Friedrich Traugott elections

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Friedrich Traugott elections
Memorial plaque for the cultivation battle

Friedrich Traugott Wahlen (born April 10, 1899 in Gmeis (today in Mirchel ), † November 7, 1985 in Bern , von Trimstein and Bern), was a Swiss professor of agriculture at the ETH Zurich , politician ( BGB ) and federal councilor .

As early as the 1930s, he was planning Switzerland's self-sufficiency with basic foodstuffs . During the Second World War , the "cultivation battle" (also called " Plan Elections " after him ) was led by him with great personal commitment. Even the green spaces in cities were used to plant potatoes , sugar beets and grain , so that the degree of self-sufficiency could be increased from 52% (1939) to 72% (1945).

Career

After studying agronomy at the ETH Zurich, which he completed with a dissertation on legumes , he moved abroad. After Germany, Holland and England he lived in Canada from 1923 . There he married Helene Rosalie Hopf from Thun . After five years he returned to Zurich. He now tried vigorously to encourage the cultivation of grain, which in his opinion was neglected compared to cattle breeding. He was editor of the Landwirtschaftsblatt «Grüner» from 1936 to 1941 and organized a corresponding pavilion at Landi 1939. With his lecture on November 15, 1940, shortly after Switzerland was encircled by the Axis powers , he started his long-prepared and on one large cadastre-building cultivation plan. The speech was interpreted as an agricultural Rütli report and elections for the father of the cultivation battle.

However, he did not really get into politics until 1942, when he was elected to the Council of States for the Farmers, Trade and Citizens' Party . From 1943 to 1949 he was professor of crop production at the ETH Zurich. In 1949 he was appointed director of the Department of Agriculture at the FAO . He spent another ten years abroad in this position, first in Washington and then in Rome . From 1958 to 1959 he was Deputy Director General of the FAO.

Federal Council

Elections was elected to the Federal Council on December 11, 1958 as a representative of the canton of Bern , mainly through the votes of the Social Democrats and its own right-wing conservative party. His fiercest opponent in the election was Rudolf Gnägi , who would later become his successor.

Elections resigned on December 31, 1965. During his tenure he headed the following departments:

The later popularity of elections was based less on his work in the Federal Council than more on his activities before and after this period. Nevertheless, some key decisions were made during his term of office, although his influence on them cannot be assessed directly. On the international stage, elections campaigned for full membership of the Council of Europe , which was realized in 1963. He was also interested in Switzerland's mediating role in the UN (of which it was not yet a member at the time). In 1962, his department was responsible for resolving the conflict between France and its former colony, Algeria (→ History of Algeria ). Furthermore, Wahlen achieved the approval of significant loans for development aid, first for the war-torn neighboring countries, then also for the Third World .

By campaigning for Switzerland to join the Moscow Agreement on the Renunciation of Nuclear Weapons in 1963, he ensured that Switzerland had access to the peaceful use of nuclear technology. During and after the war, various efforts were made in Switzerland to build an atomic bomb (→ atomic power ).

At the end of his term of office, the Protestant elections took a clear stand against the confessional exception articles anchored in the constitution, which originated from the time of the Sonderbund War and which restricted religious freedom, especially for Catholics, and strained relations with foreign countries.

Wahlen was Federal President in 1961 and Vice-President in 1960. His estate is kept in the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern and in the Archives for Contemporary History at the ETH in Zurich.

After the resignation

After his resignation in late 1965, Wahlen continued to be involved in politics and took an active part in several voting campaigns, including for the introduction of women's suffrage . He turned down offers to switch to the private sector. He represented the Federal Council abroad several times. Elections worked in the so-called with "Council of the four ways" of an amicable solution of the Jura question should be found.

Honors

Fonts

literature

  • Urs Altermatt (Ed.): The Swiss Federal Councilors. A biographical lexicon . Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Munich 1991, ISBN 3-7608-0702-X
  • Friedrich Wahlen , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 51/1985 of December 9, 1985, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Traugott Wahlen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Opinion of the Swiss Federal Council on the Schibli motion "Promotion of domestic food production" of February 28, 2007
  2. ↑ FAO: its origins, formation and evolution 1945–1981 [1]
predecessor Office successor
Markus Feldmann Member of the Swiss Federal Council
1959–1965 		Rudolf Gnägi
personal data
SURNAME Elections, Friedrich Traugott
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss agriculturist, professor of agriculture at the ETH Zurich and politician (SVP)
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Mirchel
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 1985
Place of death Bern