Gustav Adolf Bohny

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The Center Henri-Dunant in Geneva (former Hotel Carlton-Parc, today the seat of the ICRC) accommodated over 30,000 war-damaged children, mainly from France, from 1942 to 1945.

Gustav Adolf Bohny (born October 23, 1898 in Basel ; † April 25, 1977 there ) was a Swiss lawyer and President of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK).

Life

Gustav Adolf Bohny (1898–1977), lawyer, notary, President of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK). Grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery, Basel
Grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery , Basel
Gustav Adolf Bohny (1898–1977), lawyer, notary, President of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK). Grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery, Basel
Grave slab in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery , Basel

Born in Basel, he grew up in the city of Basel as the son of the Red Cross chief doctor and SRK President Karl Bohny and Henriette Marie Johanna Thekla Pertsch from Frankfurt am Main . Around 1917 he attended the Basel grammar school on Münsterplatz . He studied at the law faculty of the University of Basel and received his doctorate there in 1922 with a dissertation on the legal position of the Red Cross organizations .

He worked as a lawyer, notary and substitute judge at the civil court, was a member of the board from 1932 and, from 1946 to 1954, as successor to Johannes von Muralt, President of the Swiss Red Cross. This time was one of the most difficult tests for the Red Cross, it showed the difficulties and limits of humanitarian engagement in an all-out war under a totalitarian ideology.

From 1942 he was a delegate of the SRK in the highest body, the working committee, the children's aid of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK, Kh). During his tenure as SRK President in 1946, Germany was included in children's aid, in which he campaigned intensively for aid for German refugees. During and after the Second World War, SRK Children's Aid enabled more than 180,000 war-damaged children from a dozen European countries to spend several months relaxing in Switzerland. Millions of malnourished children across Europe were given a daily meal and their families were provided with thousands of tons of medicines, clothing and parcels. The Center Henri-Dunant alone , today's headquarters of the ICRC , housed over 30,000 children from 1942 to 1945. The largest aid campaign in Swiss history to date had a volume of around one billion Swiss francs (today's value: 2014) and was financially supported by the Swiss donation .

He married Louise Passavant in 1934 and they had three children.

Publications

  • About the legal position of the Red Cross organizations . Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1922
  • Colonel Carl Bohny, Red Cross chief physician in World War I 1856-1928 . Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1932
  • et al .: 700 years of the Bürgerspital - 1265-1965: Basel, in September 1965 . Publishing house Kirschgarten-Druckerei, Basel 1965

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Haunfelder: Need and Hope. German children and Switzerland 1946–1956. With a short biography of Gustav Adolf Bohny. Aschendorff, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-402-12776-6
personal data
SURNAME Bohny, Gustav Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer and President of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK)
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1977
Place of death Basel