Basic gear from mid-twentieth-century Austria

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David Wilson

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Austria is the very essence of Mitteleuropa, a central European entity resurrected from the rump of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, whose territory later straddled the Iron Curtain separating the eastern bloc of socialist countries from the West European liberal democracies. In the aftermath of World War II, both Germany and Austria were divided into four occupation zones administered by the wartime allies: the USA, the USSR, the UK and the French Republic. The American, British and French occupation zones of Germany became the Federal Republic of Germany and a member of NATO, while the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact. By way of contrast, the four Allied occupation zones of Austria reunited to become the republic of Austria with a strictly neutral status in international defence affairs. Nowadays Austria is a prosperous member of the European Union.

I don't know what image Austria conjures up for you. Perhaps "The Third Man" movie with Orson Welles, set in the Austrian capital Vienna:
Or perhaps a New Year's Day Strauss concert from Vienna with the "Blue Danube Waltz":
Or you may well have ideas of your own, so much better than my clichéed, stereotypical offerings.

Austria's best-known scuba-diving pioneer is Hans Hass:
Hans_Hass.jpg

For a biography of the man, see his Wikipedia article, which features his image above.

That's enough for today as I have too much to do in the way of Christmas preparations right now. I expect many of you will be similarly preoccupied, so let me wish you "Happy Holidays" using Austria's national language: German.

Fröhliche Weihnachten! Prosit Neujahr!


I will return with more information about early Austrian basic gear in the coming days.
 
Here is Hans Hass's obituary from the 24 June 2013 edition of England's broadsheet The Daily Telegraph:

Hans Hass
Hans Hass, the marine biologist, oceanographer and zoologist, who has died aged 94, was a pioneer — with his wife Lotte — of spectacular films of the sea depths, and in the mid-1950s shot the first underwater footage for the BBC.
hans-hass-lotte_2598816b.jpg

Hass during filming with his second wife Lotte Photo: AFP/GETTY
6:51PM BST 24 Jun 2013

At a time when diving equipment was bulky and unreliable, Hass managed with just flippers, goggles and lightweight breathing apparatus that allowed him to get close to the undersea action . Many viewers, however, were more spellbound by Hass’s glamorous wife than by the mechanics of braving watery new frontiers . A fan of his since her school days, Lotte Baierl got a job as his secretary, and during a filming expedition to the Red Sea in 1950, the year she and Hass married, worked as both an underwater photographer and model.

Hass himself was not particularly keen on taking women on his expeditions. But his film company insisted that his documentaries would appeal to a wider audience if they featured a pretty female lead. Lotte proved a natural talent on camera, and her picture soon adorned the front pages of international magazines. Film offers from Hollywood followed, but she turned them down, saying she did not want to be a full-time actress.

The Hasses’ first BBC series, Diving To Adventure, largely filmed in the Aegean, was screened in 1956. The programmes proved hugely popular and the couple returned to the screen two years later with another series, The Undersea World of Adventure, shot in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

Hass made the films to pay for scientific expeditions, and had mixed feelings about missing out on academic work. “Much as I enjoyed making the films, they took all my time and I would have liked to have done more of the research,” he explained. He once left his ship in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and flew to Bristol, home of the BBC’s Natural History Unit, with material for six half-hour programmes, before returning with the money he had been paid, which allowed him to continue his undersea studies.

The couple’s exploits beneath the sea, filmed on comparatively primitive cameras and broadcast in black and white, thrilled television audiences throughout the late 1950s and 1960s by opening a window on to a breathtaking and hitherto unseen world. Rivalled only by Jacques Cousteau, Hass and his wife managed — often in perilous circumstances — to capture the habits and activities of a range of deep-sea creatures including dangerous sharks, barracuda and giant manta rays. (Hass carried a spear for protection.)

The pictures he brought back also helped to inject the emerging sport of scuba-diving with some much-needed glamour, as did the television series Sea Hunt, launched in 1958 and starring the actor Lloyd Bridges. Hass believed his underwater series, dubbed with English and German commentaries, were more popular in England than in Germany because they appealed to “the British sense of adventure”. Yet they also served a serious purpose, drawing attention to the need to protect the marine environment.

The son of a lawyer, Hans Hass was born in Vienna on January 23 1919; as a child he learned to swim in a tributary of the Danube. An early boyhood memory was of examining a drop of water under a friend’s microscope. On a holiday on the Cote d’Azur, he met the American journalist Guy Gilpatric, who taught the young Hans the basics of spearfishing and recommended he equip himself with goggles and a harpoon.

In 1936 Hans travelled to England as an exchange student. He later studied Law at the universities of Vienna and Berlin, but yielded to the pull of undersea life and turned to Zoology. An article about his deep-sea exploits off the Riviera earned him enough to buy a camera, sealed in a home-made watertight case, and a pair of swimming fins, the first to be seen in Vienna.

In 1938 he led his first expedition, diving off the coast of Yugoslavia with a group of college friends; as he took photographs, he encountered — and killed — his first shark. The trip furnished him with material for a lecture series which financed his next expedition, to the West Indies.

In the Caribbean, Hass devised his own protocol for filming sharks. “If I wanted to photograph a shark,” he explained in his memoir Diving To Adventure (1952), “I pretended to flee as conspicuously as possible, thus awakening the instinct in every beast of prey to chase what tries to escape. And I actually succeeded thus in luring sharks after me.

“When I saw that they were close enough, I would suddenly spin and swim toward them with camera ready. And before the creatures had recovered from their surprise and turned away in disgust, I already had their image on film.” Hass completed his first short underwater short, Pirsch unter Wasser (Stalking under Water), in 1940. The following year he moved from Vienna to Berlin.

On the proceeds of his films, pictures, lectures and articles, Hass was able to buy his own yacht, Sea Devil, and to finance an expedition to Greece in 1942. On this trip he observed fishermen illegally blasting schools of fish with dynamite, and did likewise to lure sharks to within camera range as they were drawn to the scene by the fall out of the explosions.

In the same year Hass was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, and on account of his diving skills was assigned to the so-called “Fighters of the Sea” (Kampfschwimmer) battalion, the Wehrmacht’s crack frogmen unit and part of the military secret service.

He was dispatched to Italy, where his cache of pictures and specimens from Greece narrowly escaped destruction at Allied hands. Hass had stored them in a railway coach for the homeward trip to Germany, but as fighting threatened to engulf the station at Naples he managed to retrieve them just minutes before the train was blown up in an air raid. He took them to Berlin, where after the war he completed his doctorate in Zoology.

Hass now found himself without the wherewithal to fund and equip another full-scale expedition, so he undertook the first of two solo visits to Africa to explore the coral reefs of the Red Sea. British officials at Port Sudan helped him to get a boat, in which he was able to photograph giant manta rays at close range, as well as sharks. On his second expedition to the area, he filmed Under The Red Sea, which won an award at the 1951 Venice Film Festival.

Later that year, having bought a new research ship, Xarifa, and married Lotte, Hass embarked on a series of filming safaris in the Red Sea. He shot the Oscar-winning feature film Unternehmen Xarifa (Under the Caribbean), the first German film to be produced in Technicolor, and which included the first underwater shots of a sperm whale.

Hass gave up diving and filmmaking in 1961 to concentrate on developing his Energon Theory, which maintains that evolution can be broken down into three phases: single-cell; multi-cell; and so-called “hyper-cell” organisms . Man, he argued, is a multi-cell organism, but becomes a hyper-cell organism by developing and using technology to enhance his natural physical capacity. In this way, Hass suggested, technology was an evolutionary phenomenon.

In 1999 he founded the International Hans Hass Institute for Energon-Cybernetic Research at the University of Vienna, where he was appointed to a professorship.

Hass was the author of 28 books, among them Men And Sharks (1949); Diving To Adventure (1952); and Manta: Under The Red Sea With Spear and Camera (1953).

His first marriage, to the actress Hannelore Schroth, ended in divorce. Lotte Hass survives him with a son by his first wife.

Hans Hass, born January 23 1919, died June 16 2013
Hans Hass

For an even more detailed account of Hans Hass's life and work, I highly recommend Michael Jung's article "Hans Hass: Pioneer of swimdiving" in Historical Diver No. 9 Fall 1996, pages 12-18. This journal is available online for free download at http://aquaticcommons.org/14997/1/Historical_Diver_9_1996.pdf.

Michael Jung has produced another excellent online contribution to Hans Hass studies in German, entitled Hans Hass: Werks- und Literaturverzeichnis and listing Hans Hass's books, essays, films and inventions. This publication, beautifully illustrated inter alia with book and magazine covers, can be found online at Wayback Machine.

I invite anybody with additional information or personal reminiscences about Hass to contribute what they know to this thread. Hass has made an enormous contribution to the modern evolution of diving and I feel his rightful place in history may have been overshadowed by the likes of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
 
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Our next port of call is Semperit, the Austrian rubber company (logo above) responsible for the manufacture of Hans Hass's diving mask and fin designs. There follows a company timeline from its foundation to the present:
semperit-factory.jpg

  • 1850 Production begins in Wimpassing, Austria, at the first rubber goods factory on the European continent
  • 1896 The Miskolczy & Co. OHG rubber goods factory is founded in Traiskirchen, Austria
  • 1900 Production of car tyres begins
  • 1906 The name SEMPERIT is created from the Latin - semper it ('it always runs')
  • 1927 Semperit starts the production of pneumatic truck tyres
  • 1936 Semperit makes the 'GOLIATH', the company's first winter tyre
  • 1956 Production of tubeless tyres and the then highly popular white wall tyres begins
  • 1963 The newly launched studded tyres (M+S 181) are an instant best-seller
  • 1966 Start of development of the radial tyre, which goes into production in 1967
  • 1984 Work starts on rebuilding and extending the factory in Traiskirchen, together with restructuring of the production process. SEMPERIT REIFEN AG is separated from SEMPERIT AG.
  • 1985 Integration into the Continental Group, thereby fusing the expertise of two leading European tyre manufacturers
  • 1988 The world‘s first directional high-speed winter tyre (HR-M+S), the “Direction-Grip”, is produced by Semperit
  • 2016 80 years of Semperit winter tyres
  • 2017 111 years of Semperit brand
About Us - The Brand | Semperit

Our focus on the collaboration between Hans Hass and Semperit requires us to take a closer look at the mid-twentieth-century fortunes of the company. Here I am indebted to Semperit AG – Wikipedia.

Anschluss
After the "Anschluss" annexed Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, Semperit remained formally independent, but was bound by a mutual aid agreement to Continental AG of Hanover, which provided expertise and machinery. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Semperit was converted to war production, meaning manufacture of tank tracks as well as tyres. During the war, Polish forced labour was increasingly exploited to replace workers and to maintain production. The then general director, Franz Josef Messner, was arrested by the Gestapo in late March 1944 for membership of a resistance cell in Vienna and he was personally gassed by commandant Franz Ziereis in the Mauthausen concentration camp on 23 April 1945.

Post-war years
After the Red Army dismantled most of the machinery, production restarted under very difficult circumstances in August 1945. In October 1945, Semperit employed 410 people. The war damage was repaired in 1951, and Semperit was able to expand considerably until 1972. In late 1972, Semperit had over 15,000 employees and was Austria's second largest company. In 1972, the Sava plant in Kranj, Slovenia, previously owned by Semperit before its takeover by Continental in 1940, was returned to Semperit. The group also included companies outside the tyre business, e.g. the window manufacturers Semperdur and Perfekta. In Ireland, tyres were produced for export to the UK, Scandinavia and the USA. The majority shareholder of Semperit AG has been the state-owned credit institution since the end of the war, which also acted as an in-house bank. This majority shareholder also caused the decline of Semperit AG, as it ensured permanent underfunding. The Creditanstalt did not allow any capital increase, but granted loans itself, resulting in an increase in Semperit's debts. This was not a problem during times of growth, but these debts could no longer be paid off in times of crisis.
 
Another timeline, this time chronicling Hans Hass's association with diving masks and fins.

1937
Louis_de_Corlieu.jpg

Louis de Corlieu exhibited his “propulseurs de natation” (swimming propellers) at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1937. Hass saw them and purchased a pair. [Michael Jung (Fall 1996) “Hans Hass: Pioneer of Swimdiving”, Historical Diver 9, pp. 12-19. Online at http://aquaticcommons.org/14997/].

