Henry Vallotton

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Henry François Jules Vallotton-Warnery (born January 4, 1891 in Lausanne , † January 31, 1971 in Saint-Sulpice VD ; spelling of the first name also Henri ) was a Swiss politician , diplomat and writer .

Life

Henry Vallotton came from a wealthy Lausanne city family. His father was the master printer Henri Vallotton, his mother's name was Louise Vallotton, née Zellweger. After attending school in his hometown, he studied there and in Munich Law and received his doctorate at the University of Lausanne for Doctor of Law . His first marriage was Blanche Warnery in 1915 and in the same year he established himself as a lawyer in Lausanne, which he was to remain until 1943. He formed an office community with his school and college friend and later political companion Marcel Pilet-Golaz .

Vallotton was elected to the Lausanne municipal council in 1917 . He belonged to the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and was soon added to the right wing of the party. In 1918 his son Etienne Vallotton was born, who would embark on a career as a diplomat. Henry Vallotton represented the FDP in the Vaudois Grand Council from 1921 to 1933 , of which he was President in 1927. Within the party he was able to get his friend Pilet-Golaz through as general secretary. Vallotton cultivated the lifestyle of a dandy and was particularly enthusiastic about automobile sport. Together with the Swiss industrialist William Borle , he took part in the Tranin-Duverne mission of the French Edmond Tranin and Gustave Duverne for about half of the way in 1924 . The mission achieved the first automobile crossing of Africa from the Atlantic to the Red Sea . Another automobile expedition took Vallotton from Paris to Cairo . Later he founded a Vaudois association of motorists and cyclists, became vice-president of the Swiss Alpine Club and took over the chairmanship of the Vaudois section of the Touring Club Switzerland . He began his career as a book author with travel descriptions from Africa, which he would continue a good twenty years later with several biographies of well-known historical personalities. He was also active in the Swiss economy and was a member of the boards of directors of Adolph Saurer AG and Sulzer AG .

Henry Vallotton was a member of the National Council from 1925 to 1943 . In 1931 he was the second wife of Yvonne von Freudenreich, a daughter of the bacteriologist Eduard von Freudenreich . In 1932, Vallotton founded the right-wing Association patriotique vaudoise , an association that was supposed to help the State Council of Vaud to maintain order if the worst came to the worst. Vallotton was even more active in Switzerland's foreign policy . He was a member of the Swiss delegation to the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1932. From 1935 parliamentary group president in the National Council, from 1936 to 1940 he headed the newly established foreign policy commission. From December 1938 to December 1939 he was President of the National Council . As such, after the annexation of Austria , he supported the proclamation of the Federal Council and the parliamentary groups regarding the neutrality of Switzerland. The Vallotton café in the Bundeshaus in Bern is named after him. He had it set up as a non-alcoholic café in the former newspaper room of the parliament building.

Henry Vallotton held the military rank of colonel . In January 1940 he visited the front in the winter war between Finland and the Soviet Union . He then criticized the Federal Council's policy of neutrality . In the same year he published a political paper entitled The Switzerland of Tomorrow . In it he pleaded for a strengthening of the state authority in Switzerland while avoiding a dictatorship . He proposed the (re-) introduction of a Landammann of Switzerland , who should be elected every three or four years, as well as a reorganization of the Federal Assembly according to corporatist standards. This political program hardly differed from that of the right-wing extremist Ligue vaudoise of Marcel Regamey . Nevertheless, Vallotton thwarted any form of cooperation between the FDP and the Ligue vaudoise.

In 1943 he embarked on a new career as a diplomat. His companion Marcel Pilet-Golaz had taken over the management of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and appointed him Swiss envoy to Brazil with his official seat in Rio de Janeiro . Vallotton was in charge of the embassy there until 1945. From 1946 to 1951 he represented Switzerland as envoy in Stockholm , Sweden .

As a writer on historical subjects, he gained increasing recognition. The Académie française honored him in 1947, 1950 and 1966 with the Prix ​​de la langue française for achievements abroad for the French language and awarded him in 1959 for his book Peter the Great. Russia's rise to great power the Prix ​​Eugène Carrière . In his extensive work Bismarck et Hitler , published in 1954, his preference for political authority, which he saw in Otto von Bismarck , was reflected in favor of a dictatorship embodied in Adolf Hitler .

Until his retirement in 1956, Vallotton was still the Swiss envoy in Belgium and Luxembourg from 1952 with his official seat in Brussels . At an advanced age, the Federal Council repeatedly entrusted him with individual diplomatic missions, particularly in Africa.

