Hans Villius

Who was Hans Villius?

Hans Emil Villius was a Swedish historian and popular TV and radio personality.

Villius received his doctorate in history in 1951 with his dissertation Karl XII:s ryska fälttåg: Källstudier in which he critically analysed the narrative sources of Charles XII's officers during the campaign. In 1957 Villius joined Swedish Radiotjänst and began making popular historical documentaries and programming until he moved to Sveriges Television in 1966. It was at SVT that Villius began working with TV-producer Olle Häger, a very productive collaboration that would span some two decades. During the 1980s and 90s, Häger and Villius produced several popular documentaries like Fyra dagar som skakade Sverige in 1988 about the Swedish "Midsummer Crisis" during WW II and Raoul Wallenberg - fånge i Sovjet as well as one of SVT's biggest and most popular documentary productions ever, Hundra Svenska År, consisting of eight one-hour documentaries on the history of Sweden during the 20th century from many different perspectives.