Heinrich Wolfer (industrialist)

Leo Heinrich Wolfer (born July 19, 1882 in Thalwil ; † November 26, 1969 in Winterthur ) was a Swiss industrialist , art collector and patron .

Life

Wolfer was born the son of a manufacturer and his wife Julie. In 1908 he married a daughter of the factory owner Jakob Sulzer . From 1901 to 1905 he studied law in Zurich and Leipzig and was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD.

From 1906 to 1910 he worked as a trainee and then as a clerk at the District Court of Winterthur . In 1910 he joined the Sulzer brothers company in Winterthur. In 1914 he became a member of the management and was in charge of the general secretariat. From 1917 he was chairman of the executive delegation and from 1935 to 1959 he was vice-chairman and delegate of the board of Sulzer AG . During this time he rejected armaments contracts from the Third Reich . In 1963 he retired.

From 1920 to 1922 he was a liberal member of the Zurich Cantonal Council . From 1939 to 1946 he was President of the Association of Swiss Machine Manufacturers , from 1941 to 1957 a member of the board of directors of the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt and from 1942 to 1947 a member of the Chambre suisse du Commerce. He was also a colonel and from 1919 to 1925 in command of the 37th Mountain Infantry Regiment.

In 1949 he began to build up an art collection with a focus on 19th century French painting ("key works of impressionism and classical modernism"). This later came to the Kunstmuseum Winterthur as a bequest .

Web links

• Urs Widmer : Wolfer, Heinrich. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 20, 2013 , accessed February 25, 2018 .
• Wolfer, Heinrich in the online database Dodis .
• Wolfer-Sulzer Heinrich, industrialist, 1882–1969 in the Winterthur glossary. .