Bernard Weck

Bernard Weck

Bernard Weck (originally Bernard de Weck , born April 24, 1890 in Friborg ; † May 5, 1950 ibid) was a Swiss politician and State Councilor of the canton of Friborg .

Live and act

Catholic by home, he came from Freiburg, Bösingen and Pierrafortscha . His parents were Romain de Weck , director of the Freiburger Hypothekarkasse and city administrator of Freiburg (1919–1922), and Emma de Diesbach. He was the grandson of Rodolphe Weck-Bussy and the great-nephew of Louis de Weck-Reynold . Weck was married to Anna Schifferli.

After attending the St. Michael College , Bernard Weck completed his law studies at the University of Freiburg , which he had supplemented with a semester in Munich , with a licentiate in 1912 . His engagements in student associations - member of the Nuithonia and the Swiss Student Association (1910–1915), President of Sarinia (1911–1912) - continued in the same Catholic-Conservative circles when he was Vice President of the Freiburg Conservative People's Party and at the national level of the Swiss Catholic People's Association was. He was also President of the SKVV in western Switzerland.

As he initially wanted to become a lawyer, he completed an internship in a law firm before realigning himself and in 1915 became a clerk at the cantonal court. His career accelerated when he was appointed public prosecutor for the canton of Friborg in 1916 and senior bailiff for the Saane district in 1918 . On December 23, 1919, at the age of 29, he was elected to the State Council; he was the last member of the government to be appointed by the cantonal parliament. After the introduction of the majority system of the people in 1921, he was re-elected seven times. Thus he spent 27 years in the canton's executive branch, whose presidium he held four times (1924, 1930, 1937 and 1943). He also sat on the Council of States from 1925 to 1950 and was unanimously elected President in 1938. He headed the Customs Commission and, during the war, the Authority Commission.

In the Freiburg State Council, Bernard Weck was successively head of three directorates. At first he headed the police, medical and trade directorate (1919-1926) and in 1920 introduced a security police corps. At the head of the Directorate of Justice, Culture and the Municipalities and Parishes (1927–1936), he enforced a law for free administration of justice and various legal provisions or implementation regulations for federal laws in 1933.

At the end of 1936, Bernard Weck took over the building management, which he headed for ten years (1936–1946). His main task was the continuation of the road renewal program (taring) started by Victor Buchs , which should help the canton to develop a modern road network. When the program was stopped due to a lack of materials and as a result of the mobilizations during the Second World War and the question of future national highways arose , Bernard Weck stubbornly advocated a route that would save Freiburg from isolation. In order to benefit from federal subsidies for the renovation of the network in the railway sector, he led the merger of the most important railway companies (Freiburg-Murten-Ins, Chemins de fer électriques de la Gruyère, Bulle-Romont) to form the Compagnie des Chemins de fer fribourgeois (GFM) in 1942 by. As far as the hydropower plants were concerned, he took over the Rossens dam project and continued it until it was passed by the Grand Council (1943) and the first construction work began.

Under pressure from the young conservatives, Bernard Weck decided not to run again in the stormy elections of 1946. On the other hand, he was re-elected to the Council of States in 1947, where he continued his work at federal level until, in 1950, exhausted by a long illness, he submitted his resignation. A few weeks later he died in Freiburg on May 5, 1950.

literature

• Jean-Marc Purro: Weck, Bernard de. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Georges Andrey , John Clerc, Jean-Pierre Dorand et Nicolas Gex: The Freiburg Council of State: 1848–2011. History, organization, members . Editions La Sarine, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-2-88355-153-4 .