Eugen Escher

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Eugen Escher

Eugen Escher (born May 10, 1831 in Riesbach (now Zurich ), † May 25, 1900 in Zurich) was a Swiss politician ( FDP ), lawyer and journalist . From 1868 to 1872 he was editor-in-chief of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ).

biography

education

Eugen Escher was born the son of out of a job has become recently for political reasons Upper bailiff of Grüningen , lawyers and former NZZ -Redaktors Heinrich Escher born and Elisabetha born principal in Zurich. There he attended primary and secondary schools and from 1842 the lower and from 1846 the upper grammar school . After graduating from high school , he went to Geneva for a year to practice French conversation . He visited also lectures by Philippe Camperio at the School of Law of the Academy and joined the Geneva section of the radical student association Helvetia one.

From 1850 he studied at the political science faculty of the University of Zurich . He stayed away from Helvetia, from which he had become estranged, but did not join the competing association of the Zofingers either . In 1851 he went to Heidelberg , financially supported by his wealthy uncle Salomon Escher, to complete his law studies and heard lectures from Adolph von Vangerow about pandects . He completed the second semester of his stay abroad in Berlin , where he heard Carl Gustav Homeyer , Friedrich Julius Stahl , Friedrich Ludwig Keller and August Wilhelm Heffter .

After his return to Zurich, Escher wanted to do a doctorate , but his father, who saw it as a sheer waste of money, stopped him and instead sent him to Paris in 1852 for eight months to prepare for higher political or diplomatic activity. Eugen Escher visited him at this time his sister Henriette in London , again financially supported by his uncle. In mid-1853 Escher was back in Zurich, where he worked as an assistant at the district court . In 1855 he was able to give lectures on French law as a private lecturer at the University of Zurich , which gave him the impetus for a subsequent doctorate in absentia at the University of Jena ; again the uncle paid the costs.

Political career

End 1854 Escher became better paid town clerk (to the district judge and the end of 1856 firm boss selected). In this position he tried to be more transparent and used the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in particular . Shortly after his election he delegated his " guild zur Meisen" in the Great City Council (since 1934 council Zurich), and soon after he was appointed to the Grand Council of the Canton of Zurich (1870 Cantonal selected), he presided over the 1869th In the city council he was a member of the then very important building commission, which was largely responsible for the expansion of the city. At the end of 1860 he was elected to the secondary office of federal court clerk.

The non-partisan «Zurich City Association» was founded in 1866 for free discussion of community affairs and elected its initiator Escher as president. His successor was Johann Heinrich Landolt, who later became President of the NZZ Administrative Committee. According to Escher, the «City Association» exerted a strong influence on the course of urban affairs over the next two years. B. in the sewerage and water supply. In 1867 the radicals blew up the association, and Escher founded the «Political Community Association», which was directed against the Democrats .

Escher, who actually wanted to stay out of big politics, also because of his father's bitter experiences, was ultimately more politicized by the dispute with the Winterthur democrats, who fought various building projects in the city, which, in their view, were taking advantage of the canton. At Alfred Escher's instigation , he ran for the Council of States and was elected in 1863 at the expense of his opponent, the democratic Mayor of Winterthur, Johann Jakob Sulzer .

He was now also active as a journalist, first in the Bern Sunday Post edited by Abraham Roth . To his disappointment, it didn't do much. The Winterthur democrats tried to get him to become a member; But Escher stayed with the Liberals . He also began to publish , first during the session as a Councilor, in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , for which he had already written as a youth from Geneva, Paris and Germany; the then editor-in-chief Peter Felber encouraged him to do so. The main focus was on the fight against the tax hike for the rich planned by the Democrats in a constitutional reform. Escher was elected as the best elected member of the Constitutional Council for the years 1868/1869 . Despite everything, the constitutional reform was successful thanks to the coalition of Democrats and Conservatives and, ultimately, the majority won by the Democrats in the referendum.

Escher, who was fiercely opposed by the Democrats, was no longer elected to the Council of States in 1869, instead he took up the National Council mandate of the liberal Jakob Dubs elected to the Federal Council in a by-election in 1870 . However, he did not feel at home in the National Council, also because his party friend Alfred Escher, in contrast to him, advocated the centralizing revision of the Federal Constitution and a dispute between Alfred Escher and Jakob Dubs over the Savoy question sparked. In view of the problems there, the absences from the editorial team no longer seemed feasible to him. He therefore resigned in 1871.

The New Zurich Times

In the heated time of the dispute with the Democrats over the reform of the Zurich constitution, Escher unexpectedly fell to the management of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . Initially, the "Political Community Association" planned to publish a new newspaper, which Escher opposed. The leading representatives of the liberals such as Federal Councilor Jakob Dubs, Deacon Heinrich Hirzel and Nordostbahn Director Georg Stoll then came up with the plan to buy the NZZ from Orell Füssli and convert it into a stock corporation . Escher was asked whether under these circumstances he would be prepared to take over the overall management of the NZZ and to see to it that it was revitalized after it had lost its importance due to the upswing of the Democrats. Escher agreed. On March 6, 1868, the corporation was constituted and the administrative committee ( board of directors ) was elected with Georg Stoll as president and Heinrich Hirzel, Georg Mousson, Ulrich Meister , Heinrich Landolt, Ernst Sulzberger and Conrad Bürkli as members. Escher quit his job as town clerk, whereupon he was immediately awarded the gold medal of merit for his excellent achievements.