1938
In 1938 at the tender age of 19, Hass undertook his first expedition to the former Yugoslavia, accompanied by several friends from the University of Vienna. During this expedition, he fished with harpoon and goggles and took his first underwater photographs using a watertight camera housing that he had built. He also used fins for the first time, which enabled him to swim by leg power only, leaving his hands free to operate the camera. [Historical Diver, Number 9, 1996 - Aquatic Commons]

1939

Starting in 1939, the Semperit rubber company began manufacturing the modified "Hans Hass Flippers" in Vienna. [Historical Diver, Number 9, 1996 - Aquatic Commons].

1941
Hass replaced the original goggles he had been using up until this time with a circular diving mask that enclosed the eyes and nose. He had bought the mask when he was in California in 1940. [Historical Diver, Number 9, 1996 - Aquatic Commons].

1944
The German industry was exhausted. Nevertheless, in spring of 1944 the first 30 frogmen and their two teachers were ready for action. The German frogmen, well-trained and highly motivated swimdivers, used oxygen rebreathers manufactured by the German Drager Company and by the Italian firm Pirelli. The flippers came from Semperit, Vienna. [Historical Diver, Number 9, 1996 - Aquatic Commons].

1948
Hass designed Hans Hass fin for manufacture by Semperit. [http://austria-forum.org/af/Wissenssammlungen/Biographien/Hass,_Hans].

1949
Hans Hass System fins available from Semperit in Vienna. [http://www.hans-hass.de/resources/HH-Werks-Verz+A2.pdf] & [Wayback Machine].

1951
Hans Hass System fins available from Barakuda in Hamburg and Heinke in London. [http://www.hans-hass.de/resources/HH-Werks-Verz+A2.pdf] & [Wayback Machine].

1953
Barakuda.png

Barakuda’s 1953 catalogue describes “Barakuda Hans Hass” fins as a further development of Corlieu patent by Hass. Central rib makes for a stiffer blade and fins available in six sizes from EU 33 to 44. [BARAKUDA Catalogo 1953 | BluTimeScubaHistory].

1956
HH-1956.png

Green rubber fins made in Austria with option of an adjustable heel-plate and strap secured by buttons and eyelets. [http://www.hdsitalia.com/articoli/21_attrezzature.pdf].

1957
BARAKUDA-1957-2.jpg

Final appearance of Hans Hass fins in Barakuda’s annual catalogue. [BARAKUDA Catalogo 1957 | BluTimeScubaHistory].

1963
img117-jpg-473383-jpg.474609.jpg

Siebe-Heinke Blue Book of 1963 replaces Hans Hass fixed-heel and adjustable heel-plate fins with Hans Hass “Sea Hunter” swim fins in blue rubber with a curved blade, open toe and adjustable heel straps in UK sizes 8, 9 and 10. [https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOEa2VqeTBKNmlRems].
 
Let's take a closer look at the Semperit Hans Hass System diving mask. Its origins may lie in the 1941 entry in the timeline posted in the previous message: "Hass replaced the original goggles he had been using up until this time with a circular diving mask that enclosed the eyes and nose. He had bought the mask when he was in California in 1940." I wonder whether the mask he purchased in California might have been a Sea Dive mask (below) made by the Sea Net company of Los Angeles:
SEANET.JPG


Anyway, here is a series of pictures of a Semperit Hans Hass System diving mask. Judge for yourself how much it resembles the Sea Net mask.
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No retaining band and a basic oval shape rather than the roundness of the Sea Dive. Note the Semperit Circled "S" logo embossed twice on the top of the mask in the second image above. While the British made Heinke Hans Hass System mask only came in black, Semperit appears to have offered this mask in light green and red as well as dark green:
701_153015987.jpg

701_-400237066.jpg

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388_-1071614421.jpg
 
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You may have noticed the packaging next to the light green Semperit Hans Hass System mask (above). Let's take a closer look at the mask box and the Semperit safety leaflet accompanying it.
Semperit-Tauchglas-System-Hans-Hass-e5f7bb1.jpg

Semperit-Tauchglas-System-Hans-Hass.jpg

Semperit-Tauchglas-System-Hans-Hass-694e7a74.jpg

The mask box resembles one of those old-fashioned shoe boxes with a lid that can be removed and replaced. The label on the side provides the stock number (640) and identifies the contents as one article (1 Stück - 1 piece). As for the enclosed instruction sheet:
German: "SEMPERIT-TAUCHGLAS. SYSTEM HANS HASS. Art.640. Das Tauchglas ist mit der Markenprägung nach oben aufzusetzen. Es empfiehlt sich, das Glas vor dem Aufsetzen ins Wasser zu tauchen und eine kleine Menge Wasser darin zu belassen, um das Anlaufen zu verhindern. Wenn das Glas trotzdem während des Gebrauches von innen leicht anlaufen sollte, genügt ein kurzes Durchschütteln mit dem verbliebenen Wasserrest, die Innenfläche des Glases wieder klar und durchsichtig zu machen. Bei Tauchen in größere Tiefen empfiehlt es sich, zum Druckausgleich durch die Nase Luft in das Tauchglas hineinzubringen. Man vermeidet dadurch den zu großen Innendruck. NICHT ZUM SPRINGEN BENUTZEN!"
English: "Semperit DIVING MASK. SYSTEM HANS HASS. Art.640. Put the diving mask on with the embossed trade mark at the top. Wetting the mask with water before putting it on is recommended, as is leaving a small amount of water inside to prevent fogging. If the lens still begins to fog up from the inside when in use, give the residual water a little shake, which will be enough to make the inner surface of the lens clear and transparent again. When diving to greater depths, exhale through the nose into the diving mask, which will equalise pressure. This avoids the excessive internal pressure. DO NOT USE WHEN JUMPING IN!"

That's enough for today, more in a few days' time, probably after New Year's Day. May I wish all my readers a happy and prosperous 2020 in English and in German:
ny-59.gif
 
A Happy New Year!

On to Hans Hass System fins. We have already mentioned how Hans Hass purchased a pair of Louis de Corlieu's swimming "propellers" (propulseurs) exhibited at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1937. Hass proceeded to improve the original design, having it manufactured by Austria's Semperit rubber company. He is widely credited, at least in Europe, with raising the profile of the humble swim fin and popularising it as an aid to "swimdiving".

There may have been an early, short-lived, Semperit fin, if the following comment at Diving Icon Hans Hass 1919-2013 - DIVER magazine is to be believed:
"Hans & Lotte Hass. Traf Hans Hass und Lotte Hass in Salzburg bei einer Film Vorfuehrung . War begeistert und bestellte die ersten Schwimmflossen von Semperit Wien die mit der hand aus zwei gummiplatten mit einer stahlfedereinlage gemacht wurden . Als ich diese Schwimmflossen das erste mal benuetzte brachen beide auseinander . Semperit machte kurz darauf die Hans Hass Schwimmflossen fuer die ich einen Dollar das Paar bezalte . Hans Hass schreibte auch etliche Buecher ueber den Unterwasser Sport ( unter Korallen und Haien etc ). Als ich 1951 auf der St. Catherine Strasse in einem Sportgeschaeft ( JOE RICHMAN SPORTING GOODS ) Schwimmflossen die wie ein Baum Blatt aussahen ( nicht wie Fisch – Flossen ) und die einen Verkaufspreis von $ 15.00 hatten ging ich hinein und offerierte die Hans Hass Flossen von eine Zeichnung fuer $ 4.00 das Paar an und bekam einen Auftrag fuer 400 Paare ( Allerdings dauerte es 6 Monate bis er dafuer bezahlte ) – Das war mein erstes Geschaeft in Kanada . Nicht schlecht fuer einen jungen 17 jaehrigen . Alles verdanke ich Hans Hass der mir die Idee fuer diesen Sport gab und wo ich erst diese Sachen Importierte und dan selber herstellte . Martin."
=============================================================
"Met Hans Hass and Lotte Hass in Salzburg during a film screening. Was thrilled by it and ordered the first flippers Semperit Vienna Rubber works made from ??rubber sheets by hand with two spring steel insert. When I used these Swim fins, the first time both broke apart. Semperit made ??shortly afterwards the Hans Hass flippers for which paid a dollar a pair. Hans Hass also penned several books about it (among corals and sharks etc). Walking 1951 on Saint Catherine Street in Montreal and looked into the window of the Sports Equipment Store (JOE RICHMAN SPORTING GOODS) I saw flippers that looked more like a tree leaf (not like a fish tail ) and had a retail price of $ 15.00 a pair – I went into the Store and offered the Owner Austrian made ” Hans Hass Fins for $ 4.00 the pair from a Drawing I made and got an order for 400 pairs ( However, it took 6 months to he paid) – This was my first business deal in Canada. Not bad for a young 17 year old Boy . I owe everything to Hans Hass, who gave me the idea for selling and later on making Sports Diving Equipment . Martin"

The reference to a "spring steel insert" recalls Louis de Corlieu's steel-reinforced rubber fin design, which Semperit may have tried to copy. The replacement Hans Hass Semperit fin was an all-rubber affair:
Fins.png

So a non-adjustable open-heel fin featuring a convex-tipped blade reinforced with side-rails and a centre rib. A simple, classic design copied particularly in Eastern Europe, e.g. Vlastimil Hrůza's early open-heel fins made in Czechoslovakia:
ploutve-home-made-vlastimil-hruza-04-jpg.432654.jpg

Hans Hass System fins were also made by Heinke of London and Barakuda of Germany. I have already reviewed these models elsewhere, specifically in my United Kingdom and Federal Republic of German threads.

Let's take a closer look at the Semperit version of the Hans Hass fins:
hansh_f_01.jpg

hansh_f_02.jpg

The markings confirm the fin's Austrian provenance; "SYSTEM HANS HASS" with the SEMPERIT logo underneath. And here is a pair from the Berlin sports diving museum:
foto_deutschland_tauchermuseum_flosse2.jpg

As the museum website says at at Das Taucher-ABC: Maske, Flossen und Schnorchel, "Auch Hans Hass experimentierte mit Schwimmflossen. Er hatte ein Paar Corlieu-Flossen erworben und nahm sie 1938 mit auf seine Expedition nach Dalmatien. Nach seinen Vorschlägen entwickelte der österreichische Gummihersteller Semperit eine industriell gefertigte Schwimmflosse und brachte sie unter dem Namen „Hans-Hass-Flossen“ auf den Markt. (Hans Hass also experimented with fins. He had bought a pair of Corlieu fins and took them on his expedition to Dalmatia in 1938. According to his suggestions, the Austrian rubber manufacturer Semperit developed an industrially manufactured swimming fin and launched it under the name "Hans-Hass-Flossen"). The website continues at Exponate des Sporttauchermuseums: Flossentypen im Wandel der Zeit, "Im Sporttauchermuseum Berlin sind viele dieser Schwimmflossen-konstruktionen ausgestellt. Zu sehen sind u.a von Hans Haas entwickelte Schwimmflossen aus Semperit (Baujahr 1948)." (Many of these swim fin designs are exhibited in the Berlin Sports Diving Museum. On display are, among other things, swim fins from Semperit manufactured in 1948)."
 
Some publicity material relating to Hans Hass System fins has survived from the 1950s:
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German:
"Semperit." Gummi-Schwimmflossen. SYSTEM HANS HASS
Ich freue mich Ihnen mitteilen zu können, dass die nach meiner Angabe bei Ihnen hergestellten Flossen soll den in sie gesetzten Erwartungen entsprechen. Mit herzlichen Grüssen. Hans Hass 1. Februar 1950.
Die außerordentlichen Erfolge, die der kühne österreichische Unterwasserpionier Dr. Hans Haß mit seinen bahnbrechenden und in der wissenschaftlichen Welt geradezu sensationell wirkenden Forschungsarbeiten erzielte, dankt er nicht allein seinem persönlichen Mut und seiner sportlichen Gewandtheit, sondern zu einem guten Teil auch den Gummiflossen, die von den Semperitwerken in gemeinschaftlicher Arbeit mit ihm entwickelt wurden.
Auf Grund der von Dr. Haß gewonnenen Erfahrungen wurden sie immer weiter verbessert und ausgebaut. Heute sind die Semperit-Gummischwimmflossen Sytem „Hans Haß“ nach dem Urteil dieses prominentesten aller Unterwasserforscher „die besten der Welt“.
Schon in seinem Buch „Unter Korallen und Haien“ hebt Dr. Haß diese Gummiflossen hervor und betont, daß „man bedeutend schneller schwimmen und tauchen kann, wenn man sie an den Füßen trägt“. Besonders wichtig aber waren sie dem Forscher beim Photographieren unter Wasser, denn mit Hilfe der Flossen kann man das Tauchen, wie er selbst sagt, auschließlich mit den Beinen besorgen und hat somit beide Hände zur Bedienung der Kamera frei.
Das Schwimmen und Tauchen mit den Flossen ist tatsächlich ein besonderes Vergnügen, denn die Geschwindigkeit im Wasser ist ohne jede Mehranstrengung wesentlich erhöht. Außerdem ist es ein Vorteil, den jeder Schwimmer zu schätzen weiß, wenn die Hände nicht unbedingt zur Fortbewegung notwendig.
English:
"Semperit." Rubber swim fins. SYSTEM HANS HASS.
I am pleased to say that the fins you have made to my instructions should meet the expectations placed in them. With kind regards. Hans Hass February 1, 1950.
Dr. Hans Hass, the daring Austrian underwater pioneer, has achieved extraordinary success with his groundbreaking research work, which has been positively sensational in the scientific world. He owes this success not only to his personal courage and his athletic skills, but also in large part to the rubber fins the Semperit works developed in collaboration with him.
Based on Dr Hass's experience, they were constantly improved and enhanced. Today's Semperit System "Hans Hass" rubber swim fins are judged to be "the best in the world" by this most prominent of all underwater researchers.
In his book "Among Corals and Sharks", Dr. Hass highlights these rubber fins, stressing how "you can swim and dive significantly faster if you wear them on your feet". They were particularly important to the researcher for underwater photography, however, because the legs alone can dive with the aid of the fins, as he himself says, thus leaving both hands free to operate the camera.
Swimming and diving with these fins will be a real pleasure, because speed in water is significantly increased without any extra effort. Every swimmer will also appreciate the advantage if his hands are not required for mobility.

A less verbose flyer advertising "Hass fins" and based on an iconic photograph of Hans and Lotte Hass:
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And here is Lotte Hass in a red pair of these fins during a trip to Australia:
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But let Lotte herself show you how to snorkel with these fins in the following video:
 
The Hans Hass System fin manufactured by Semperit of Austria evolved during the 1950s to be available in two versions:
HH-1956.png

The image above is an excerpt from an article by Fabio Vitale downloadable from http://www.hdsitalia.com/articoli/21_attrezzature.pdf.

The model on the right is the original non-adjustable fin. The Italian reads "5b) HANS HASS. A tallone non protetto sono realizzate nella stessa gomme del modello precedente e nei numeri dal 33 al 46. La gomma delle pinne prodotte nei numeri 33/34 e 35/36 e più morbida e flessibile." A rough translation: "5b) HANS HASS. Unprotected heel, made of the same rubber as previous model and sized from 33 to 46. The rubber used to make the fins, sized 33/34 and 35/36, is more supple and flexible."

The model on the left is a new adjustable Hass fin introduced in 1956. Italian caption: "5a) HANS HASS 1956. Di produzione austriaca in gomma verde, sono caratterizzate dal cinghiolo tagliato posteriormente e munito di asole e bottoni per l’allungamento o l’accorciamento della calzata : il tallone può essere protetto da uno stampo regolabile." Rough translation: "5a) HANS HASS 1956. Made in Austria of green rubber. The distinctive feature is a strap cut at the rear and fitted with eyelets and buttons to lengthen or shorten the fit: adjustable moulding can protect heel."

The Wikipedia article on Hans Hass has a timeline of Hans Hass's contributions to diving technology, including the entry "1956: New patented design of swim fins (called 'Superfish')". I can't find any reference elsewhere to a "Superfish" fin, or any Hass fin patent for that matter, so I can't confirm that the 1956 fin with its buttoned heelstrap and extended heelplate is the "Superfish" design.

That's all for today and for Austrian basic underwater swimming equipment. How long Semperit manufactured Hans Hass fins for remains an open question for want of reliable evidence, but I did recently find a 1959 Italian sports catalogue offering Semperit Hans Hass fins "while stocks last", so they seem to have been marketed throughout the 1950s at least.

My next port of call in these threads will likely be Scandinavia and more particularly Denmark and Sweden.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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