Hans Keller (diplomat)

Hans Keller (born August 19, 1908 in Zurich ; † December 14, 1999 in Bern , reformed , legal domicile in Hagenbuch ) was a Swiss diplomat .

Life

Hans Keller was born on August 19, 1908 in Zurich as the son of secondary school teacher Johann Kaspar Keller and Marie Elise, born Birch. Keller devoted himself to studying law at the Universities of Zurich and Lausanne before completing his doctorate in political science in 1932 .

Professionally he was first from 1930 to 1934 as secretary of the Swiss Center for Trade Promotion ( OSEC ) in Lausanne , then until 1940 in the same position in the Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Vienna . Subsequently, he helped Jewish businessmen as a delegate of the OSEC until 1943, then until 1945 as Vice Consul in Bratislava .

After the Second World War , he served in diplomacy in Prague , Moscow , Ankara , Bern and Colombo . Between 1960 and 1961 he was in charge of the newly created service for technical cooperation . From 1961 he worked as a delegate of the Federal Council for technical cooperation. Most recently he was the Swiss ambassador in Beijing from 1963 to 1966 and in Belgrade from 1967 to 1974.

In 1935 Hans Keller married Margrith, the daughter of the vice director of Vita Life Insurance Company AG Ernst Spühler. He died on December 14, 1999, four months after turning 91 in Bern.

Archives

• Hans Keller's estate is kept in the Archives for Contemporary History in Zurich.

• Information on Hans Keller can be found in documents in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) .

literature

• Un seul monde: le magazine de la DDC sur le développement et la coopération, 2000, No. 2, p. 24.

Web links

• Marc Perrenoud: Keller, Hans. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Hans Keller in the database Dodis the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland

predecessor	Office	successor
René Naville	Swiss ambassador in Beijing 1963–1966	Oscar Rossetti
Guido Lepori	Swiss ambassador to Belgrade 1967–1974	Hansjörg Hess