August R. Lindt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
August R. Lindt

August Rudolf Lindt (born August 5, 1905 in Bern ; † April 14, 2000 there ) was a Swiss lawyer , diplomat and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees .

Life

Lindt was the son of a pharmacist and chocolate manufacturer. He attended grammar school in Bern, studied law in Geneva (1924–1925) and Bern, and received his doctorate in 1927 with a dissertation on Soviet company law . From 1929 to 1940 he worked for various banks in Paris, Berlin and London and as a special correspondent at home and abroad.

During the Second World War (1941-1945) he was head of the civil reconnaissance service in the Army and House of the Army Command section. From 1945 to 1946 he was a delegate of a special ICRC mission in Berlin. From 1946 he worked for the Federal Political Department (EPD, today FDFA) as press spokesman in Bern and then as counselor in London. From 1953 to 1956 he was a UN observer and from 1955 Minister Plenipotentiary in New York. In 1952 he was President of the Executive Committee of UNICEF and in 1953 of the Opium Conference. In 1956 he headed the Swiss delegation to the conference on the statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency . From 1956 to 1960 he was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees . He was then Swiss ambassador to Washington and delegate for technical cooperation in the Federal Political Department until 1962 . From 1966 to 1968 he was ambassador to Moscow. During the Biafra War , he was ICRC General Commissioner in Africa from 1968 to 1969, then Ambassador to the Mongolian People's Republic, India and Nepal. From 1973 to 1975 he was an adviser to the President of the Republic of Rwanda.

Act

Thanks to his strong personality, his independence and extensive international experience, Lindt was one of the most important Swiss of the 20th century. His federal career, which went far beyond mere diplomacy, was closely linked to contemporary Swiss and international history . His life was shaped by his moral courage and his commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights. For the NZZ , August R. Lindt had become more and more of a moral conscience in Switzerland over the years. As a foreign correspondent (1932–1941) for various Swiss, German and English newspapers, he traveled to Manchuria in a state of war, Ireland, Liberia, Finland, Palestine, Romania, and on the back of a camel the area around the Persian Gulf, Tunisia and Jordan. In the winter of 1939/1940 he accompanied the Finnish army in the defensive battle against the Soviet Union on behalf of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung .

In 1940 Lindt had to join the artillery as a driver corporal. He had himself transferred to the army intelligence service. Together with his childhood friend Alfred Ernst, Walther Allgöwer , Max Waibel and others, he played a key role in the so-called officers' union in 1940 and later in the much broader national resistance campaign. All of these endeavors were aimed at countering a tendency towards defeatism towards Nazi Germany.

Towards the end of the war, he felt that the horizon for Switzerland was now widening again, and at the same time discovered his most important life task in humanitarian work. He participated in the organization of the Swiss donation for the benefit of a shattered Europe and went as an ICRC delegate to the destroyed Berlin to build up the activities of the committee in the Soviet occupation zone.

Switzerland's humanitarian tradition was not always official policy, but in many cases only grew out of resistance to it. Lindt managed to combine the two. He did not always meet with approval. Individual parliamentarians were outraged that he, as Swiss representative at the International Conference on Human Rights of the UN in 1968, morally condemned the apartheid system. As the ICRC's general commissioner for the Nigeria- Biafra aid operation , he reported to the Federal Council that the Bührle company had delivered weapons to Nigeria, which later led to the so-called Bührle scandal .

In 1987 he publicly opposed the dismantling of the right to asylum . In the last few years he fought with the working group Lived History against what he believed to be distorted historical accounts in the Bergier report and what he felt was the denigration of the active service generation. With the same passion he warned against defensive tendencies towards real refugees or against the relativization of the neutrality of the country.

Awards and honors

Primary literature

  • In the saddle through Manchukuo. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1934.
  • Jo and Bo in Manchuria. Swiss youth publications 1937.
  • Generals never go hungry. Zytglogge Verlag, 1983.
  • Sardine oil versus vodka. Memories of a Swiss diplomat (1946–1960). University Press Freiburg, Freiburg (Switzerland) 1999, ISBN 3-7278-1189-7 .
  • Switzerland, the Porcupine: Memories (1939-1945). Zytglogge Verlag, 1992, ISBN 3-7296-0424-4 .

Secondary literature

  • Rolf Wilhelm et al. (Ed.): August R. Lindt: Patriot and cosmopolitan . Haupt Verlag, Bern 2003, ISBN 978-3-258-06527-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cosmopolitan humanity with roots - On the death of August R. Lindt. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. No. 91, April 17, 2000.
personal data
SURNAME Lindt, August R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lindt, August Rudolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer, diplomat and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
DATE OF BIRTH 5th August 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 2000
Place of death Bern