Definition.

Students of Ascended Master Teachings organizations (also known as Ascended Master Activities) believe that the Presence of Life—God—individualizes as "Mighty I AM Presences", which then incarnate in lower-dimensional subtle and gross bodies throughout the created universes. They believe that their Teachings have been given to humanity by the Ascended Masters. Ascended Masters are believed to be individuals who have lived in physical bodies, acquired the Wisdom and Mastery needed to become Immortal and Free of the cycles of "re-embodiment" and karma, and have attained their "Ascension" (the Sixth Initiation). They consider the Ascension to be the complete permanent union of the raised and purified outer self with their Mighty "I AM" Presence—that True Identity that is the unique Individualization of Almighty God residing in each person. This knowledge is believed to have previously been taught for millions of years only within "Ascended Master Retreats" and "Mystery Schools". It is believed by adherents of the Ascended Master Teachings that this wisdom was partially released by the Theosophical Society beginning in 1875, by C.W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey, and began to have more detailed public release in the 1930s by the "Ascended Masters" through Guy Ballard in the I AM Activity. However, theosophists maintain that the concept of Ascended Master is an exaggeration and corruption of the more modest theosophical concept of "Master of the Ancient Wisdom." A similar problematic conflation of the term exists in the case of the Alice Bailey teachings. (p. 111) The term "Ascended Master" was first introduced in 1934 by Guy Ballard [note :contradicts earlier statement "The term "Ascended Master" was first used by Baird T. Spalding in 1924] in his work titled "Unveiled Mysteries", a book which he said was dictated to him by the Ascended Master St. Germain. Other Ascended Master Teachings are contained in The Bridge to Freedom (1951), Mark Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet's The Summit Lighthouse (1958) (reorganized as the Church Universal and Triumphant in 1975), The Temple of The Presence (1995), The Hearts Center (2002), the I AM University (2004), and various other organizations such as the White Eagle Lodge (1936) and the Aquarian Christine Church Universal, Inc. (2006).

Beliefs about Ascended Masters.

Originally presented by Helena P. Blavatsky in the 1870s, the idea of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or Mahatmas was adopted by people who at some point had had a connection with the Theosophical movement, such as Alice Bailey, Helena Roerich, and Manly P. Hall. Later on many other organizations, especially in the United States, developed the concept of Ascended Masters, which departs from the theosophical one in several aspects.  It is believed that Ascended Masters are individuals who were formerly embodied on the Earth and learned the lessons of life during their incarnations. They gained mastery over the limitations of the matter planes, balanced at least 51% of negative karma, and fulfilled their Dharma (divine plan). An Ascended Master, in such an understanding, has become God-like and a source of unconditional "Divine Love" to all life, and through the Ascension has united with his or her own "God Self," the "I AM Presence."  It is further claimed by various groups and teachers that the Ascended Masters serve as the teachers of mankind from the realms of Spirit, and that all people will eventually attain their Ascension and move forward in spiritual evolution beyond this planet. According to these teachings, they remain attentive to the spiritual needs of humanity and act to inspire and motivate its spiritual growth. In many traditions and organizations, they are considered part of the "Spiritual Hierarchy of Earth", and members of the "Great Brotherhood of Light", also known as the "Great White Lodge," "Great White Brotherhood," or "Universal White Brotherhood" (per Peter Deunov).  According to Alice Bailey and Benjamin Creme there are sixty "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom", defined as beings who have reached the Fifth Level of Initiation or above, with Djwhal Khul claimed as the (telepathic) source of many esoteric teachings in Baileys' books. Elizabeth Clare Prophet revealed, by taking "dictations" from them, the names of many dozens of additional Ascended Masters that were previously unknown.  The concept of recognizing the spiritual self, one's own psychological and karma battles and how to overcome them, and eventual Ascension of all humanity is covered in James Redfield's "Celestine Prophecy" and its sequels, "" and "". These books, while controversial, are recent popularizations of the concept of Ascension.  In Ascended Master teachings there is also mention of Serapis Bey, a being who was incarnated as a high priest in one of the "Temples of the Sacred Fire" on Atlantis, and who migrated to Egypt at the time of the destruction of Atlantis. It is also believed that he was incarnated as the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III (who constructed the Temple of Luxor to the god Amon) and also as Leonidas, the King of Sparta, who was killed in 480 BC defending the pass of Thermopylae against the invasion of Greece by Emperor Xerxes I of the Persian Empire. According to teachings of Agni Yoga, Serapis Bey was, in past lives, the Roman king Numa Pompilius, and the philosophers Confucius, Plato and Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca). He is referred to in the book "Supermundane" as "The Thinker".

Universal All-Pervading Presence of Life.

This is properly called Isness; students of the Ascended Master Teachings believe that there is One God, the "Universal All-Pervading Presence of Life", "The One", Who is the Source of all Love, Light, and Truth in existence, and that all forms of existence and consciousness emanate from this "Allness of God"—"The One". "The Voice of the I AM" states "All Life is One" and that there is "One Substance, One Energy, One Power, One Intelligence" as the Source of all consciousness and creation. This Divine Being and Mind is considered to be above and distinct from all creation (in the sense of classical theism), transcending all creation yet interpenetrating all existence. Belief in this one God stresses the essential unity of the spiritual and material components of the universe. God creates through Individualized Identities that have distinct Self-Consciousness and that make up the Spiritual Hierarchy of Creation, yet remain connected through the flow of the "River of Life" and "Lifestream" to the one undivided God—the All in All—the Good—the Source from which all Life, Light, and Love come (or from which all things, yin & yang come. Even what one may perceive as darkness "evil" or "bad" is in someway working out for the Good and toward the elevation and ascension of all people. All things pervading or pouring out from the One perfect intelligent mind i.e. God), there is always an uninterrupted Oneness that is maintained with the Allness of God. From the One God all other realities, including Hierarchy, humanity and the material universe, are the result of a process of emanation.

The Individualized "I AM" Presence.

This is properly called Atma Brahman; adherents of the Ascended Master Teachings believe that each person is an incarnation of an "Individualized Presence" of the "Most High Living God"—the "Mighty I AM Presence"—as part of humans' very nature and being. God (as Life and Love) manifests in the 7 octaves of the created universe through individual Divine Identities. As embodied individuals, we are the outer expression of that God Self in form. It is our unique and immortal True Identity, yet always sharing in the Allness of the ONE GOD.

Origins.

The founder of the Theosophical Society, Helena Blavatsky, in the late 19th century brought attention to the idea of secret initiatory knowledge, by claiming her ideas were based on traditions taught to her by a group of highly enlightened yogis which she called the Mahatmas or Masters of the Ancient Wisdom. These Mahatmas, she claimed, were physical beings living in the Himalayas, usually understood as Tibet:  After Blavatsky's death in 1891, the concept of the Mahatmas was developed by her successors in the Theosophical Society leadership, Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater, who described them in great detail and added Master Jesus and Maitreya. In Leadbeater's book, "The Masters and the Path" (1925), the Masters are presented as human beings full of wisdom and compassion, albeit still limited by human bodies, which they choose to retain in order to keep in touch with humanity and help in its evolution.  Later organizations that used many of the teachings of Theosophy for their own purposes, developed concept of Ascended Masters which bears some important differences with the Theosophical one. Peter Mt. Shasta, who claims to be channeling the ascended master Saint Germain, has been releasing the ancient teachings in a more modern and simplified form, emphasizing the teaching that the Masters can work with those who have an open heart and the desire to benefit humanity.

Other beliefs about Ascended Masters.

Belief in the Brotherhood and the Masters is an essential part of the beliefs of various organizations that have continued and expanded the concepts released in the original Saint Germain instruction in the 1930s through The "I AM" Activity. Examples of those believed by the ones proposing these teachings to be Ascended Masters would be the Master Jesus, Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Mary the Mother of Jesus, St. Paul of Tarsus, Megha Alcorn as known as Megan Sebastian, Ashtar Sheran, Merku, Sanat Kumara, Aaron as known as Alaje, Aleph, Hatton, (aka Hilarion), Melchizedek, Archangel Michael, Metatron, Kwan Yin, St. Germain and Kuthumi, as well as dozens of others.  "Unveiled Mysteries" says:

Jesus.

Jesus is one of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom in Theosophy and is one of the Ascended masters in the Ascended Master Teachings. The Master Jesus is regarded by Theosophists, was regarded by Alice Bailey and was later regarded by students of the "Ascended Master Teachings" as the Master of the Sixth Ray.  It is believed by Ascended Master Teachings organizations that the Master Jesus was "Chohan of the Sixth Ray" until December 31, 1959, when, according to Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lady Master Nada fully took on that Office in the Spiritual Hierarchy. According to Prophet, Jesus became World Teacher, along with Kuthumi, on January 1, 1956, succeeding Maitreya, who took the Office of "Planetary Buddha" and "Cosmic Christ". This belief is not accepted by adherents of traditional Theosophy and the followers of Alice A. Bailey and Benjamin Creme - they believe that the Master Jesus is still the Chohan of the Sixth Ray and that Maitreya is still the World Teacher.  According to Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant, the largest Ascended Master Teachings religion, the Master Jesus incarnated twice as the Emperor of Atlantis, once in 33,050 BC and again in 15,000 BC. She states that this was to aid the white magicians in the war of the white magicians and the black magicians that was going on in Atlantis at that time.  According to Alice A. Bailey, the Master Jesus was previously incarnated as Joshua, the Hebrew military leader in the 13th century BC, and Joshua the High Priest in the sixth century BC.  According to the Ascended Master Teachings, Jesus was also incarnated as Joseph of the Coat of many colors in the 17th century BC/16th century BC (approximately between 1650 BC and 1550 BC), as well as King David (who lived c. 1037 BC until around 970 BC), and Elisha in the 9th century BC.

Sanat Kumara.

According to the post-1900 publications of Theosophy (specifically, the writings of Charles W. Leadbeater, Alice A. Bailey, and Benjamin Creme, as well as the Ascended Master Teachings of Guy Ballard, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Geraldine Innocente, Joshua David Stone, and other Ascended Master Teachings teachers), Sanat Kumara is an "advanced being" of the Ninth Initiation (the highest Initiation possible on planet Earth) who is regarded as the Lord or Regent of Earth and of humanity, and the head of the Spiritual Hierarchy of Earth who dwells in Shamballah, a city said by Theosophists and those adherent to the Ascended Master Teachings to be a floating city on the etheric plane above the Gobi Desert.  It is believed by these authors that he is the founder of the Great White Brotherhood, which is composed of Masters of the Ancient Wisdom (Fifth Initiation), Ascended Masters (Sixth Initiation), Chohans and Bodhisattvas (Seventh Initiation), Buddhas (Eighth Initiation), and highly spiritually-evolved volunteers from other worlds, who have all joined together to advance spiritual evolution on Earth.  Sanat Kumara was mentioned briefly by the theosophist Helena Blavatsky. She claimed he belonged to a group of beings, the "Lords of the Flame", whom Christian tradition have misunderstood as Lucifer and the fallen angels.  Sanat Kumara gained greater prominence when her follower Charles W. Leadbeater wrote that Sanat Kumara was the "King" or "Lord of the World", and the head of the Great White Brotherhood of Mahatmas who had revealed the principles of theosophy.  Later theosophists such as Alice Bailey and Elizabeth Clare Prophet have embellished the story with further details. He is usually depicted as having the appearance of a 16-year-old boy.

Comparison with Masters of Wisdom.

There is considerable difference between the concept of Masters of the Ancient Wisdom in Theosophy (as described by Blavatsky, Olcott, Sinnett, and others) and the current concept of Ascended Masters, developed by Guy Ballard and Elizabeth Clare Prophet fifty-five years after the Theosophical Society was founded.  They added more than 200 new "Ascended Masters" that they claimed to receive dictations from in addition to receiving dictations from the original "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom" of Theosophy.  The Ascended Masters, as their name suggests, are supposed to be Masters who have experienced the miracle of ascension, as it is said Jesus did. The original teaching, channeled by Guy Ballard, was that a new Ascended Master would not die but would take the body up with him. This teaching of ascension is in direct opposition to the Theosophical teachings. Mahatma K.H. refers to the idea disparagingly in one of his letters to Sinnett: Blavatsky also rejects ascension as a fact, calling it "an allegory as old as the world." In the Theosophical view, the Masters of Wisdom retain their physical bodies.  The Masters of the Wisdom are not like the Ascended ones, who are said to become Godlike, all-powerful beings beyond the laws of nature. In their teachings, the Theosophical Masters even denied that such beings exist. Mahatma K.H. wrote: In their letters, the Mahatmas constantly talk about the "immutable laws" of the universe, and that they can help humanity only within the limits of these laws.  Proponents of the Ascended Masters sometimes attempt to account for these discrepancies by claiming that when the Theosophical Society (TS) was founded most of the Theosophical Mahatmas were still "unascended Masters". This leaves room to detach the Ascended Masters from the limitations. However, the Mahatma K.H. wrote: "We are not infallible, all-foreseeing 'Mahatmas' at every hour of the day." As he explained: "An adept—the highest as the lowest—is one only during the exercise of his occult powers." In fact, according to the Theosophical teachings, the higher the adept, the less we are likely to hear from him: In the Theosophical view the Masters do not pay attention to personal desires. Theosophy teaches that the psychological ego is false, that the idea that we are this body, emotions, and mind is a mistake of perception and the source of sorrow. It says that real happiness comes only as an unsought by-product of reducing rather than increasing our attachment and identification with the personal. Blavatsky wrote that "Occultism is not... the pursuit of happiness as man understands the word; for the first step is sacrifice, the second renunciation." K.H. agreed with this when he wrote: "We—the criticized and misunderstood Brothers—we seek to bring men to sacrifice their personality—a passing flash—for the welfare of the whole humanity." During the early times of the Theosophical Society, some members, misunderstanding the nature of the Mahatmas, would bring HPB some personal requests to ask of them. In a letter Blavatsky explained: This kind of interest is a very marked feature of the Ascended Masters. The Ascended Masters Teachings teach ways to attract material or emotional possessions to a person's life, and also how to dissolve unpleasant karma, a conception that the Theosophical Mahatmas emphatically opposed. For example, K.H. wrote: "Bear in mind that the slightest cause produced, however unconsciously, and with whatever motive, cannot be unmade, or its effects crossed in their progress—by millions of gods, demons, and men combined." In fact, the Ascended Masters are portrayed as cosmic fathers who will take care of their followers' problems. In contrast, Mahatma M. said: "We are leaders but not child-nurses."

Maitreya.

"Maitri" is Sanskrit for "loving kindness." The historical Buddha was reported to have said near the time of his death in the 4th century BCE that many Buddhas (awakened ones) had come before him, and that in the future another Buddha would come who would be greater than him, and who would embody "Maitri." This prophecy created the expectation of a Buddha Maitreya, which was probably fulfilled in the advent of the being now called "Jesus," likely Apollonius of Tyanna, who on his travels in India and the Far East was reported in many texts to have been called, "Issa," probably short for "Rishi" (great sage). His teachings embody that principle of loving kindness. "Maitreya" or "Lord Maitreya" is described in Theosophical literature of the late 19th-century and subsequent periods as an advanced spiritual entity and high-ranking member of a hidden Spiritual Hierarchy, the so-called "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom". According to Theosophical doctrine, one of the Hierarchy's functions is to oversee the evolution of Humankind; in accord with this function Maitreya is said to hold the so-called "Office of the World Teacher". Theosophical texts posit that the purpose of this Office is to facilitate the transfer of knowledge about the true constitution and workings of Existence, thereby helping humanity in progression on a cyclical, but ever progressive, evolutionary path. This knowledge transfer is sometimes said to occur through Maitreya occasionally manifesting or incarnating in the physical realm, then assuming the role of World Teacher of Humankind.  The Theosophical concept of Maitreya has many similarities to the earlier Maitreya doctrine in Buddhism. However, they differ in important aspects, and developed differently. The Theosophical Maitreya has been assimilated or appropriated by a variety of quasi-theosophical and non-theosophical New Age and Esoteric groups and movements. These have added, and advanced, their own interpretations and commentary on the subject.

Development of the concept.

The first mention of Maitreya in a Theosophical context occurs in the 1883 work "Esoteric Buddhism" by Alfred Percy Sinnett (1840–1921), an early Theosophical writer. The concepts described by Sinnett were amended, elaborated on, and greatly expanded in "The Secret Doctrine", a book originally published 1888. The work was the magnum opus of Helena Blavatsky, one of the physical founders of the Theosophical Society and of contemporary Theosophy. In it, the messianic Maitreya is linked to both Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions. In the same work Blavatsky was to assert that there have been, and will be, multiple messianic (or messianic-like) instances in human history. These successive appearances of "emissarie of Truth" are according to the Blavatsky writings part of the unceasing oversight of Earth and of its inhabitants by a physically hidden Spiritual Hierarchy, called "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom". The Theosophist, ""Alice Bailey,"" who broke with the Indian branch of the Theosophical Society, and who was heavily influenced by orthodox Christianity, started the expectation that the ""Maitreya" would actually be reborn on the earth as a physical being, fulfilling the Christian ideal of a Second Coming, rather than the New Age ideal of the Christ being reborn in the heart of each individual.

Initiation.

Initiation is a concept in Theosophy that there are nine levels of spiritual development that beings who live on Earth can progress upward through. Within these levels, there are four basic levels of spiritual development that human beings on Earth progress through as they reincarnate, although evil acts may cause bad karma which may cause one to temporarily regress. It is believed that when souls have advanced to the fourth level of initiation, they have reached enlightenment and have no further need to reincarnate. At the fifth level of initiation and beyond, souls have the opportunity to become members of the Spiritual Hierarchy. This concept was developed by both C.W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey beginning in the 1920s. According to C.W. Leadbeater, Initiation is a process by which "we try to develop ourselves not that we may become great and wise, but that we may have the power and knowledge to work for humanity to the best effect." According to Alice A. Bailey, "Initiation" is the "process of undergoing an expansion [toward higher levels] of consciousness" It is believed by Theosophists that all souls that have reached the fourth level of initiation and evolved beyond the necessity to reincarnate. Those who do not elect to become pratyeka buddhas and go directly into Spiritual Hierarchy governing nirvana, gradually evolving upward through all of these six higher levels of consciousness over thousands or millions of years, and later over billions or trillions of years, with other higher levels beyond.  The concept of Initiation is also recognized in the Ascended Master Teachings, a group of religions based on Theosophy. In the Ascended Master Teachings, the Sixth Initiation is referred to as "Ascension". The first six initiations were named by Charles W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey after the six most important events in the life of Jesus

The Great White Brotherhood.

The Great White Brotherhood, in belief systems akin to Theosophical and New Age, are said to be supernatural beings of great power who spread spiritual teachings through selected humans. The members of the Brotherhood may be known as the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or the Ascended masters. Various people have said they have received messages from these beings, including most notably Helena Blavatsky (Theosophy), Aleister Crowley (Thelema), Alice A. Bailey (New Group of World Servers), Guy Ballard ("I AM" Activity), Geraldine Innocente (The Bridge to Freedom), Mark L. Prophet & Elizabeth Clare Prophet (Church Universal and Triumphant) and Benjamin Creme (Share International).  The Masters are collectively called the "Great White Brotherhood" by various theosophists and esotericists. The use of the term "white" refers to their advanced spirituality (in other words, that they have a white colored aura) and has nothing to do with race. Blavatsky described many of the Masters as ethnically Tibetan or Indian (Hindu), not European. She did, however, describe them as being from all cultures and races, such as the "Greek gentleman" known as Hilarion.  Belief in the Brotherhood and the Masters is an essential part of the syncretistic teachings of various organizations that have taken the Theosophical philosophical concepts and added their own elements. Examples of those believed to be Ascended Masters by these organizations are: Jesus, Sanat Kumara, Gautama Buddha, Maitreya, Confucius, Lord Lanto (Confucius' historical mentor), Mary (mother of Jesus), Lady Master Nada, Enoch, Kwan Yin, Saint Germain, and Kuthumi, to name but a few. It is believed that all of these put aside any differences they might have had in their Earthly careers, and unite instead to advance the spiritual well-being of humanity.

Dictations.

Within "The I AM Activity" (founded by Guy Warren Ballard in the early 1930s), contact and cooperation with the Ascended Masters became a central part of each member's life. Through the Ballards as "Messengers", the Ascended Masters were believed to have regularly communicated with the students of "The I AM Activity." Those Addresses (known as "Dictations") were delivered before gatherings of members in Conclaves held throughout the United States of America, and published in the monthly periodical "The Voice of The "I AM"", and some were collected and reprinted in the "green books" of "The Saint Germain Series". In all, 3,834 Dictations from the Masters were received through Guy and Edna Ballard. Other "Ascended Master Activities" believed that the Ascended Masters, Cosmic Beings, Elohim, and Archangels continued to present a program for both individual development and spiritual transformation in the world. They believe that further instruction from the Ascended Masters and the rest of the Spiritual Hierarchy continued through new Dispensations with new Messengers, such as The Bridge to Freedom, The Summit Lighthouse, and The Temple of The Presence.

The Aquarian Church.

The Aquarian Christine Church Universal, Inc. (ACCU) is a denomination founded in 2006 based on "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ" transcribed from the Akashic Records by Levi H. Dowling. The Aquarian Christine Church actively promotes Ascended Master Teachings and shares many beliefs in common with the I AM Movement, White Eagle Lodge and New Thought and Theosophical groups. The book "Initiations of the Aquarian Masters: The Theosophy of the Aquarian Gospel" by ACCU founder Jacob L. Watson, expounds on the church's teachings which draw heavily from the writings of A.D.K. Luk (pen-name of Alice Beulah Schutz) (April 10, 1905 - Jan. 14, 1994), the Saint Germain Series published by the Saint Germain Press (The Saint Germain Foundation), and especially from "The Lost Years of Jesus" compiled by Elizabeth Clare Prophet and published by The Summit Lighthouse.

Skeptical view.

René Guénon wrote a detailed critique of Theosophy titled "Theosophy: history of a pseudo-religion" (1921). In the book Guenon speculated that Blavatsky had acquired all her knowledge naturally from other books not from any supernatural masters. Guenon points out that Blavatsky spent a long time visiting a library at New York where she had easy access to the works of Jacob Boehme, Eliphas Levi, the Kabbala and other Hermetic treatises. Guenon also speculated that Blavatsky had borrowed passages from extracts of the "Kanjur" and "Tanjur", translated by the eccentric orientalist Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, published in 1836 in the twentieth volume of the "Asiatic Researchers of Calcutta".  K. Paul Johnson suggests in his book "The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky and Myth of the Great White Brotherhood" that the Masters that Madam Blavatsky claimed she had personally met are idealizations of certain people she had met during her lifetime.  Also see the article “Talking to the Dead and Other Amusements” by Paul Zweig "New York Times" October 5, 1980, which speculates that Madame Blavatsky's revelations were fraudulent.  Robert Todd Carroll in his book "The skeptic's dictionary" (2003) speculates that Blavatsky used trickery into deceiving others into thinking she had paranormal powers. Carroll further speculates that Blavatsky had faked a materialization of a tea cup and saucer as well as written the messages from her masters herself.

In the Ascended Master Teachings of a number of movements in the Theosophical tradition, Ascended Masters are believed to be spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans, but who have undergone a series of spiritual transformations originally called initiations.

Vznešení Mistři (také Tajemní Mistři) jsou v mnoha nových náboženských hnutích vycházejících z teosofie chápáni jako duchovní, osvícené bytosti. V minulosti byli obyčejnými lidmi, ale později podstoupili proces duchovní přeměny. Termín „Vznešení Mistři“ ("Ascended master") byl poprvé užit roku 1934 v knize Guye Ballarda "Odhalená mystika", která se týká Hnutí Já jsem.


Biography.

Lanner was born in St. Ulrich in Vienna (today the city's district of Neubau). Largely self-taught on the violin, he joined a small string orchestra of Michael Pamer at about the same time as Johann Strauss I did, although he decided to venture into the music business himself and partnered with Karl and Johann Drahanek, forming a quartet that bore his name. The success of this string quartet led to its gradual expansion, and in 1824 Lanner was able to conduct a small string orchestra playing Viennese dance music. Such was the success of his orchestra that it was a regular feature in many Vienna carnivals, popularly known in the local dialect as the Fasching. It was in 1832 that Lanner allowed his soon-to-be rival Johann Strauss I to deputise in a second, smaller orchestra that was formed that year to meet the busy schedule of the Carnival activities.  Lanner was already gaining a reputation at the end of the 1825 Carnival season and Strauss I was frustrated at having to deputise when necessary and as a result, his works were not getting the recognition he thought they deserved. In the same year, Strauss I parted company with Lanner after a concert at one of the Viennese dance establishments, (The Black Ram). Although many press reports stated a furious encounter between the two composers including a rumor that Strauss forcibly departed the orchestra with a few of Lanner's talented musicians, these remained largely unsubstantiated as Lanner had earlier dedicated a waltz to Strauss entitled "Trennungs-Walzer" ("Separation Waltz"), Op. 19, which indicated a decent level of goodwill and respect for the craft of the two composers. Further, Lanner and Strauss I worked together often despite having severed their partnership and even gave a benefit concert for their former employer, Michael Pamer who was taken ill in 1826 at the same establishment where they separated. For their charity work Strauss and Lanner also accepted the honorary citizenship of Vienna in 1836 and jointly took the Citizen's Oath.  The music-loving Viennese however were championing both of these two popular dance music composers, and individuals generally identified themselves as "Lannerianer" or "Straussianer". In fact, it was believed that the ruling Habsburg dynasty was anxious to divert its Viennese populace from politics and the revolutionary ideas that were feverishly sweeping Europe, with many cities preparing to overthrow any unpopular monarch. The answer would be to distract the population with music and entertainment, and the musical positions that both Lanner and Strauss held were soon seen to be very important. Lanner himself was appointed to the coveted post of of the in the Hofburg Imperial Palace of which his primary duties were to conduct concerts held in honor of the nobility and to compose new works for the Court orchestra.  Strauss's popularity soon overshadowed Lanner's in the early 1840s. Strauss was eager to undertake extensive lucrative tours abroad including England, whereas Lanner held on in Vienna unconvinced that the other nationalities were prepared to listen to Viennese music. Lanner succumbed to a typhus infection that racked Vienna in 1843 and died at Döbling on Good Friday, 14 April, in the same year. The famous rivalry with Strauss I had ended; Lanner's death marked the beginning of a period where the Strauss family was to dominate the Viennese dance music scene for well over a half a century and concluded an era of interesting and exciting developments for the waltz and other popular dance music.

Compositions.

Among Lanner's more popular works are the "Pesther-Walzer", Op. 93, "Hofballtänze Walzer", Op. 161, "Die Werber" Waltz, Op. 103, "Die Romantiker" Waltz, Op. 167, and probably his most well-known work, "Die Schönbrunner" Walzer, Op. 200, probably the most famous of all waltzes before "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II in the mid-1860s. Most of Lanner's waltzes were dedicated to members of the nobility as evidenced from the titles which was part of the nature of Lanner's position at that time. His "Styrian Dances" (Steyrische-Tänze), Op. 165, was also played occasionally at the Vienna New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Joseph Lanner (12 April 1801 – 14 April 1843) was an Austrian dance music composer and dance orchestra conductor. He is best remembered as one of the earliest Viennese composers to reform the waltz from a simple peasant dance to something that even the highest society could enjoy, either as an accompaniment to the dance, or for the music's own sake. He was just as famous as his friend and musical rival Johann Strauss I, who was better known outside of Austria in their day because of his concert tours abroad, in particular, to France and England.

Josef Lanner, také uváděný jako "Joseph Lanner" (12. dubna 1801, Vídeň – 14. dubna 1843, Vídeň), byl rakouský hudební skladatel. Skládal hlavně valčíky a polky.


History.

The first public discussions of SQL injection started appearing around 1998; for example, a 1998 article in Phrack Magazine.

Form.

SQL injection (SQLI) was considered one of the top 10 web application vulnerabilities of 2007 and 2010 by the Open Web Application Security Project. In 2013, SQLI was rated the number one attack on the OWASP top ten. There are four main sub-classes of SQL injection:  The Storm Worm is one representation of Compounded SQLI.  This classification represents the state of SQLI, respecting its evolution until 2010—further refinement is underway.

Technical implementations.

Incorrectly filtered escape characters.

This form of injection occurs when user input is not filtered for escape characters and is then passed into an SQL statement. This results in the potential manipulation of the statements performed on the database by the end-user of the application.  The following line of code illustrates this vulnerability:  This SQL code is designed to pull up the records of the specified username from its table of users. However, if the "userName" variable is crafted in a specific way by a malicious user, the SQL statement may do more than the code author intended. For example, setting the "userName" variable as: or using comments to even block the rest of the query (there are three types of SQL comments). All three lines have a space at the end: renders one of the following SQL statements by the parent language:  SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = " OR '1'='1'; SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = " OR '1'='1' -- ';  If this code were to be used in an authentication procedure then this example could be used to force the selection of every data field (*) from "all" users rather than from one specific user name as the coder intended, because the evaluation of '1'='1' is always true.  The following value of "userName" in the statement below would cause the deletion of the "users" table as well as the selection of all data from the "userinfo" table (in essence revealing the information of every user), using an API that allows multiple statements:  This input renders the final SQL statement as follows and specified:  SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = 'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM userinfo WHERE 't' = 't';  While most SQL server implementations allow multiple statements to be executed with one call in this way, some SQL APIs such as PHP's codice_1 function do not allow this for security reasons. This prevents attackers from injecting entirely separate queries, but doesn't stop them from modifying queries.

Blind SQL injection.

Blind SQL injection is used when a web application is vulnerable to an SQL injection but the results of the injection are not visible to the attacker. The page with the vulnerability may not be one that displays data but will display differently depending on the results of a logical statement injected into the legitimate SQL statement called for that page. This type of attack has traditionally been considered time-intensive because a new statement needed to be crafted for each bit recovered, and depending on its structure, the attack may consist of many unsuccessful requests. Recent advancements have allowed each request to recover multiple bits, with no unsuccessful requests, allowing for more consistent and efficient extraction. There are several tools that can automate these attacks once the location of the vulnerability and the target information has been established.

Conditional responses.

One type of blind SQL injection forces the database to evaluate a logical statement on an ordinary application screen. As an example, a book review website uses a query string to determine which book review to display. So the URL codice_2 would cause the server to run the query SELECT * FROM bookreviews WHERE ID = 'Value(ID)'; from which it would populate the review page with data from the review with ID 5, stored in the table bookreviews. The query happens completely on the server; the user does not know the names of the database, table, or fields, nor does the user know the query string. The user only sees that the above URL returns a book review. A hacker can load the URLs codice_3 and codice_4, which may result in queries SELECT * FROM bookreviews WHERE ID = '5' OR '1'='1'; SELECT * FROM bookreviews WHERE ID = '5' AND '1'='2'; respectively. If the original review loads with the "1=1" URL and a blank or error page is returned from the "1=2" URL, and the returned page has not been created to alert the user the input is invalid, or in other words, has been caught by an input test script, the site is likely vulnerable to a SQL injection attack as the query will likely have passed through successfully in both cases. The hacker may proceed with this query string designed to reveal the version number of MySQL running on the server: codice_5, which would show the book review on a server running MySQL 4 and a blank or error page otherwise. The hacker can continue to use code within query strings to achieve their goal directly, or to glean more information from the server in hopes of discovering another avenue of attack.

Second order SQL injection.

Second order SQL injection occurs when submitted values contain malicious commands that are stored rather than executed immediately. In some cases, the application may correctly encode an SQL statement and store it as valid SQL. Then, another part of that application without controls to protect against SQL injection might execute that stored SQL statement. This attack requires more knowledge of how submitted values are later used. Automated web application security scanners would not easily detect this type of SQL injection and may need to be manually instructed where to check for evidence that it is being attempted.

Mitigation.

An SQL injection is a well known attack and easily prevented by simple measures. After an apparent SQL injection attack on TalkTalk in 2015, the BBC reported that security experts were stunned that such a large company would be vulnerable to it.

Detection.

SQL injection filtering works in similar way to emails spam filters. Database firewalls detect SQL injections based on the number of invalid queries from host, while there are OR and UNION blocks inside of request, or others.

Parameterized statements.

With most development platforms, parameterized statements that work with parameters can be used (sometimes called placeholders or bind variables) instead of embedding user input in the statement. A placeholder can only store a value of the given type and not an arbitrary SQL fragment. Hence the SQL injection would simply be treated as a strange (and probably invalid) parameter value. In many cases, the SQL statement is fixed, and each parameter is a scalar, not a table. The user input is then assigned (bound) to a parameter.  Easily put, using parameterized queries can definitely prevent SQL injection. This mainly means that your variables aren't query strings that would accept arbitrary SQL inputs, however, some parameters of given types are definitely necessary. Parameterized queries require the developer to define all the code. Therefore, without parameterized queries, anyone could put any kind of SQL code into the field, and have the database erased. But if the parameters were to set to '@username' then the person would only be able to put in a username without any kind of code.

Enforcement at the coding level.

Using object-relational mapping libraries avoids the need to write SQL code. The ORM library in effect will generate parameterized SQL statements from object-oriented code.

Escaping.

A straightforward, though error-prone way to prevent injections is to escape characters that have a special meaning in SQL. The manual for an SQL DBMS explains which characters have a special meaning, which allows creating a comprehensive blacklist of characters that need translation. For instance, every occurrence of a single quote (codice_6) in a parameter must be replaced by two single quotes (codice_7) to form a valid SQL string literal. For example, in PHP it is usual to escape parameters using the function codice_8 before sending the SQL query:  $mysqli = new mysqli('hostname', 'db_username', 'db_password', 'db_name'); $query = sprintf("SELECT * FROM `Users` WHERE UserName='%s' AND Password='%s'", $mysqli->query($query); This function prepends backslashes to the following characters: codice_9, codice_10, codice_11, codice_12, codice_6, codice_14 and codice_15. This function is normally used to make data safe before sending a query to MySQL. PHP has similar functions for other database systems such as pg_escape_string() for PostgreSQL. The function codice_16 works for escaping characters, and is used especially for querying on databases that do not have escaping functions in PHP. It returns a string with backslashes before characters that need to be quoted in database queries, etc. These characters are single quote ('), double quote ("), backslash (\) and NUL (the NULL byte). Routinely passing escaped strings to SQL is error prone because it is easy to forget to escape a given string. Creating a transparent layer to secure the input can reduce this error-proneness, if not entirely eliminate it.

Pattern check.

Integer, float or boolean, string parameters can be checked if their value is valid representation for the given type. Strings that must follow some strict pattern (date, UUID, alphanumeric only, etc.) can be checked if they match this pattern.

Database permissions.

Limiting the permissions on the database login used by the web application to only what is needed may help reduce the effectiveness of any SQL injection attacks that exploit any bugs in the web application.  For example, on Microsoft SQL Server, a database logon could be restricted from selecting on some of the system tables which would limit exploits that try to insert JavaScript into all the text columns in the database.  deny select on sys.sysobjects to webdatabaselogon; deny select on sys.objects to webdatabaselogon; deny select on sys.tables to webdatabaselogon; deny select on sys.views to webdatabaselogon; deny select on sys.packages to webdatabaselogon;

SQL injection is a code injection technique, used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution (e.g. to dump the database contents to the attacker). SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application}}s software, for example, when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database.

SQL injection je technika napadení databázové vrstvy programu vsunutím (odtud „injection“) kódu přes neošetřený vstup a vykonání vlastního pozměňujícího poškozujícího SQL příkazu (dotazu DELETE, UPDATE, ALTER atp.). Toto nezamýšlené neošetřené chování vzniká při propojení aplikační vrstvy s databázovou vrstvou (téměř vždy se totiž jedná o dva různé programy).


Physical mathematical demonstration.

Consider a particle ∂m of fluid subjected to a differential force and torque: Linear acceleration is conceivable, but the angular acceleration is infinite. Then, as the observation indicates that there is rotation in the fluids, the acceleration and torque must have disappeared by the time they were observed, and the angular velocity became constant. Then, for an incompressible and Newtonian fluid, due to Helmholtz theorem, we can determine v.  The demonstration is here: https://www.academia.edu/37869711/MANNING_FORMULA_DEMONSTRATION

Hydraulic radius.

The hydraulic radius is one of the properties of a channel that controls water discharge. It also determines how much work the channel can do, for example, in moving sediment. All else equal, a river with a larger hydraulic radius will have a higher flow velocity, and also a larger cross sectional area through which that faster water can travel. This means the greater the hydraulic radius, the larger volume of water the channel can carry.  Based on the 'constant shear stress at the boundary' assumption, hydraulic radius is defined as the ratio of the channel's cross-sectional area of the flow to its wetted perimeter (the portion of the cross-section's perimeter that is "wet"):  where: For channels of a given width, the hydraulic radius is greater for deeper channels. In wide rectangular channels, the hydraulic radius is approximated by the flow depth.  The hydraulic radius is "not" half the hydraulic diameter as the name may suggest, but one quarter in the case of a full pipe. It is a function of the shape of the pipe, channel, or river in which the water is flowing.  Hydraulic radius is also important in determining a channel's efficiency (its ability to move water and sediment), and is one of the properties used by water engineers to assess the channel's capacity.

Gauckler–Manning coefficient.

The Gauckler–Manning coefficient, often denoted as "n", is an empirically derived coefficient, which is dependent on many factors, including surface roughness and sinuosity. When field inspection is not possible, the best method to determine "n" is to use photographs of river channels where "n" has been determined using Gauckler–Manning's formula.  In natural streams, "n" values vary greatly along its reach, and will even vary in a given reach of channel with different stages of flow. Most research shows that "n" will decrease with stage, at least up to bank-full. Overbank "n" values for a given reach will vary greatly depending on the time of year and the velocity of flow. Summer vegetation will typically have a significantly higher "n" value due to leaves and seasonal vegetation. Research has shown, however, that "n" values are lower for individual shrubs with leaves than for the shrubs without leaves. This is due to the ability of the plant's leaves to streamline and flex as the flow passes them thus lowering the resistance to flow. High velocity flows will cause some vegetation (such as grasses and forbs) to lay flat, where a lower velocity of flow through the same vegetation will not.  In open channels, the Darcy–Weisbach equation is valid using the hydraulic diameter as equivalent pipe diameter. It is the only sound method to estimate the energy loss in man-made open channels. For various reasons (mainly historical reasons), empirical resistance coefficients (e.g. Chézy, Gauckler–Manning–Strickler) were and are still used. The Chézy coefficient was introduced in 1768 while the Gauckler–Manning coefficient was first developed in 1865, well before the classical pipe flow resistance experiments in the 1920–1930s. Historically both the Chézy and the Gauckler–Manning coefficients were expected to be constant and functions of the roughness only. But it is now well recognised that these coefficients are only constant for a range of flow rates. Most friction coefficients (except perhaps the Darcy–Weisbach friction factor) are estimated "100% empirically" and they apply only to fully rough turbulent water flows under steady flow conditions.  One of the most important applications of the Manning equation is its use in sewer design. Sewers are often constructed as circular pipes. It has long been accepted that the value of "n" varies with the flow depth in partially filled circular pipes. A complete set of explicit equations that can be used to calculate the depth of flow and other unknown variables when applying the Manning equation to circular pipes is available. These equations account for the variation of "n" with the depth of flow in accordance with the curves presented by Camp.

The Manning formula is an empirical formula estimating the average velocity of a liquid flowing in a conduit that does not completely enclose the liquid, i.e., open channel flow. However, this equation is also used for calculation of flow variables in case of flow in partially full conduits, as they also possess a free surface like that of open channel flow. All flow in so-called open channels is driven by gravity. It was first presented by the French engineer Philippe Gauckler in 1867, and later re-developed by the Irish engineer Robert Manning in 1890.

Manningova rovnice je empirický vztah pro výpočet rychlosti proudění v otevřeném korytě. Formulována byla v roce 1889 irským inženýrem Robertem Manningem.


21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg

21. horská divize SS „Skanderbeg“ (1. albánská)

History.

Background.

On 7 April 1939, five months prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Kingdom of Italy invaded Albania. The country was overrun in five days, and Italian King Victor Emmanuel III accepted the crown offered by the Parliament of Albania. The Royal Albanian Army was incorporated into the Royal Italian Army and a viceroy was appointed to administer the country as a protectorate. Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, Italian Albania was expanded to include adjacent parts of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia incorporated mainly from the Yugoslav "banovinas" (regional subdivisions) of Vardar and Morava. Most of Kosovo was annexed to Albania, and in the beginning, Albanians living there enthusiastically welcomed the Italian occupation. Some Kosovo Albanians even suggested that Albanians were "Aryans of Illyrian heritage". Although officially under Italian rule, the Albanians in Kosovo were given control of the region and encouraged to open Albanian-language schools, which had been banned by the Yugoslav government. The Italians also gave the inhabitants Albanian citizenship and allowed them to fly the flag of Albania. The Royal Italian Army expelled most of the Serbs and Montenegrins that had settled Kosovo during the interwar period. The Kosovo Albanians despised the Serbs for the oppression they had experienced at their hands during the Balkan Wars, World War I, and under Yugoslav rule. They took advantage of their changed circumstances, attacked their Serb neighbours, and burned the homes of as many as 30,000 Serb and Montenegrin settlers.  Albania remained occupied by Italy until its surrender to the Allies in September 1943. In August of that year, faced with the imminent collapse of the Italian war effort, Germany deployed the 2nd Panzer Army to the Balkans to take over areas previously occupied by Italy. One of the Italian areas seized by the Germans was Albania, where the XXI Mountain Corps of "Generaloberst" Lothar Rendulic's 2nd Panzer Army had been deployed. A Wehrmacht plenipotentiary general, and a special representative of Heinrich Himmler, SS-"Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS und Polizei" Josef Fitzthum, were both based in the Albanian capital of Tirana. The Germans took control of all Albanian forces that had been collaborating with the Italians prior to their capitulation, including the "Balli Kombëtar", an anti-communist and nationalist militia. The Germans strengthened the Albanian army and gendarmerie, but quickly decided those troops were unreliable. That year, a number of Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak region were recruited into the 13th "Waffen" Mountain Division of the SS "Handschar" (1st Croatian), a "Waffen-SS" division composed largely of Bosnian Muslims and Croats with mostly German officers, that operated in the puppet Independent State of Croatia (). A key recruiter amongst Albanians for the "Waffen-SS" was "SS-Standartenführer" Karl von Krempler. For about six months the division included about 1,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak who made up the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment (I/2), which later became the 1st Battalion of the 28th Regiment (I/28). The division later recruited a further 500 men from the Sandžak.  The formation of an Albanian "Waffen-SS" division was Fitzthum's idea, initially opposed by the German Foreign Ministry representative for the Balkans Hermann Neubacher, and also by the head of the Reich Main Security Office "SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei" Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who influenced Himmler to shelve it. But the Albanian government supported the idea; in the face of increasing difficulties Himmler soon changed his mind, and in February 1944 the idea received Adolf Hitler's approval.

Formation.

In February 1944, Hitler approved the creation of an Albanian "Waffen-SS" division that was to serve only inside Kosovo, and was intended to protect ethnic Albanians but remain under German control. It was meant to be one of three Muslim "Waffen-SS" divisions serving in the Balkans, the other two being the 13th SS Division and the 23rd "Waffen" Mountain Division of the SS "Kama" (2nd Croatian). Himmler's goal was to expand "Waffen-SS" recruiting in the Balkans and form two corps of two divisions each, with one corps to operate in the region of Bosnia in the Independent State of Croatia and the other in Albania. These corps would then be combined with the "Volksdeutsche" 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen" and together would form a Balkan "Waffen-SS" mountain army of five divisions. In March 1944, Bedri Pejani, the chairman of the Second League of Prizren, an organisation created after the Italian surrender to advance the interests of Kosovo Albanians, proposed to Hitler that a force of 120,000–150,000 Kosovo Albanian volunteers be raised to fight the Yugoslav and Albanian partisans. Pejani asked the German leadership to give the Albanians equipment and supplies to fight the communist insurgency, and requested the expansion of the borders of the German puppet state of Albania at the expense of the German occupied territory of Serbia and the German occupied territory of Montenegro. These requests were not fulfilled. Nevertheless, in April 1944, Himmler ordered the establishment of the new Albanian volunteer division that Hitler had authorised. It was subsequently named after the medieval Albanian warrior Skanderbeg. By this point, the Germans and some members of the Albanian puppet government believed that about 50,000 ethnic Albanians could be recruited to join the "Waffen-SS". The Germans had initially envisioned a force of 10,000–12,000 men for the Albanian SS division. Himmler saw the Muslim Albanians as a potential source of manpower in Germany's war against the Yugoslav Partisans, who faced significant difficulties in recruiting Kosovo Albanians to join their ranks.  On 17 April 1944, the Albanian battalion of the 13th SS Division was transferred via rail directly from combat in Bosnia to Kosovo to form part of the new Albanian division. The head of "Waffen-SS" recruitment, SS-"Obergruppenführer" Gottlob Berger, reported to Himmler that the Albanians "... were quite sad about leaving." Himmler himself expected "great usefulness" from the unit since the Albanians that fought in the 13th SS Division had proven to be "highly motivated and disciplined" in the fight against the Partisans in the NDH. After the war, Bosnian Muslim former members of the 13th SS Division stated that while with the division the Albanians had shot unarmed civilians and were "very brutal".  On 23 May, Fitzthum noted the failure of the Albanian units that had been used in operations against the Partisans. He reported that he had dissolved four Albanian battalions organised by the Wehrmacht, describing most Albanian army and gendarmerie officers as "totally corrupt, unusable, undisciplined and untrainable." The Germans found that Kosovo Albanians were more cooperative than Albanians from Albania-proper. This was mainly because they feared a return to Yugoslav rule. Thus, many of the division's recruits were Kosovo Albanians, although some were refugees from Albania-proper. The quality of most of these recruits was poor, and only between 6,000 and 6,500 were considered suitable to receive training. Those that were accepted were a combination of about 1,500 former Royal Yugoslav Army prisoners of war, elements of the failed Albanian army and gendarmerie, volunteers from both pre-war and expanded Albania, and conscripts from families that had more than two sons. Unlike the Albanians in the Handschar division, who received extensive training in France and then Neuhammer training grounds in Germany, the new recruits underwent a very short training period of only six weeks. The Albanians may have joined for a range of reasons, including access to modern weapons and military training, to help revise the borders of Albania, revenge, and even the opportunity for looting.  The enlistment of Albanian civilians was organised in close cooperation with the Albanian puppet government. In June 1944, Neubacher successfully displaced Pejani, whom he considered "insane". The Albanian Minister of the Interior and new chairman of the Second League of Prizren, Xhafer Deva, was a key factor in recruiting Albanians for the new division. Fitzthum, who had developed a close friendship with Deva, noted that the right-wing and anti-Serb politician was vital for German recruitment efforts. In contrast to the 13th SS Division, the use of Islam as an incentive to join the "Waffen-SS" disappeared completely from the German agenda, while the utilisation of ethnic tensions became much more important. No field imam is documented in the new division and ideological training was avoided entirely, because the Germans feared that such instruction would upset their new recruits. According to Nazi propaganda, the division was to source its manpower exclusively from Muslim Albanians, but the reality was different. While the vast majority of the division's Albanians were Bektashi or Sunni Muslims, "several hundred" Albanian Catholics also served in the division.

Operations.

May–August 1944.

The division was founded as the "21. Waffen-SS Gebirgsdivision der SS Skanderbeg (albanische Nr.1)" on 1 May 1944, as part of the XXI Mountain Corps. Most or all of the division's officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and specialists were German, and were mainly provided by the 7th and 13th SS Divisions, which noticeably weakened those formations. The divisional artillery regiment was formed from the 1st Albanian Artillery Regiment. The division was placed under the command of SS-"Standartenführer" August Schmidhuber, who was promoted to SS-"Oberführer" in June. Members took a religious oath using the Quran, pledging "jihad against unbelievers." The division was originally equipped with captured Italian Carro Armato M15/42 tanks, which proved to be unreliable. Its garrison was located in the town of Prizren.  The division was to be responsible for security in Kosovo, including transport routes, the defence of economically important objects such as the chrome ore mines in Kukës and Đakovica, as well as offensive action against Yugoslav Partisans operating in the region. Men who had already served in the 13th SS Division were also deployed as guards at a concentration camp in Pristina. Early on, it became clear that most of the division's Muslim Albanian members seemed to be interested only in settling scores with their Christian Serb adversaries, who became the target of numerous atrocities. In order to put a stop to the crimes, the Germans had to disarm battalions of the division in the towns of Peć and Prizren and arrest the Albanian officers, with one commanding officer even being sent to prison in Germany. On 14 May 1944, members of the division raided Jewish homes in Pristina, arrested 281 Jews and handed them over to the Germans, who sent them to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed. The historian Noel Malcolm describes this event as "the most shameful episode in Kosovo's wartime history." The division was later involved in a massacre of Albanian partisans. It was also responsible for the expulsion of up to 10,000 Slavic families from Kosovo as new Albanian settlers arrived from the poor areas of northern Albania. The arrival of these Albanians was encouraged by Italian authorities, and it is estimated that as many as 72,000 Albanians were settled or re-settled in Kosovo during the war. Between 28 May and 5 July 1944, the division apprehended a total of 510 Jews, communists and other anti-fascists and turned them over to the Germans. It also carried out retaliatory hangings of suspected saboteurs.  In June 1944, "Skanderbeg" engaged in large-scale field manoeuvres in eastern Montenegro. In Andrijevica, the division summarily executed more than 400 Orthodox Christian civilians. It participated in operations "Endlich" (Finally) and "Falkenauge" (Hawkeye) in June and July, as well as "Draufgänger" (Daredevil), during which it was the main force used by the Germans. These operations were focused on the destruction of strong Partisan forces in the Đakovica, Peć and Mokra Gora areas. By the end of Operation "Draufgänger", more than 400 men had deserted or otherwise gone missing. According to Neubacher, the division was carelessly committed to fighting in the early stages of its training and performed poorly. Between 18 and 27 August, the division fought the Partisans in and around Debar but failed to capture the city. During the summer of 1944, Deva was sidelined within the League. Fitzthum was so concerned about the impact that this would have on the development of the division that he wrote to Himmler. By the end of August 1944, the Germans had decided that the division was only of use for basic guarding duties. Some members were charged with guarding chromium mines near Kosovo before the area was overrun by the Partisans. In the ensuing clashes, one of the division's regiments lost more than 1,000 men and many Albanians deserted. Some of the desertions occurred after a Partisan offensive northeast of Gusinje. Army Group E reported that the division's performance showed that it had "absolutely no military value."

September–November 1944.

On 1 September 1944, members of the division stationed in Tetovo and Gostivar mutinied, killing their German officers and NCOs. By this time, the division numbered fewer than 7,000 men, less than one third of its intended strength. Within two months of its initial deployment, 3,500 had deserted. Himmler brought in 3,000–4,000 "Kriegsmarine" (German navy) personnel from Greece to make up the numbers, but this had little effect on the division's fighting ability. The desertions were mainly caused by Germany's defeats, serious shortfalls in food and equipment, as well as from observing constant overflights by the United States Army Air Force, Allied propaganda, and the approaching end of Germany's military hegemony in the Balkans. Further reasons for the escalating number of desertions included the news that both Bulgaria and Romania had joined the Allies, Josip Broz Tito's amnesty which ended on 15 September, and a demand by Albania's Party of Labour that fighting-age men join the National Liberation Front.  By the beginning of October 1944, the division's strength had fallen to about 4,900 men, fewer than 1,500 of whom were fit for combat. Between April and October, 3,425 had deserted, constituting over half the division's strength. Schmidhuber reported that even the 697 members of the battalion that had served in the 13th SS Division had deserted. The unit was blighted by shortages of equipment and armaments, and a lack of German staff to train new recruits, as demonstrated by the fact that over the summer and autumn only a single battalion had been readied for combat. Schmidhuber held his men in contempt, and he, his superiors, and Fitzthum attempted to justify their failure to create an effective security force by denigrating the Albanians' culture and military reputation. Schmidhuber also linked the failure of the division to the lack of time for proper military training, ideological training and the absence of suitable instructors. Later, less-involved members of the Wehrmacht stated that the principal issue regarding the unit's reliability may have been that the Germans did not work closely with the Albanians at the local level. In mid-October, the division was engaged in heavy fighting around Đakovica. It also aided the Wehrmacht in its orderly withdrawal from Kosovo, covering the Wehrmacht's flanks and engaging the Partisans. By this time, desertions had significantly affected the division's strength, and its 86 officers and 467 NCOs were left with a force of only 899 men, about half of whom were Albanian. On 24 October, "Generaloberst" Alexander Löhr, the commander of Army Group E, ordered that all Albanian members of the division be disarmed and released. Between 19 September and 23 October, 131 anti-fascist guerrillas had been shot or hanged by members of the division acting on Schmidhuber's orders.  On 1 November 1944, the division was disbanded. Kosovo Albanians took up arms against the Partisans upon learning that the region would not be unified with Albania after the war, despite earlier Partisan promises. Atrocities occurred when 30,000 Partisans were sent to Kosovo to quell Albanian resistance in the region. Between 3,000 and 25,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed in the ensuing violence.

Aftermath and legacy.

The remaining German troops and former naval personnel were reorganised as the regimental "Kampfgruppe Skanderbeg" under the command of SS-"Obersturmbannführer" Alfred Graf. The unit withdrew from the Kosovo region in mid-November along with the rest of the German troops in the area. Many Serbs and Montenegrins then took revenge against the region's ethnic Albanians, especially collaborators and those who had been members of the division. In his strongly apologetic history of the 7th SS Division, which he commanded at the time, Otto Kumm wrote that "Kampfgruppe Skanderbeg" reached Ljubovija on the Drina river, it was placed under the command of the 7th SS Division, which was securing the river crossings in that area. According to Kumm, the "Kampfgruppe" held the towns of Zvornik and Drinjača during the first half of December 1944 as part of the Ljubovija bridgehead. It withdrew across the Drina and fought its way north, towards Brčko on the Sava river, where it relieved the Wehrmacht forces holding the town. In late December, the "Kampfgruppe"'s assault gun battery was committed to the Syrmian Front at Vinkovci. The remainder of the "Kampfgruppe" was deployed to Bijeljina.  In January 1945, the handful of naval personnel that survived were transferred to the 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division 30 Januar, and the remnants of the former division were reorganised as II Battalion of the 14th SS Volunteer Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 7th SS Division. On 21 January 1945, Schmidhuber was promoted to SS-"Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS" and placed in command of the 7th SS Division. After the war, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged. In February 1945, the battalion was disbanded altogether and its remaining manpower was assigned to the German police regiment near Zagreb.  The division itself was considered to have been a military failure. Not one of its members was awarded an Iron Cross while serving in it. Schmidhuber observed that, "[w]ith a light mortar you can basically chase him [the Albanian] around the world. During the attack he goes only as far as he finds something to steal or sack. For him, the war is over when he captures a goat, a ploughshare or the wheel of a sewing machine." Professor Paul Mojzes writes that the division was better known for committing atrocities against Serbs than it was for contributing to the German war effort. Its role in deporting Jews from Kosovo has been challenged by the Albanian historian Shaban Sinani, who claims that the division did not participate in any deportations on the Germans' behalf. David Patterson, a historian specializing in anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, writes that the division "played a major role in rendering the Balkans "Judenrein" in the winter of 1943–1944." During the Kosovo War of 1998–1999, the American journalist Chris Hedges alleged that some Kosovo Liberation Army leaders were directly descended from members of the division and were ideologically influenced by it. Malcolm has challenged this claim.

Insignia.

The division's identification symbol was the Albanian double-headed eagle. Despite its short existence, a collar patch depicting a goat-crested helmet was manufactured for the division but there is no evidence that it was ever used. Photographs exist of a machine-woven cuff band with the title "Skanderbeg", but this was awarded to the 14th SS Volunteer "Gebirgsjäger" Regiment of the 7th SS Division in autumn 1944, and not to this division. Members of the cadre staff were photographed wearing an Albanian arm shield depicting a black Albanian double-headed eagle on a red field. Many of the division's Muslim members wore traditional grey-coloured skull caps instead of the standard SS field cap. Others wore the traditional Albanian highlander hat, the "Qeleshe".

Order of battle.

The principal units of the division were:

The 21st "Waffen" Mountain Division of the SS "Skanderbeg" (1st Albanian) was a German mountain infantry division of the "Waffen-SS", the armed wing of the German Nazi Party that served alongside, but was never formally part of, the Wehrmacht during World War II.

21. Waffen-Gebirgs Division der SS „Skanderbeg“ (albanische Nr. 1) byla horská divize Waffen-SS. Byla založena 17. dubna 1944. Její hlavní úlohou byl boj s partyzány na území Kosova a Makedonie. Své jméno „Skanderbeg“ obdržela podle albánského hrdiny z 15. století Iskandera Bega, který vyhnal bojovníky Osmanské říše z území Albánie.


Biography.

Early years.

Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, in County Waterford, Ireland, the seventh son and fourteenth child of The 1st Earl of Cork ('the Great Earl of Cork') and Catherine Fenton. Lord Cork, then known simply as Richard Boyle, had arrived in Dublin from England in 1588 during the Tudor plantations of Ireland and obtained an appointment as a deputy escheator. He had amassed enormous wealth and landholdings by the time Robert was born, and had been created Earl of Cork in October 1620. Catherine Fenton, Countess of Cork, was the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, the former Secretary of State for Ireland, who was born in Dublin in 1539, and Alice Weston, the daughter of Robert Weston, who was born in Lismore in 1541.  As a child, Boyle was fostered to a local family, as were his elder brothers. Boyle received private tutoring in Latin, Greek, and French and when he was eight years old, following the death of his mother, he was sent to Eton College in England. His father's friend, Sir Henry Wotton, was then the provost of the college.  During this time, his father hired a private tutor, Robert Carew, who had knowledge of Irish, to act as private tutor to his sons in Eton. However, "only Mr. Robert sometimes desires it [Irish] and is a little entered in it", but despite the "many reasons" given by Carew to turn their attentions to it, "they practice the French and Latin but they affect not the Irish". After spending over three years at Eton, Robert travelled abroad with a French tutor. They visited Italy in 1641 and remained in Florence during the winter of that year studying the "paradoxes of the great star-gazer" Galileo Galilei, who was elderly but still living in 1641.

Middle years.

