Serious weather

Serious weather

Ernst Wetter (born August 27, 1877 in Töss (today Winterthur ), † August 10, 1963 in Zurich , entitled to reside in Töss, Winterthur and Zurich) was a Swiss politician ( FDP ). As a Federal Councilor he was Minister of Finance and once held the office of Federal President .

Career

Wetter was a secondary school teacher with a focus on mathematics and studied economics and commerce. He sat on the Zurich Cantonal Council from 1926 to 1934 and in the National Council from 1929 .

He was elected to the Federal Council in the first ballot on December 15, 1938 and took over the Federal Department of Finance and Customs on January 1, 1939 . He resigned on December 31, 1943 for reasons of age.

Since Rudolf Minger resigned as Vice President of the Federal Council in 1940, Ernst Wetter became Federal President directly in 1941 .

The most important merit of the weather is the “financial national defense ”. With his commitment to a war financing program, he ensured that Switzerland was not burdened unnecessarily financially by the costs. Wetter's measures brought Switzerland almost three million francs in additional income or under- spending, but the national debt after the end of the Second World War was 8.5 million francs. Many of the taxes introduced at the time, including a military tax and the sales tax (which later became VAT ), were retained after the war.

In 1944 the Federal Council appointed him President of the National Committee for Swiss Donations .

He found his final resting place in the Enzenbühl cemetery in Zurich .

Election results in the Federal Assembly

• 1938: Election to the Federal Council with 117 votes (absolute majority: 108 votes)
• 1939: Re-election as Federal Council with 152 votes (absolute majority: 102 votes)
• 1940: Election to the Federal President with 176 votes (absolute majority: 89 votes)

literature

• Activity report “The Swiss Donation 1944–1948”, Dr. E. Wetter and Rodolfo Olgiati, 1949
• Ernst Wetter , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 45/1963 of October 28, 1963, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Christoph Wehrli: Serious weather. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Ernst weather in the database Dodis the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland
• Ernst Wetter in the archive database of the Swiss Federal Archives
• Newspaper article about Ernst Wetter in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

predecessor	Office	successor
Albert Meyer	Member of the Swiss Federal Council 1939 - 1943	Ernst Nobs