Escher joined the NZZ on March 31, 1868 and took over the editor-in-chief on May 1, 1868. From the previous editors he took over the previous editor-in-chief Peter Felber, resetting to the position of domestic and features editor and August Härlin as court reporter, while he Daniel Fehr and Hermann Freiherr Marschall von Biberstein dismissed. Instead of Fehr, he hired the Schwyz advocate Vital Stutzer, but dismissed him after six months and replaced him with the senior teacher at the industrial school, Rudolf Honegger. Escher greatly expanded the foreign editorial team; He hired the editor of the Heidelberg journal Ferdinand Rauchfuss as head . He also wanted to expand the trade reports and the features section. Escher himself initially took care of the Constitutional Council's negotiations. He considered it a success that in the referendum of April 18, 1868, only 35,000 voters instead of 50,000 as a year ago voted for the draft constitution, and 22,000 against.

But Escher found that running the NZZ was far more difficult than he had imagined. Soon there were contradicting claims in the Liberal Party, in which the newspaper was too lukewarm for some, especially the young liberals, and too polemical for others and therefore competing local papers were founded. In addition, according to Escher, individual shareholders believed “the most conservative character” that investing in the newspaper entitles them to see their special wishes printed in the paper. In addition, the financial situation was nowhere near sufficient to implement the planned reforms. At least Escher managed to negotiate a more favorable contract with Orell Füssli, who is still responsible for printing and expeditions, and to increase advertising income considerably through a lease with the Haasenstein & Vogler advertising agency . In 1870 he was able to introduce twice a day edition and slightly increase the subscription price.

While relations with the administrative committee were very harmonious, there were internal difficulties with the editorial team, especially with Ferdinand Rauchfuss, who, in his opinion, did not like Escher's overly excessive reports on the Constitutional Council because they restricted the space available to him. The criticism of Rauchfuss', but also the fact that Escher had to withdraw his signature authority, which he had introduced without authorization, on the instructions of the administrative committee, which Rauchfuss perceived as a reset, soon led to great tensions until Escher finally dismissed him at the end of September 1870, where he accused him of “understanding the Swiss nature and conception of political events only halfway”. When Rauchfuss took advantage of Escher's absence due to the National Council mandate, after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in the newspaper, he spoke extremely derogatory about Napoleon III. to express what angered the Zurich friends of France, Escher released him at the end of July 1870 without notice. His successor was August Gredig from Graubünden . Rauchfuss defended himself in the daily newspaper , in the advertisement section of the Landbote and in his self-published text Dr. Eugen Escher as chief editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. A necessary defense in which he accused Escher of his "chancellery character" and mediocrity as well as the lack of collegiality and which he sent to all national and state councils, the Zurich cantonal councils and the editors of all well-known Swiss newspapers. Escher fiercely replicated the public polemics in the NZZ .

After all the difficulties, Escher found his decision to have swapped the secure post as town clerk for the management of the NZZ more and more questionable, and he now even doubted himself whether he would be up to the task. The Franco-Prussian War gave the newspaper new meaning for a short time, and Escher even considered acquiring its majority and bought shares until he was one of the newspaper's main shareholders. But he was now looking for something else to do. His last important journalistic achievement is his articles on the Tonhalle riot , in which he denied that a "hatred of Germany" had manifested itself. Shortly afterwards, Alfred Escher offered him to succeed him as director of the Swiss Northeast Railway (NOB), which he accepted with relief. After resigning as editor-in-chief, he also joined the NZZ administrative committee as a major shareholder in 1872 and also looked after a successor, whom he found in the person of Hans Weber , who had become known as the federal prosecutor in the “Tonhalle riot”. From 1873 until his retirement in 1877, he still chaired the administrative committee and, to their displeasure, often intervened directly in the editorial team.

Economic career

In 1872, instead of Alfred Escher, who had transferred to the Gotthard Railway Directorate, Escher became director of the legal service and financial administration of the Swiss Northeast Railway (NOB), before taking on the commercial services associated with frequent trips the following year instead of legal services. He had to cope with the NOB crisis from 1876 to 1878, which arose because of the introduction of a large number of new, unprofitable lines. To do this, the NOB had to raise outside capital, which led to massive debts. The financial difficulties brought the railway to the edge of the abyss. The blame for this was also placed on Eugen Escher, who was inexperienced in raising capital, and the management of the financial administration was transferred directly to the new President Heinrich Studer. The crisis led to Escher's resignation from the NZZ administrative committee in 1877 . Embittered by the informal acceptance of his resignation, in future he renounced even correspondence with the NZZ .

