OTTO SIGFRID REUTER
1876–1945

Otto Sigfrid Reuter was born on 2nd September 1876 in Leer (East Frisia, North-West Germany) as second son to the family of Navigation-Instructor Wilhelm Reuter. His ancestry showed people of great quality and intellect, such as theologists, an Abbot, city councillors, a court-painter, etc., and it is here where Otto Sigfrid Reuter received and developed his interest in religion and astronomy.

Influenced at home to become a minister, he studied theology, yet to such an extent that it turned him to search for the original roots of the Germanic Religion, which he found intertwined with their ancient knowledge of the sky above them. His studies in Leipzig made him a master of the German language, expressed in early writings of plays, novels, poetry and prose. His wide range of mind connected with the Great Ones of Antiquity, through the past and into his time!

To earn his living, in 1894 he started his higher education in the Postal and Telegraph System. In 1924, he retired from his position as Telegraph-Director of Bremen city and country and intensified his studies of the Germanic Peoples, their religion and astronomy. This made him able to converse in sixteen present and past languages. Many of these he needed to translate and analyze old passed-on scripts of Germanic, Icelandic, Norwegian, etc., and Indo-Germanic origin for comparison, in order to correct the common belief that the ancient Germanic Peoples had no understanding of the higher sciences, i.e. astronomy.

In 1909, he published anonymously a small script: Sigfrid oder Christus, a wake-up call to the German peoples, which led to the founding in 1911 of his movement, the Deutschgläubige Gemeinschaft (Teutonic Troth Fellowship). To prove that our forefathers had a great knowledge of the sky above, his enormous research brought him to publish in 1921 the first and in 1923 the second book of Das Rätsel der Edda (The Riddle of the Edda), from manuscripts of medieval German Sagas, beliefs and skylore. Finding acknowledgement, criticism, disbelief and opposition, he published in 1934 his major work Die Germanische Himmelskunde (Ancient Germanic Astronomy), which is by now recognized as the most accurate handbook of astronomy with sky-maps and explanatory drawings crafted by his wife, Gertrud Reuter.

In 1936, he received the Old-Master of the Spade Science, Gustav-Kossinna-Prize for his research into Germanic prehistory. In 1939, the University of Leipzig – where be had studied in his younger years – proclaimed him Doctor Honoris Causa of the Philosophical Sciences.

To prove more yet, he undertook a scientific expedition to Iceland with Professor Dr Rolf Müller, who – when the second world war broke out – was replaced by Dr Leutelt. They found many visible astronomical proofs throughout Iceland. He published his results in Island und die erste Entdeckung Amerikas (Iceland and the first discovery of America), in which he also settles scientifically and from old descriptions the geographical position of Vinland at the time of Eric the Red.

He gave many lectures to the Prehistoric Society and wrote articles for their scientific publications. Also, he was quite active in leading his association, which was quieted down during the second world war, and then found qualified leaders in Dr Wolfgang Elbert, Dr Alfred Conn etc. It is now being guided by Dr Odfrid Jungcklaass and Mr Karlheinz Schwecht.

In 1945, British bombs ruined Otto Sigfrid Reuter’s home – he died there of a heart attack shortly afterwards on April 5, 1945.

In 1978 Reuter’s last work Gestalten und Gedanken im Nibelungenlied (Characters and Thoughts in the Nibelungen Saga), was, with the great help of Dr Wolfgang Elbert, published by Mannus Bibliothek. Since then, Sigfrid oder Christus, Die Germanische Himmelskunde, and Das Rätsel der Edda have been republished in facsimile by Mr Soyka in Bremen, and his Himmel über den Germanen has been translated by Mr Michael Behrend into the English language as Skylore of the North and published by The Earthlore Institute.

Otto Sigfrid Reuter’s name is engraved on the Stone of Poets in Offenhausen.

IRMGARD TEUBERT (née REUTER), 1985

Otto Sigfrid Reuter
Bremen, 1939