Balthasar Zimmermann (politician)

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Courtship carpenter (1937)

Balthasar "Balz" Zimmermann (born February 13, 1895 in Schwändi GL ; † October 13, 1937 in Zurich ; resident in Schwändi, from 1912 in Glarus ) was a Swiss pilot, Swissair founder and Zurich National Councilor . He was one of the co-founders of the National Ring of Independents and is considered a pioneer of Swiss civil aviation .

Courtship carpenter, first lieutenant of the air force

Life

Balthasar Zimmermann was born as the son of master printer Friedrich Zimmermann and Salome born. Luchsinger born. After attending the Protestant secondary school in Schiers , he studied mathematics and physics at the ETH Zurich . Zimmermann married Anna Schindler from Breisach am Rhein in 1929 .

During the First World War he did his military service and was trained as a pilot. He stayed as an instructor at the Fliegerwaffe until 1926 and resigned as a first lieutenant. After Balair was founded in Basel , he was appointed director in 1926 and was largely responsible for its upswing. The Basel-Sternenfeld airfield was the largest airfield in Switzerland at the time. The company, financed with federal subsidies and postal transport, had to merge with Ad Astra Aero to form Swissair on January 1, 1931, under pressure from the Federal Aviation Office .

Zimmermann took over commercial management at Swissair. After the technical director Walter Mittelholzer fell to his death on a climbing tour in May 1937, he also took over his department. Both are considered pioneers of Swiss civil aviation.

In political terms, Zimmermann was part of the circle around Migros founder Gottlieb Duttweiler . The association with other like-minded people immediately won seven seats in the elections to the National Council in 1935. On December 30, 1936, Duttweiler and Zimmermann founded a party called the Landesring der Independentigen (LdU). Zimmermann resigned from his mandate on June 1, 1937.

Zimmermann died on October 13, 1937 of an infectious disease. The daily newspaper Die Tat, which is close to the LdU, described him in 1973 as a “great aeronautical strategist”, he would have had the format to pursue world air transport policy, and attested him “sophisticated technical knowledge, paired with a cosmopolitan demeanor and a good dose of Swiss peasant cunning”.

The In Memoriam Bider / Mittelholzer / Zimmermann cooperative was named in his honor.

literature

  • Six Swiss aviation pioneers: Henri Dufaux, Armand Dufaux, Oskar Bider, Alfred Comte, Walter Mittelholzer, Balz Zimmermann. Association for Economic History Studies (Ed.), Meilen 1987.
  • Benedikt Meyer: In flight. Swiss airlines and their passengers, 1919–2002. Chronos, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-0340-1238-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Susanne Peter-Kubli: Balthasar Zimmermann (politician). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ↑ Balthasar Zimmermann's obituary in the Berner Woche .
  3. ↑ Difficult transition phase. In: The deed . November 13, 1973.
  4. ↑ The "Götti" expected more from us. In: Bridge Builders . January 11, 1984.
personal data
SURNAME Carpenter, Balthasar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carpenter, courtship (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss pilot, Swissair founder and Zurich National Council
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwändi GL
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1937
Place of death Zurich