Fire from Glarus

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The fire in Glarus on the night of May 10th, 1861 was one of the greatest fire disasters of the 19th century in Switzerland . Two thirds of the canton's capital, Glarus , were destroyed, and half (47%) of the residents became homeless.

Course and consequences

The fire broke out in a barn next to Councilor Christoph Tschudi's house on Landsgemeindeplatz after 9:30 p.m. and spread quickly northwards due to the foehn .

Most of the residents were still awake when the fire broke out and were able to save themselves. Around eight to ten people were killed in the night of the fire, but some died later as a result of fire poisoning. The exact death toll is unknown. These also included the President of the Criminal Court and National Councilor Johannes Trümpi with his family. The fire disaster became a media event. The big newspapers even abroad reported about it.

First "Swiss Solidarity"

The fire in Glarus triggered a strong wave of solidarity. The fundraiser was the first in the state founded in 1848 and, so to speak, the forerunner of today's Swiss Solidarity . Thousands of private individuals and associations, as well as municipalities and cantons, donated for the fire victims in Glarus. Tons of relief supplies such as food, blankets and clothes were delivered to the scene of the accident on the railway that had been in operation two years earlier. The monetary donations reached the then record sum of 2.7 million francs. This covered part of the total damage of ten million francs.

reconstruction

Glarus was rebuilt in just three years. The plans for the reconstruction came from the architect Bernhard Simon (1816–1900) and the Zurich State Building Inspector Johann Kaspar Wolff (1818–1891). Typical of the new Glarus is the chessboard-like architecture with wide, elongated streets and stately office buildings. Examples were La Chaux-de-Fonds, which burned down in 1794, or cities such as New York or St. Petersburg. After the fire disaster, Glarus did pioneering work in the field of fire police . The ban on clapboard shingles was strictly enforced. These had to be equipped with fireproof material. Wooden buildings were banned in the town center.

Cause of fire

The cause of the fire has never been clarified. There was talk of an iron left in the stable, and a drunk man was suspected of having been smoking a pipe near the building. However, both versions were found to be inconclusive.

Suspected arson

The latest research suggests possible arson . In his book City in Flames , published in April 2011, the author Walter Hauser presented new judicial files that he had come across in the Federal Archives in Bern . According to these files, the Swiss mercenary Heinrich August Engler, arrested in Rome in 1867, confessed that he had started the fire six years earlier with his friend Göldi. Engler and Göldi were in the service of the papal army in Rome and were arrested for desertion and later convicted. The deputy Swiss consul in Rome, Caspar Heer (1842–1915), checked the confession and classified it as truthful. The suspicion had been confirmed, wrote the consul Heer from Glarus to the Federal Council in August 1867. He applied to the Vatican authorities to extradite the two mercenaries. However, the request was rejected.

An article in the Glarner Zeitung dated December 25, 1867, rediscovered in 2011, also points to arson. The newspaper named several witnesses who claimed to have seen two suspicious figures fleeing down the valley on the night of the fire from May 10th to 11th, 1861. They just barely escaped being captured. Witnesses had also made suspicious observations at the Landsgemeindeplatz, where the fire had broken out. The author of the article from December 1867 felt strengthened in his belief that Glarus had been set on fire by a nefarious hand. At the same time, he expressed his regret that the Glarus government council had not requested the extradition of Engler and Göldi. This made a strict and comprehensive interrogation of the suspects impossible.

Memorial events

  • In 2011 Glarus celebrated 150 years of memory of the fire in Glarus with a series of occasions.

literature

  • Walter Hauser: City in Flames: The fire of Glarus in 1861. Limmat Verlag , Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-85791-630-4 .
  • Johann Heinrich Tschudi: The fire of Glarus on 10/11. May 1861. Report of the Aid Committee in Glarus. Glarus 1862.
  • Niklaus Tschudi: Glarus before, during and after the fire on 10/11. May 1861. Glarus 1864.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Southeast Switzerland June 10, 2011.