer. The American edition, also published by Jarrolds of London, who did the English edition, is physically a larger book with  larger type, and a different dust jacket but with the same parrot fish photograph, and identical content of text and photographs. Also USA edition, published by Doublday, New York, 1959 - slightly larger than the British edition. [ps] Left image: English edition 1958. Right image: USA edition, 1959.	.

OTHER TITLES BY HANS AND LOTTE HASS

Hardcover,  162 pages, many mono photographs throughout, 16 colour plates. An excellent, rather scarce book published after three of his more popular books - Diving to Adventure, Under the Red Sea, and Men and Sharks. Text covers equipment; dangers of diving; underwater research, 'hunting with a camera', technique. A valuable book.  See Pat Baker's excellent review below. [pjs - german & english] Dustjackets: Cover of German edition, far right top, courtesy Alexander Becker. Cover of EAST GERMAN edition, far right, lower, courtesy Pat Baker. See note below. Photo of English edition, immediate left, courtesy Richard Bate.

NOTE: The title of the EAST German edition is Ich tauchte in den 7 Meeren. 
Google translates this to 'I dipped into the 7 seas';   'tauche' translates to 'dipped', yet translating 'I dived' into German gives 'ich tauchen'. 
A bit confusing, but the popular translation of the book would be 'I dived in the seven seas. 
I guess, strictly speaking, the English version should have been titled 'I photographed in the 7 seas'. 
Perhaps I should win the Pedant of the Year competition - surely the East Germans of the day would have won it!

UOMINI E SQUALI by Hans Hass. 
Published in 1951 by Martello. Hardcover and dustjacket, 283 pages  b/w photos. 
Original in German is  “Menschen und haie”. English translation "Men and Sharks",  published as such in English in 1954. 

GUIDA DEL SUBACQUEO – IL MEDITERRANEO by Hans Hass.
Published in 1978 by Garzanti;  292 pages, b/w photos, cover 
Original in German "Tauchfurer: Das Mittelmeer”. English translation, "Diver's Guide - The Mediterranean", however does not appear to have been published in English. 

FRA SQUALI E CORALLI  by Hans Hass
Published 1944 by Casa editrice mediterranea – Roma; 202 pages b/w photos, hardcover.
Original in German  “Unter korallen und haien”. There are two successive editions. English translation "Between Sharks and Coral". Not sure if this was perinted in English under another title. 

ABISSI INVIOLATI by Hans Hass
Published in 1975 by Mursia, (original “In Unberuhrte Tiefen”). [Sorry I have only the photo of dustjacket]. English translation, "Absolute Abyss". Not sure if this was printed in English under another title. 
[All mbe, additional comment ps]

I Photographed Under the Seven Seas, Hans Hass.
An appreciation by Patrick Baker, W.A.Musuem, Maritime Archaeology Dept.

Books of fine underwater  photographs  are now commonplace.  As beautiful  as many of these are I have lost count of the ‘coffee table volumes'  featuring the underwater world that have appeared over the past thirty years.  However, the first such book, a now very rare volume, appeared in Germany in 1955 and in England the following year.

Hans Hass' I Photographed Under  the Seven Seas is an compilation  of his photographs, work which had begun just before WWII.  On page after page are unique images from Hass' pioneering underwater experiences;  the first sub-surface pictures of whale sharks, sperm whales, manta rays and coral gardens.  One hundred and forty-eight images richly filling a surprisingly slim, 162 page, quarto sized book. Only a handful of pictures are in colour, reflecting publishing practices of the time rather than photographic ability. Hass had in fact been producing underwater colour since 1939 although the majority of his work was monochrome.  (Just three years ago, on being shown some of photographer Wade Hughes' modern black-and -white pictures, he exclaimed "Ah, real photography!".

In this book his pictures, and those of his colleagues and wife, Lotte, were complimented by  Hass' description of the ‘Why, Whens  and Hows' of his work; the research expeditions as well as the principles  and technical details of underwater photography. 

