Hermann Seiler

Hermann Seiler (born April 28, 1876 in Brig ; † August 16, 1961 in Brig) was a Swiss politician and businessman .

Portrait of Dr. Hermann Seiler (1876–1961)

School and university education

Alexander Seiler's son attended the Stella Matutina private high school in Feldkirch for eight years and passed the Austrian state high school diploma in 1895 with the distinction 'with distinction'. He then studied law in Paris , Berlin and Bern and did his doctorate with Eugen Huber in Bern. In Brig he passed the notary and bar exam.

Politician

From 1904 Seiler was mayor of Brig, 1905 to 1910 and again from 1921 to 1929 Grand Council. In 1910 the canton parliament elected him almost unanimously to the cantonal government , in which he was responsible for the finance department for the entire decade of the World War. For two terms of office he acted as district president. From 1920 to 1925 he represented the Upper Valais in the National Council .

Social politician

As city president of Brig, Hermann Seiler called for the establishment of the district hospital in the spring of 1907, of which he remained chairman of the board of directors for 53 years at the request of the general assembly. Together with his brother Alexander the Younger and cantonal judge Alexis Graven, he acquired the Werra castle estate in Susten in 1912 in order to build the retirement and nursing home, later named St. Joseph.

Association politician

From 1925 Hermann Seiler worked as vice-president and from 1928 to 1945 as central president of the Swiss hotel association . In 1929 in Rome around 300 delegates of the Alliance Internationale de l'hôtellerie unanimously elected him for a three-year term of office, and subsequently one of their honorary presidents for life. From 1932 and 1933 he took over the office of Vice President of the Swiss Tourism Association and the Swiss Tourist Office .

Hotel entrepreneur and tourism pioneer

Hermann and his two older brothers Alexander and Joseph were partners in the general partnership 'Alexandre Seiler et Frères' in Zermatt , which was perhaps the largest hotel company in Switzerland in the Belle Epoque with up to 1,400 guest beds , which was converted into Hotels Seiler AG in 1908. After Alexander Seiler the Younger passed away, from the spring of 1920 to the end of 1943, Hermann Seiler was one of the main shareholders and general manager at the head of the hotel company, which he restructured in the post-war years.

In 1927/28 he launched the Zermatt sport winter in collaboration with leading Zermatt winter sports enthusiasts such as Otto Furrer , inviting 180 regular English summer guests to the Seiler Hotel Victoria and having them ride in 50 sledges from St. Niklaus (to where a special train took them) to Zermatt. Due to the success of this trial winter sports season, those responsible for the railway decided to initiate the work necessary for continuous traffic to Zermatt. In the following winter, Hermann Seiler successfully carried out the first regular sports winter and subsequently established the winter season until 1939.

In the mid-1920s, Hermann Seiler took over the hotel company at the foot of the Rhone Glacier in Gletsch , the original function of a transit station for horse-drawn carriage over the Furka and Grimsel passes , as sole owner.

Sports pioneer

In 1902, as president of the Monte Rosa section of the Swiss Alpine Club , Seiler organized the first ski course in Switzerland in and near Zermatt. In September 1903, captain Eduard Spelterini and Hermann Seiler, together with a third person, managed to traverse the high Alps for the first time in a balloon from Zermatt.

Judgments of the press about the work

According to the Neuer Zürcher Zeitung of August 21, 1961 (No. 3055, p. 9), Hermann Seiler led the Valais finance department “with distinction” through the decade of the World War as a government man . In its edition of June 10, 1945 (No. 909, p. 10), the same newspaper ruled that the former statesman held office as central president of the Swiss Hotel Association “with all the prudence, energy and superiority” during the crisis and the Second World War unusually qualified personality for such a post ”. According to the wording of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 24, 1961 (no. 3085, sheet 5), he contributed “significantly to the restructuring of the entire hospitality industry”. On the occasion of Seiler's resignation as central president, the organ of the Swiss hotelier association, the Swiss Hotel Review (of June 14, 1945, No. 24, p. 1 ff.) