Walther Heissig

Who was Walther Heissig?

Walther Heissig was an Austrian Mongolist. He was born in Vienna. He studied prehistory, ethnology, historical geography, sinology and Mongolian in Berlin and Vienna, and got his doctoral degree in 1941 in Vienna. Afterwards he traveled to China, worked at the Fu-jen University in Beijing and visited China's Inner Mongolia region. in 1945/46 he had to leave China in an affair about alleged espionage for Japan by German nationals In 1951 he obtained his habilitation at Göttingen, but, on failing to obtain a position there, he undertook to pursue his second habilitation at the Bonn in 1957. In 1964, he was appointed the Chair of the Central Asian seminar at Bonn University.