Charles Kiefer-Hablitzel

Charles Kiefer-Hablitzel (* as Karl Anton Kiefer May 17, 1872 in Basel ; † August 15, 1947 in Lucerne ) was a Swiss businessman, industrial entrepreneur and patron . In 1946 he founded the Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation with his wife Mathilde .

Life

Charles Kiefer-Hablitzel was the son of a tailor from southern Baden, who had acquired Swiss citizenship in Basel in 1868 . He finished his school education in a commercial class and then completed a two-year banking apprenticeship at the private bank Heusser . He worked in various Basel companies until he moved to France in 1894 and later to England. The attempt to set up his own company in Brussels in 1897 failed. That moved him to a fresh start in Rio de Janeiro , where he arrived in the first days of 1900. Since French was the colloquial language of the upper class in Brazil at the time, he changed his first name to "Antoine Charles"; he also learned the Portuguese language.

In 1901, during a stay in Basel, he made the acquaintance of Mathilde Hablitzel, a saleswoman in a sports and leather goods store. She followed him to Brazil a year later, later two of her brothers followed. She played a key role in his endeavors. Charles Kiefer introduced silk ribbon production in Brazil , acquired stakes in companies, hotels and manganese mines , with which he supplied steel production during the First World War . In later years he concentrated more on stock market transactions and was appointed to the board of directors of Banco do Brasil , whose majority of shares were registered for some time in the names of Kiefer and Hablitzel.

The childless couple's charitable commitment began in Brazil: Mathilde Kiefer-Hablitzel built an orphanage and a small hospital, and her husband was involved in the Société Philanthropique Suisse , an institution that supports needy Swiss emigrants.

In 1923 Charles and Mathilde Kiefer finally returned to Switzerland to settle in the Dreilinden estate in Lucerne, which they had previously purchased for over a million francs, a castle-like building complex in a large English landscape garden , today's Dreilindenpark . The couple's artistic taste was based on the conventional: The picture decorations in the villa included paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries as well as by Albert Anker and Giovanni Segantini , but no pictures from the then current art movements.

Lucerne Art and Congress Center

Since 1925, the city of Lucerne planned to build an art and concert hall east of the train station. An initial plan calculated construction costs of 3 million. In 1929 Charles Kiefer offered the city a $ 2 million grant. In return, the city of Lucerne undertook to pay the Kiefer couple an interest rate of 4% as a lifelong tax-free annuity of CHF 90,000 annually.

When construction began in 1931, however, Charles Kiefer was unable to pay due to the global economic crisis of 1929. In order to be able to meet the yield, he pledged the "Dreilinden" estate to the city of Lucerne. After delays, the art and congress center, designed by the architect Armin Meili , opened on December 9, 1933. From 1938 the center was also used for music, with which the International Music Festival (since 2000: Lucerne Festival ) began in Lucerne. In 1995, the building by Armin Meili was replaced by Jean Nouvel 's current Lucerne Culture and Convention Center .

Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation

Charles Kiefer's financial situation slowly improved again, he made the remaining payments until 1939 and definitely ceded the Dreilinden estate to the city of Lucerne, with lifelong free residential and usage rights for himself and his wife. In 1952, two years after her death, the conservatory opened at Dreilinden .

As a result of polemics in connection with the construction of the Kunst- und Kongresshaus, Charles and Mathilde Kiefer decided not to bequeath their remaining assets to the city of Lucerne, but to the Swiss Confederation. On November 14, 1941, they made their wills legally binding at a notary in Zurich: Both spouses appoint their partner as sole heirs, their joint inheritance is transferred to the Swiss Confederation, which is to use it under the name of the Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation in accordance with precisely defined provisions.

Charles Kiefer began in 1943 to create the financial basis for a federal foundation by transferring payments to a federal current account with the federal finance administration. After his death, his wife continued to make payments. On March 5, 1946, a year before Charles Kiefer's death, the “semi-private” Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation was established with a capital of CHF 1.02 million; its statutes were deposited with the Lucerne Commercial Register. The first constituent meeting of the Foundation Council took place on March 9, 1951, 10 months after Mathilde Kiefer's death. At the time, the capital was already 6.2 million francs.

According to the will of 1941, the income from this capital is to be allocated to the following institutions every year according to a fixed distribution key:

• 2/16 to the Gottfried Keller Foundation .
• 3/16 to young artists (painters and sculptors) and musicians of Swiss nationality.
• 4/16 for ETH Zurich , for research, as well as for scholarships.
• 1/16 for a federal subsidy to the Swiss Association for Homeland Security .
• 2/16 for the Swiss National Park , to cover costs and for scientific research.
• 2/16 for the zoological garden in Basel .
• 2/16 to support "overseas merchants of Swiss nationality who have to prove that they have acquired assets but have lost them through no fault of their own and therefore had to return to Switzerland"

This last part could often not be used in the course of time and was partly added to the total capital. From 1984 the two sixteenths were given to the art and music awards.

The Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation is known to the public primarily for its support for young artists. However, their work extends comprehensively to the care of nature, science and the arts. In the first fifty years of its existence, it supported the various institutions with almost 20 million francs. The legal seat of the foundation is Lucerne, that of the secretariat is Bern. The foundation is subject to the supervision of the Swiss Confederation.

literature

• Lucerne Latest News, Lucerne August 19, 1947
• Karl Bühlmann: Charles and Mathilde on Dreilinden. The establishment and history of the Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation. Lucerne through the ages, new episode. H. 10. Kommissionsverlag Raeber, Lucerne 2003.
• Karl Bühlmann (ed.): Culture and Congress Center Lucerne. The story of his becoming, the future of his idea. Zürcher Druck und Verlag, Rotkreuz 1998.
• Lisbeth Marfurt-Elmiger: The Lucerne Art Society 1819-1933: From the foundation to the opening of the Kunsthaus (= contributions to Lucerne city history, vol. 4). Publication by the Lucerne City Archives. Keller, Lucerne 1978.
• Beat Mugglin: The land policy of the city of Lucerne (= contributions to Lucerne city history, vol. 9). Publication by the Lucerne City Archives. Commission publisher Raeber, Lucerne 1993.

Web links

• Markus Lischer: Charles Kiefer-Hablitzel. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Website of the Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation
• Federal Department of the Interior Kiefer-Hablitzel Foundation; Board of Trustees
• Government Council of the Canton of Lucerne (Kunstmuseum Luzern), p. 4 (PDF; 1.2 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lucerne Festival website  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Bühlmann: Charles and Mathilde on Dreilinden. 2003, p. 16.