In 1889 Escher was elected president of the Nordostbahn, despite the discussions that had taken place 12 years earlier. However, new difficulties arose in 1894. The banker and "railway king" Adolf Guyer-Zeller , who had become rich through Gotthard and Nordostbahn shares , wanted to take over the Nordostbahn and accused the management of trying to make it easier for the federal government to acquire the Nordostbahn by artificially keeping dividends low on positions in the Federal Railway Administration, which is then to be expanded. In the general assembly, Escher was voted out of office as president and resigned, seriously offended.

He then tried his hand at working as an independent asset manager and as a representative of the shipping company Schenker & Co. in Vienna , which he knew from the NOB , both without success. His hope of being elected to the board of directors of Schweizerische Kreditanstalt was not fulfilled either.

It was only when he was elected to a commission set up by the Federal Council in 1985 to do the preparatory work for the buyback of the Swiss main railways that Escher returned to a satisfactory position, during which he wrote railway and other transport reports, including for foreign countries . The Federal Council also delegated him to the board of directors of various railway companies. Escher went from a former advocate of private railways to a staunch advocate of the nationalization of the Swiss railways. In the necrology in the NZZ it is described as a stroke of luck for the federal government "that at the right moment such outstanding forces were thrown into its hands by the opposing party". The repurchase was clearly supported by the electorate in the referendum vote of February 20, 1898 with 68% yes-votes and 15 of 22 stands . With this, Escher experienced one final satisfaction for Guyer-Zeller: At his suggestion, the Federal Council determined the lines to be bought by the NOB (494 km) and those to be continued by it (270 km).

Private

Escher had been married to Johanna, born Hanhart, since 1858, a daughter of the wealthy Dietiker industrialist Jean Hanhart-Solivo.

death

Shortly after his greatest victory in the February 20, 1898 vote on the nationalization of the railway, Escher fell seriously ill with attacks of sciatica and gout . The last two years of his life were marred by physical suffering until he died shortly after his 69th birthday.

Honors

  • 1868: Golden Medal of Merit of the City of Zurich for excellent achievements and merits

Publications

  • Contributions to the knowledge of the civil administration of justice in France. Orell Füssli , Zurich 1854.
  • Curriculum vitae in calm and turbulent times (1831–1898). Written down for relatives and friends. Printer of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1907 (also appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 21 episodes from August 7, 1907 to August 31, 1907, in each case Morgenblatt, p. 1).

literature

  • Ferdinand Rauchfuss: Dr. Eugen Escher as chief editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. A necessary defense. Self-published, Zurich 1870, printed by J. Schabelitz, Zurich.
  • Eugen Escher (1831–1900), Editor-in-Chief of the NZZ, Director of the NOB, National Council and Council of States. Echoes of «A life cycle in calm and turbulent times». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. August 19, 1908.
  • Cantons. Zurich. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. May 27, 1900, p. 2 (obituary).
  • Leo Weisz (historian) : The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals (= personality and newspaper. Vol. II). Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1961, pp. 319–395.
  • Hugo Hungerbühler: Ten presidents of the “NZZ” in a hundred years. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. April 6, 1968, p. 5 (special edition for the 100th anniversary).
  • 200 years of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. January 12, 1980 (anniversary edition).
  • Thomas Maissen : The history of the NZZ 1780–2005. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-03823-134-7 .
  • Thomas Maissen: editors-in-chief in the ejection seat. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 3rd February 2015.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 321 ff.
  2. a b c d e f g Hugo Hungerbühler: Ten presidents of the “NZZ” in a hundred years. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. April 6, 1968, p. 5 (special edition for the 100th anniversary).
  3. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 331 ff.
  4. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 333.
  5. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 337.
  6. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 340.
  7. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 363.
  8. Thomas Maissen : editors-in-chief on the ejection seat. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 3rd February 2015.
  9. Christine Nöthiger-Strahm: Hirzel, Heinrich. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  10. ^ Christian Baertschi: Stoll, Georg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  11. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 345.
  12. Maissen: The history of the NZZ 1780–2005. 2005, p. 47.
  13. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 358.
  14. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 348 ff.
  15. ↑ A stable basis for a liberal paper. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. December 30, 2004.
  16. Maissen: The history of the NZZ 1780–2005. 2005, p. 48.
  17. Maissen: The history of the NZZ 1780–2005. 2005, p. 49.
  18. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 366 ff.
  19. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 392.
  20. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 393 f.
  21. ↑ Also meant are Plazid Weissenbach , who had to resign as president of the Centralbahn because he spoke out in favor of nationalizing the railways, and Eduard Russenberger , former vice-president of the Nordostbahn.
  22. Cantons. Zurich. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. May 27, 1900, p. 2 (obituary).
  23. Template No. 53. Overview. Federal law on the acquisition and operation of railways for the account of the federal government and the organization of the administration of the Swiss federal railways. In: Federal Administration website.
  24. ^ Weisz: The Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the struggle of the liberals with the radicals. 1961, p. 395.
  25. Ueli Müller: Hanhart, Jean. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .