Adolf Ogi

Adolf Ogi

Adolf Ogi (left) with US Secretary of Defense William Cohen in July 2000

Adolf Ogi on a visit to Tuzla in June 1996

Adolf "Dölf" Ogi (born July 18, 1942 in Kandersteg , Canton of Bern ) is a Swiss politician ( SVP ). From 1987 to 2000 he was a member of the Swiss government, the Federal Council . From 2001 to 2007 he was Special Advisor for Sport for Development and Peace on behalf of the UN .

Life

His parents were Adolf and Anna Ogi, née Wenger. His father Adolf was a forester and mountain guide as well as a local councilor, president of the school commission, community president and community treasurer in Kandersteg. On May 12, 1972, Ogi married Katrin, nee Marti. They have two children together, Mathias († 2009) and Caroline. Today Ogi lives with his wife in Fraubrunnen .

education and profession

After completing compulsory primary and secondary school education, Adolf Ogi attended business school in La Neuveville for three years . He then attended a six-month course at the Swiss Mercantile School in London . In Formby near Liverpool , he did an internship in the textile company of the German industrialist S. Könnemann.

Ogi then took over the management of the Meiringen traffic office for two years . In 1964 he switched to the Swiss Ski Association (SSV). There he worked as an assistant to Elsa Roth and was elected director of the ski association in 1975.

In July 1981, Adolf Ogi resigned from his position as President of the SSV and took over the position of General Director at Intersport Switzerland. He resigned from Intersport when he was elected to the Federal Council in 1987.

Before the election to the Federal Council

Ogi became known across Switzerland through his work in the ski association. Therefore, various parties tried to win him for a candidate for the National Council . His in-laws were members of the Swiss People's Party , which he joined in 1978. He ran for the SVP in the 1979 National Council elections and was elected with a very good result. It received 56,235 votes. In 1984 he was elected President of the SVP.

For the Federal Council elections of 1987, Adolf Ogi was able to prevail within the party on the central board against the government councilor Peter Schmid , the brother of the later Federal Councilor Samuel Schmid , and was nominated as a candidate by the party. In the first round of the elections on December 9, 1987, Ogi received 114 of the 121 votes necessary for an absolute majority. Some bourgeois politicians did not vote for Ogi in the first ballot to punish him for his behavior in Otto Stich's election. At that time he had campaigned for the candidate Lilian Uchtenhagen . Some of his opponents were of the opinion that only eight years of politics were too short to become Federal Councilor straight away. In the second ballot, Ogi was elected to succeed Leon Schlumpf with 132 votes .

As Federal Councilor

After his election to the Federal Council, most of the attacks against him fell silent. From 1988 to 1995 he headed the Federal Transport and Energy Department . With commitment he turned to the biggest task at hand in this department: the new railway through the Alps (Neat) . After the referendum against the Federal Neat resolution was taken, he not only campaigned for the bill with his charisma, but also with the claim that the work could be financed entirely from the contributions of its users. Ogi clearly won the vote, but the project came under increasing criticism because of the high uncovered costs. Above all, the head of the finance department, Otto Stich , advocated staging the Neat and redesigning its financing. In the end, Ogi had to admit that profitability had been glossed over during the vote.

His greatest defeat was probably the popular acceptance of the Alpine Initiative on February 20, 1994. The initiative called for the transfer of transit goods traffic to rail and a ban on the creation of new cross-Alpine road capacities. Ogi had pointed out impending enforcement problems and - contrary to custom - insisted on his point of view even after the sovereign's verdict.

After the conflict with Otto Stich escalated in the summer of 1995, an arrangement was made whereby both parties to the company gave up their departments. Ogi subsequently took over - according to his own statement, voluntarily - the military department (EMD) , which in 1997 was renamed the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport (VBS). Here, too, he set striking accents in the direction of adaptation to the threat situation that changed after the end of the Cold War . He promoted Switzerland's accession to NATO's Partnership for Peace program . In 1999, he also sent Swiss soldiers ( Swisscoy ) to Kosovo . In this matter, the Federal Council drew the ire of Christoph Blocher and his campaign for an independent and neutral Switzerland (AUNS). "Do you want your son to come back in the coffin?" It was said on AUNS advertising posters, supplemented by images of the war. Ogi planned a drastic reduction in the army and often had soldiers deployed for actions such as repairing storm damage or securing congresses. During Ogi's time at VBS, the Nyffenegger affair with Friedrich Nyffenegger and the Bellasi affair with Dino Bellasi occurred .