Works

  • Le Divorce et la séparation de corps en droit international privé, étude de la convention de La Haye du 12 juin 1902 . Dissertation. Tarin, Lausanne 1914.
  • L'Auto dans la brousse. Notes d'un voyage en Afrique occidentale . Fischbacher, Paris 1925.
  • Sur une six roues. De Paris au Caire par Constantinople et Baghdad . With a foreword by Maxime Weygand . Berger-Levrault, Paris 1927.
  • Faut-il «fermer» le Conseil National? (=  Writings of the Free Democratic Party of Switzerland . No. 32 ). Lausanne 1936.
  • Switzerland's foreign and neutrality policy . Unit in German translation (=  writings of the Free Democratic Party of Switzerland . No. 36 ). Bern 1938.
  • Confédérés et Romands = German and French-speaking Swiss . Bischofberger, Chur 1938 (translated by Charles Keller).
  • Contribution to the revision of the National Council's rules of procedure. Notes made during a study trip to the French and English parliaments, February – March 1939 . Stämpfli, Bern 1939 (original title: Contribution à la révision du règlement du Conseil National suisse. Notes sur un voyage d'étude aux Parlements français et anglais, février – mars 1939. Bern 1939.).
  • Finland 1940. What I saw and heard . Verkehrsverlag, Zurich 1940 (original title: Finlande 1940. Ce que j'ai vu et entendu . Lausanne 1940. Translated by Hans Grossrieder and Eugen Theodor Rimli ).
  • The Switzerland of tomorrow . Verkehrsverlag, Zurich 1940 (original title: La Suisse de demain . Lausanne 1940. Translated by Eugen Theodor Rimli).
  • Wonderful Africa . Rentsch, Erlenbach-Zürich 1941 (original title: Afrique! Lausanne 1941. Translated by Hans Dühring).
  • Madeleine Blanchard. Nouvelles . Payot, Lausanne 1942.
  • Alphonse XIII . Payot, Lausanne 1943.
  • Brésil, terre d'amour et de beauté . 4th edition. Payot, Lausanne 1952 (first edition: 1945).
  • Elisabeth, the tragic empress . Hueber, Munich 1950 (original title: Élisabeth, l'impératrice tragique . Paris 1947. Translated by Otto von Taube ).
  • People and animals in Africa . In two volumes. With illustrations by Alfred de Nottbeck. Artemis, Zurich 1948 (original title: Hommes et bêtes d'Afrique . Lausanne 1948. Translated by NO Scarpi ).
  • Ivan le Terrible . Marabout, Paris 1984, ISBN 2-501-00489-2 (first edition: Fayard, Paris 1950).
  • Sept souverains de Suède . Payot, Lausanne 1950.
  • Le gaucho errant. Conte de la République argentine . With illustrations by Tito Saubidet and Marcel Vidoudez. Payot, Lausanne 1951.
  • Marie-Antoinette et Fersen . La Palatine, Paris / Geneva 1952.
  • Bismarck et Hitler . L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne 2002, ISBN 2-8251-1732-3 (first edition: La Table ronde, Paris 1954).
  • Catherine II . Fayard, Paris 1955.
  • Voyage au Congo et au Ruanda Urundi: carnet de route . Weissenbruch, Brussels 1955.
  • Alain-Fournier or La pureté retrouvée . Nouvelles Editions Debresse, Paris 1957.
  • Elisabeth d'Autriche. L'Impératrice assassinée . Fayard, Paris 1957.
  • Peter the Great. Russia's rise to great power . 2nd, revised edition. Callwey, Munich 1978, ISBN 978-3-7667-0430-6 (Original title: Pierre le Grand . Paris 1958. Translated by Eleonore Seitz and Hermann Rinn).
  • Bismarck. L'homme de fer . Gérard, Brussels 1985, ISBN 2-501-00643-7 (first edition: Fayard, Paris 1961).
  • Maria Theresa. The woman who ruled an empire . Ullstein, Frankfurt 1991, ISBN 3-548-11649-3 (Original title: Marie-Thérèse, impératrice . Paris 1963. Translated by Ulla Leippe).
  • Metternich. Napoleon's great adversary . Unabridged edition. Ullstein, Frankfurt 1987, ISBN 3-548-27553-2 (Original title: Metternich . Paris 1965. Translated by Ulla Leippe).
  • Alexander the First. A tsar against Napoleon . Wegner, Hamburg 1967 (Original title: Le Tsar Alexandre Ier . Paris 1966. Translated by Ulla Leippe).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Olivier Meuwly: Henry Vallotton (1891–1971). Cercle démocratique Lausanne, July 15, 2012, accessed on January 12, 2019 (French).
  2. ↑ a b c d e Marc Perrenoud: Vallotton, Henry. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . February 21, 2013 , accessed January 12, 2019 .
  3. ^ A b c d e f Vallotton, Henry in the Dodis database of diplomatic documents in Switzerland . Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  4. ↑ Gustave Duverne: De l'Atlantique à l'Océan indien (Konakry – Djibouti) avec la mission Tranin-Duverne, November 1st 1924- April 9th ​​1925 . With a foreword by Antonin Brocard and woodcuts by Marcel Arthaud. Gianoli et Valentin, Paris 1926, p. 2–3 and 28 .
  5. ^ Federal Council (Switzerland) : Proclamation of the Federal Council and the parliamentary groups regarding neutrality. Swiss National Sound Archives , March 21, 1938, accessed on October 26, 2019 .
  6. ^ Proclamation of the Federal Council and the parliamentary groups regarding neutrality. In: Stenographic Bulletin of the Federal Assembly. National Council (Switzerland), March 21, 1938, accessed October 26, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Saturday, December 10, 1938: Café Vallotton. The Swiss Parliament, accessed on January 12, 2019 .
  8. ^ Prix ​​de la langue française. Académie française, accessed on January 12, 2019 (French).
  9. ^ Prix ​​Eugène Carrière. Académie française, accessed on January 12, 2019 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Vallotton, Henry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vallotton-Warnery, Henry François Jules (full name); Vallotton, Henri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss politician, diplomat and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Lausanne
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 1971
Place of death Saint-Sulpice VD