Robert returned to England from continental Europe in mid-1644 with a keen interest in scientific research. His father, Lord Cork, had died the previous year and had left him the manor of Stalbridge in Dorset as well as substantial estates in County Limerick in Ireland that he had acquired. Robert then made his residence at Stalbridge House, between 1644 and 1652, and conducted many experiments there. From that time, Robert devoted his life to scientific research and soon took a prominent place in the band of enquirers, known as the "Invisible College", who devoted themselves to the cultivation of the "new philosophy". They met frequently in London, often at Gresham College, and some of the members also had meetings at Oxford.  Having made several visits to his Irish estates beginning in 1647, Robert moved to Ireland in 1652 but became frustrated at his inability to make progress in his chemical work. In one letter, he described Ireland as "a barbarous country where chemical spirits were so misunderstood and chemical instruments so unprocurable that it was hard to have any Hermetic thoughts in it."  In 1654, Boyle left Ireland for Oxford to pursue his work more successfully. An inscription can be found on the wall of University College, Oxford, the High Street at Oxford (now the location of the Shelley Memorial), marking the spot where Cross Hall stood until the early 19th century. It was here that Boyle rented rooms from the wealthy apothecary who owned the Hall.  Reading in 1657 of Otto von Guericke's air pump, he set himself, with the assistance of Robert Hooke, to devise improvements in its construction, and with the result, the "machina Boyleana" or "Pneumatical Engine", finished in 1659, he began a series of experiments on the properties of air. An account of Boyle's work with the air pump was published in 1660 under the title "New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects".  Among the critics of the views put forward in this book was a Jesuit, Francis Line (1595–1675), and it was while answering his objections that Boyle made his first mention of the law that the volume of a gas varies inversely to the pressure of the gas, which among English-speaking people is usually called Boyle's Law after his name. The person who originally formulated the hypothesis was Henry Power in 1661. Boyle in 1662 included a reference to a paper written by Power, but mistakenly attributed it to Richard Towneley. In continental Europe the hypothesis is sometimes attributed to Edme Mariotte, although he did not publish it until 1676 and was likely aware of Boyle's work at the time.  In 1663 the Invisible College became The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and the charter of incorporation granted by Charles II of England named Boyle a member of the council. In 1680 he was elected president of the society, but declined the honour from a scruple about oaths.  He made a "wish list" of 24 possible inventions which included "the prolongation of life", the "art of flying", "perpetual light", "making armour light and extremely hard", "a ship to sail with all winds, and a ship not to be sunk", "practicable and certain way of finding longitudes", "potent drugs to alter or exalt imagination, waking, memory and other functions and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc." They are extraordinary because all but a few of the 24 have come true.  In 1668 he left Oxford for London where he resided at the house of his elder sister Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh, in Pall Mall. He experimented in the laboratory she had in her home and attended her salon of intellectuals interested in the sciences. The siblings maintained "a lifelong intellectual partnership, where brother and sister shared medical remedies, promoted each other’s scientific ideas, and edited each other’s manuscripts." His contemporaries widely acknowledged Katherine's influence on his work, but later historiographers dropped discussion of her accomplishments and relationship to her brother from their histories.

Later years.

In 1669 his health, never very strong, began to fail seriously and he gradually withdrew from his public engagements, ceasing his communications to the Royal Society, and advertising his desire to be excused from receiving guests, "unless upon occasions very extraordinary", on Tuesday and Friday forenoon, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. In the leisure thus gained he wished to "recruit his spirits, range his papers", and prepare some important chemical investigations which he proposed to leave "as a kind of Hermetic legacy to the studious disciples of that art", but of which he did not make known the nature. His health became still worse in 1691, and he died on 31 December that year, just a week after the death of his sister, Katherine, in whose home he had lived and with whom he had shared scientific pursuits for more than twenty years. Boyle died from paralysis. He was buried in the churchyard of St Martin-in-the-Fields, his funeral sermon being preached by his friend, Bishop Gilbert Burnet. In his will, Boyle endowed a series of lectures that came to be known as the Boyle Lectures.

Scientific investigator.

Boyle's great merit as a scientific investigator is that he carried out the principles which Francis Bacon espoused in the "Novum Organum". Yet he would not avow himself a follower of Bacon, or indeed of any other teacher.  On several occasions he mentions that to keep his judgment as unprepossessed as might be with any of the modern theories of philosophy, until he was "provided of experiments" to help him judge of them. He refrained from any study of the atomical and the Cartesian systems, and even of the Novum Organum itself, though he admits to "transiently consulting" them about a few particulars. Nothing was more alien to his mental temperament than the spinning of hypotheses. He regarded the acquisition of knowledge as an end in itself, and in consequence he gained a wider outlook on the aims of scientific inquiry than had been enjoyed by his predecessors for many centuries. This, however, did not mean that he paid no attention to the practical application of science nor that he despised knowledge which tended to use.  Robert Boyle was an alchemist; and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in the hope of achieving it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, in 1689, of the statute of Henry IV against multiplying gold and silver. With all the important work he accomplished in physics – the enunciation of Boyle's law, the discovery of the part taken by air in the propagation of sound, and investigations on the expansive force of freezing water, on specific gravities and refractive powers, on crystals, on electricity, on colour, on hydrostatics, etc. – chemistry was his peculiar and favourite study. His first book on the subject was "The Sceptical Chymist", published in 1661, in which he criticised the "experiments whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury to be the true Principles of Things." For him chemistry was the science of the composition of substances, not merely an adjunct to the arts of the alchemist or the physician.  He endorsed the view of elements as the undecomposable constituents of material bodies; and made the distinction between mixtures and compounds. He made considerable progress in the technique of detecting their ingredients, a process which he designated by the term "analysis". He further supposed that the elements were ultimately composed of particles of various sorts and sizes, into which, however, they were not to be resolved in any known way. He studied the chemistry of combustion and of respiration, and conducted experiments in physiology, where, however, he was hampered by the "tenderness of his nature" which kept him from anatomical dissections, especially vivisections, though he knew them to be "most instructing".

Theological interests.

In addition to philosophy, Boyle devoted much time to theology, showing a very decided leaning to the practical side and an indifference to controversial polemics. At the Restoration of the king in 1660, he was favourably received at court and in 1665 would have received the provostship of Eton College had he agreed to take holy orders, but this he refused to do on the ground that his writings on religious subjects would have greater weight coming from a layman than a paid minister of the Church.  Moreover, Boyle incorporated his scientific interests into his theology, believing that natural philosophy could provide powerful evidence for the existence of God. In works such as "Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things" (1688), for instance, he criticised contemporary philosophers – such as René Descartes – who denied that the study of nature could reveal much about God. Instead, Boyle argued that natural philosophers could use the design apparently on display in some parts of nature to demonstrate God's involvement with the world. He also attempted to tackle complex theological questions using methods derived from his scientific practices. In "Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection" (1675), he used a chemical experiment known as the reduction to the pristine state as part of an attempt to demonstrate the physical possibility of the resurrection of the body. Throughout his career, Boyle tried to show that science could lend support to Christianity.  As a director of the East India Company he spent large sums in promoting the spread of Christianity in the East, contributing liberally to missionary societies and to the expenses of translating the Bible or portions of it into various languages. Boyle supported the policy that the Bible should be available in the vernacular language of the people. An Irish language version of the New Testament was published in 1602 but was rare in Boyle's adult life. In 1680–85 Boyle personally financed the printing of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, in Irish. In this respect, Boyle's attitude to the Irish language differed from the English Ascendancy class in Ireland at the time, which was generally hostile to the language and largely opposed the use of Irish (not only as a language of religious worship).  Boyle also had a monogenist perspective about race origin. He was a pioneer studying races, and he believed that all human beings, no matter how diverse their physical differences, came from the same source: Adam and Eve. He studied reported stories of parents' giving birth to different coloured albinos, so he concluded that Adam and Eve were originally white and that Caucasians could give birth to different coloured races. Boyle also extended the theories of Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton about colour and light via optical projection (in physics) into discourses of polygenesis, speculating that maybe these differences were due to "seminal impressions". Taking this into account, it might be considered that he envisioned a good explanation for complexion at his time, due to the fact that now we know that skin colour is disposed by genes, which are actually contained in the semen. Boyle's writings mention that at his time, for "European Eyes", beauty was not measured so much in colour of skin, but in "stature, comely symmetry of the parts of the body, and good features in the face". Various members of the scientific community rejected his views and described them as "disturbing" or "amusing".  In his will, Boyle provided money for a series of lectures to defend the Christian religion against those he considered "notorious infidels, namely atheists, deists, pagans, Jews and Muslims", with the provision that controversies between Christians were not to be mentioned (see Boyle Lectures).

Awards and honours.

As a founder of the Royal Society, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1663. Boyle's law is named in his honour. The Royal Society of Chemistry issues a Robert Boyle Prize for Analytical Science, named in his honour. The Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence in Ireland, inaugurated in 1899, is awarded jointly by the Royal Dublin Society and The Irish Times. Launched in 2012, The Robert Boyle Summer School organized by the Waterford Institute of Technology with support from Lismore Castle, is held annually to honor the heritage of Robert Boyle.

Important works.

The following are some of the more important of his works:  Among his religious and philosophical writings were:

Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist (a title some give to 8th century Islamic scholar Jabir ibn Hayyan), and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. He is best known for Boyle's law, which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system. Among his works, "The Sceptical Chymist" is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry. He was a devout and pious Anglican and is noted for his writings in theology.

Robert Boyle (25. ledna 1627 Lismore – 31. prosince 1691 Londýn) byl irský přírodovědec, chemik, fyzik a vynálezce, jenž psal i na téma teologie. Nejvíc je znám pro formulaci tzv. Boyleova zákona. Ačkoliv jeho osobní filosofie a výzkumy mají zřejmé kořeny v tradiční alchymii, dnes bývá označován za prvního moderního chemika, a tedy i jednoho ze zakladatelů moderní chemie. Jeho kniha "The Sceptical Chymist" ("Skeptický chemik") bývá považována za přelomové dílo na poli chemie.