Florian Vetsch (Councilor)

Florian Vetsch, 1921-1972

Florian Vetsch (born September 11, 1921 in Grabs ; † March 8, 1972 in Vilters-Wangs SG , resident in Grabs) was a Swiss national councilor and member of the canton of St. Gallen .

education and profession

Florian Vetsch grew up as the fifth of seven children of the later district mayor Jakob Vetsch (* May 15, 1886, † April 5, 1944) and Katharina, b. Lippuner (* July 20, 1890; † February 25, 1972) in his parents' house in the Grabser Kirchbünt.

After attending primary and secondary school there, he completed his commercial apprenticeship from 1937 to 1940, including attending the commercial vocational school in Buchs. For the next five years he worked as a commercial clerk in the private sector until he entered the public service: 1945/46 as a clerk at the municipal administration in Grabs, 1946/47 as an employee of the cantonal tax administration in St. Gallen and 1947-1954 as a tax secretary the city of Rorschach on Lake Constance .

Based on his position, the population of the former Werdenberg district elected him in 1954 as district administrator in Buchs SG . He carried out this task until he joined the cantonal government at the beginning of 1970, when he was head of the Justice and Police Department . There he initiated numerous reforms in legislation , the penal system and the organization of the administration . During his term of office, the temporary moral rehabilitation of the police commander and escape helper Paul Grüninger , who was released in 1939 and only fully rehabilitated posthumously in 1993, by the St. Gallen cantonal government on December 22, 1970.

Public engagement

In parallel to his professional career, Florian Vetsch developed his commitment to the public as a staunch social democrat . 1953–54 he was a member of the Rorschach District School Council, since 1954 of the Cantonal Council and from 1963 of the National Council . He held both mandates until his election to the St. Gallen government at the end of 1969.

Among other things, Florian Vetsch belonged to the supervisory commission of the Sargans canton school and was involved in the initiative committee for the creation of the new Buchs technical center, today's Interstate University of Technology NTB Buchs . With these two training centers, a bridge between the culturally different districts of Werdenberg and Sargans was sought.

In the run-up to the Swiss criminal law revision of 1971, at the morning session of the National Council on March 12, 1969, the politician applied for the deletion of Article 52, according to which offenders were employed for years in the civil honor capacity, a remnant of the "mort civile" who connected had often had an adverse effect on rehabilitation with other provisions .

Family and free time

On August 30, 1947 he married Anny Engler (* June 25, 1922 - September 13, 1986) from Sevelen SG . Especially during the holidays , the three children Heidy, Jakob and Florian hiked in the recreation area of Flims-Fidaz and went skiing in Wildhaus and on the Pizol near Wangs . On weekends and after parliamentary debates , the magistrate liked to relax by playing Jass , which he also played with his political opponents .

As a young man, Vetsch had once acquired the Swiss ski instructor certification in Arosa . In the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s, he won several ski races from the British-Swiss and the Zurich-St.Gallen parliamentarians . The former were held in Davos , the latter in the Pizol area. Following a race on the occasion of the St. Gallen Police Skiing Day on March 8, 1972, he suffered an early cardiac death on his favorite mountain , the Wangser Pizol .

His motto in life was the often uttered sentence “Work as long as it is day!” Which is taken from Jesus' words from John 9: 4: “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day . The night comes when no one can work. "

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Signature from 1946

• A milestone in the history of criminal law was set by Florian Vetsch (1921-1972) and the Swiss revision of criminal law from 1971 . Article by Vreni Hubmann in Werdenberger and Obertoggenburger, No. 160, 18./19. August 1989, p. 7.
• Verena Hubmann, L'image de la mort. About the mort civile and its abolition in French law and its replicas in the cantons of Vaud and Valais . Zurich dissertation, published in 1990 in the series Zurich Studies on Legal History, No. 17, pp. 452–454.
• Dr. Anton Häfliger, Government Councilor Florian Vetsch , in: Unser Rheintal, year book 1973, p. 105/6.
• Wulff Bickenbach, Justice for Paul Grüninger. Conviction and rehabilitation of a Swiss escape worker . Cologne 2009, pp. 218, 219, 224, 277.
• British-Swiss Ski Week, 50th 1956-2006, Parliamentary Ski Group of the Swiss Federal Assembly, Zug 2006, pp. 92–93.

Web links

Commons : Florian Vetsch, Government Council  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Wolfgang Göldi: Florian Vetsch. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .