Dr. Alexander Tollmann (27 June 1928 – 8 August 2007) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n professor of

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

. He was born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. He had been professor at the Geologischen Institut of the University of Vienna since 1969. He was a political activist working to free Austria from

nuclear energy Nuclear energy may refer to: *Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity *Nuclear binding energy, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom *Nuclear potential energy, the pot ...

and a founder of the

Austrian Green Party The Greens – The Green Alternative (, ) is a green political party in Austria. The Greens currently sit in opposition. Formerly, they were part of the Schallenberg government, the Second Kurz government, and the Nehammer government. It won ...

(''Vereinten Grünen Österreichs'' or VGÖ). In 1993, with his wife, paleontologist Edith Kristan-Tollmann, he published a monograph, ''Und die Sintflut gab es doch. Vom

Mythos Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

zur historischen Wahrheit'', which claimed that Noah's

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

was the consequence of a

bolide A bolide is normally taken to mean an exceptionally bright meteor, but the term is subject to more than one definition, according to context. It may refer to any large Impact crater, crater-forming body, or to one that explodes in the atmosphere. ...

impact about 9500 years ago, and supported the claim through geology (impact craters, iridium, shatter cones, stress lamination of minerals, radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology, a peak of acid in the Greenland ice) and legends and folk traditions. See

Tollmann's hypothetical bolide Tollmann's bolide hypothesis is a hypothesis presented by Austrian palaeontologist Edith Kristan-Tollmann and geologist Alexander Tollmann in 1994. The hypothesis postulates that one or several bolides (asteroids or comets) struck the Earth ...

. Later in his life, he turned to

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

fields and published obscure hypotheses for which he was strongly criticized by the scientific community. In 1998 the husband-and-wife team (posthumously; his wife had died in 1995) published ''Das Weltenjahr geht zur Neige: Mythos und Wahrheit der Prophezeiungen''. The book was on the Austrian bestseller list for weeks. In August 1999, he predicted a world-wide catastrophe by studying the predictions of

Nostradamus Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinisation of names, Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French Astrology, astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed Oracle, seer, who is best known for his book ''Les Prophéti ...

, that he awaited in his bunker in

Lower Austria Lower Austria ( , , abbreviated LA or NÖ) is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Major cities are Amstetten, Lower Austria, Amstetten, Krems an der Donau, Wiener Neustadt and Sankt Pölten, which ...

. In December 2003, Tollmann published ''Und die Wahrheit siegt schließlich doch'' (''And the truth finally prevails'').

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tollmann, Alexander 1928 births 2007 deaths The Greens (Austria) politicians 20th-century Austrian geologists