Walter Federn

People

Walter Federn (b.1911 Vienna d. 28 July 1967 New York) was an Egyptologist, the son of the Austrian-American psychologist Paul Federn.^[1]See also Paul Federn on Wikipedia He was also a correspondent of Immanuel Velikovsky.^[2]See the The Federn – Velikovsky Correspondence at the Velikovsky Archive

Acquaintance with Velikovsky

Velikovsky writes:

” My first contact with Dr. Walter Federn came through my acquaintance with his father. I knew Paul Federn from the days of my sojourn in Vienna in 1933. .. Paul Federn and his son Walter fled Vienna and resided in New York since the beginning of the Second World War.

“Walter Federn, whom I first learned to know in New York, got his Ph.D. in Egyptology under Prof. C. Junker at the University of Vienna. Walter wore his hair long, had very bushy eyebrows, and looked almost like a medium .. It was in February, 1941, after one of our chance meetings at the Public Library at Forty-second Street in New York that I decided to discuss with him my entire reconstruction, conceived almost two years earlier.”^[3]”Dr. Walter Federn” at the Velikovsky Archive

On Ages in Chaos

Velikovsky recalls:^[4]Ibid. federn

“On September 30, 1958, after some seventeen years of our contact, Walter wrote to me:

Dear Dr. Velikovsky,

I have the following report to make to you—it is quite world-shaking, and shattering for me personally, report to make … the most important: I am now of the firm conviction that “Ages in Chaos” is right, and I have an unmatched grasp of the scholarly literature. The second volume must by and large be written anew. The consequences for the discipline of ancient history on one hand and for my future life on the other, are unforseeable.

Most sincerely yours

Walter Federn

Acknowledgement

Velikovsky acknowledges Walter Federn in the Foreword to his book, Ages in Chaos:

“I am grateful to Dr. Walter Federn, of the Asia Institute, New York. who has always been ready to help me with his incomparable knowledge of Egyptological literature. I feel my obligation to him all the more because he has never committed himself to my thesis. It took him more than six years to concede that conventional history is not built on unshakable foundations. His arguments have been a steady incentive for me to collect more and more proof, to collate more and more historical material, until the book attained its present form. His criticism has always been constructive.”^[5]Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos, Publ. January 1952, Doubleday, ISBN: 0385-04897-1

External links

• The Federn – Velikovsky Correspondence at the Velikovsky Archive
• Dr Walter Federn (obituary) at the New York Times $$$
• Walter Federn papers, 1956-1968 at Archives West