In 1998, Adolf Ogi was elected President of the Sion 2006 Olympic candidacy . In a heavily criticized decision, Turin won the 2006 Winter Olympics ahead of the favorite Sion . An application for membership in the IOC failed on July 16, 2001 with 46:59 votes.

Adolf Ogi was Federal President in 1993 and 2000 and Vice President in 1992 and 1999.

When the first Swiss astronaut, Claude Nicollier, circled the earth, Adolf Ogi greeted him on August 7, 1992 with his “Joy reigns”, which has quickly become a bon mot .

After the time as Federal Councilor

On October 18, 2000, Adolf Ogi announced his resignation as Federal Councilor at the end of the year. After his resignation, he assumed a mandate at the UN as a special advisor on sport for development and peace . He was a direct advisor to the UN Secretary General . In this activity, which is rewarded with one symbolic dollar per year, he was strongly committed to the International Year of Sport , which the UN proclaimed for 2005. He was in 2005 from the University of Bern the honorary doctorate of Philosophy and Humanistic awarded faculty. Ogi announced at the beginning of 2006 that after Kofi Annan's resignation from the office of UN Secretary-General at the end of 2007, he would no longer be available as a special advisor for sport.

The Adolf Ogi-Strasse in Kandersteg

Adolf Ogi has numerous other functions: Honorary President of the Swiss Olympic Association, Honorary Member of the Green Cross International organization, Patronage President of the Swisscor Foundation, Patronage of the Unesco World Heritage Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch, member of the Board of Directors of the NGO Right to Play International. President of the Joy Foundation prevails. Adolf Ogi also holds various board memberships in private companies. From 2002 to 2005 he was President of Schweizer Berghilfe .

Adolf Ogi received various honors and awards, in addition to an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern a . a. the International University in Geneva, the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations, the American College of Greece in Athens, the Human Rights Prize of the International Society for Human Rights Switzerland, the European Solar Prize, the Karl Schmid Prize of the ETH Zurich, the Orde olympique vom International Olympic Committee and the Max Petitpierre Prize. In 2012 he was awarded the SwissAward for his life's work.

literature

• Josef Aufdemstroh (d. I. Walter Schwarz): Joy prevails. Adolf Ogi jokes and anecdotes. Verlag Moosegg, Lauperswil 1999, ISBN 3-9521927-1-6 .
• Urs Zurlinden: The Ogi. Werd-Verlag, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-85932-352-0 .
• Helmut Hubacher : Ogi - power and powerlessness. Opinio-Verlag, Basel 2001, ISBN 3-03999-000-4 .
• André Häfliger, Georges Wüthrich: Dölf Ogi - So wa (h) r es! Weltbild, Olten 2012, ISBN 978-3-03812-427-6 .
• Our twelve. 75 companions and contemporary witnesses pay tribute to former Federal Councilor Adolf Ogi. Weltbild / Werdverlag, Thun 2017, ISBN 978-3-03812-701-7 ( reading sample , reviews ).
• Adolf Ogi in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Commons : Adolf Ogi  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Adolf Ogi  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Adolf Ogi in the catalog of the German National Library
• Christoph Zürcher: Ogi, Adolf. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Ogi, 70 - What became of Adolf Ogi's optimism. Video in: Schweizer Fernsehen , Reporter broadcaston July 15, 2012 (23 minutes)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bye, bye Endeavor - Swiss astronaut Nicollier looks back. ( Memento from November 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) On Swiss television from May 20, 2011
2. ↑ Video ( memento from July 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) from August 7, 1992 (from 2:55 minutes)
3. ↑ Alois Feusi: Looking back: there is joy! In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . July 24, 2017, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed on August 2, 2017]).
4. ↑ Current and former company network of Adolf Ogi. In: monetas.ch. Retrieved February 2, 2016 . 
5. ↑ Adolf Ogi receives the “LifeTimeAward” 2012. In: SRF from January 12, 2012

predecessor	Office	successor
Leon Smurf	Member of the Swiss Federal Council 1988–2000	Samuel Schmid