All in all, I Photographed  Under the Seven Sizeis a true underwater treasure!

Postscript:  As ground- (wave-?) breaking as this book is it was not Hans Hass' first underwater photographic  publication.  In 1942 he produced Fotojagd am Meersgrund, an even more rare  220-page handbook,  also photo filled, on what  must have seemed at that time the improbable, even impossible,  practice of underwater photography.

Fotojagd am Meersgrund, Hans Hass
Im Heering-Verlag, Harzburg, 1942

Some years ago, unable to find an original of Hans Hass' I Photographed  under  the Seven Seas I asked Helmut Debelius (Ikan publications, photographer, naturalist) if he could keep an eye open for a copy  of the German version. He wrote back to say he had been unable to find me one  but 'wondered if this was of interest'. I opened the package and there was Hass' 1942 underwater  photographic primer, Fotojagd am Meersgrund. 

Here for me was a book of dreams; a book of which I was, until that moment, unaware. Although unable to read the German text I was entranced as I turned over page of illustrated page (200 pages, with 104 photographs).  My knowledge of Hass' early exploits had been gained from many readings (the first in 1955) of Diving to Adventure. That classic describes the failures of his first photographic  attempts  and is illustrated with a small selection of his successes. Fotojagd am Meersgrund  shows, apparently, the whole collection of underwater pictures from his first,1939/40, Caribbean expedition.  Now I could see how he learned from his initial failures and, with impressive self-will, gained success. He was aged 20 but was already sure of the potential for direct biological observations under the sea, with photography  an essential tool for communicating this to the widest possible public. Among the illustrations  are pictures of aluminium and transparent (German plexiglass?) housings, goggle divers, with and without  fins, but usually  armed with long fish spears,  but mostly, unique  pictures of the underwater world. There is a motor drive sequence and several colour plates. Longley  and Martin's 1927 National Geographic  article showed colour  photographs  taken on very slow Autochrome glass plates, illuminated, albeit  realistically, with a virtual bomb of magnesium flash powder. Hass' photos, taken by available light  on the early 35mm, rather subdued, Agfacolor  Neu film, are the earliest  colour photos I have seen taken by a free-swimming diver.  16mm movie film was shot using tripod mounted camera and bulky diving helmet, before discarding these too to swim freely. (Some of this film can be viewed on The (British) Historical Diving Society's video, Diving From the Past - Into the Future; Part 1). 

The book has a forward by ‘The Sea Devil' himself, the raider Count  von Luckner, a Great War hero to Germanic youth. In fact Hass bought his first research ship Sea Devil from the Count. He never got to actually operate it as a mobile research base, for it was seized by the Soviets as war booty. However, by 1942, the seeds for the future of modern underwater research and photography had been sown. Within 10 years Hans and Lotte's Xarifa had begun to explore the Oceans, manned by marine scientists  and equipped with laboratories and finely engineered still and movie cameras  designed by themselves. The world-wide  awareness of the underwater  world had begun. 

Postscript by Peter Stone.
It just goes to show how luck plays such a part in collecting old books, be they diving related or whatever. I have been after I Photographed Under the Seven Seas for some twenty years now, with no luck. Pat Baker came to Melbourne last year (2000) for a conference and whilst filling in time, dropped in to a dusty, shelf-stacked underground bookshop  and there it was - the Hans Hass classic. I wont tell you how much he paid for it - thats Pat's business - but let me say that I loathed him for all of five minutes. Thank you Pat for sharing your views and emotions with us. You have added to our knowledge of this wonderful man and his charming wife. And I should add that Pat is no mean photographer himself having won many awards including the prestigious British Nature Photographer of the Year. 
It pays to be patient: I managed to get hold of the original German edition, with dust jacket, of Ich fotografierte in den 7 Meeren. But I'm still after the English edition. 
February, 2003 - my patience is rewarded, and I found a copy of the English version, in Queensland.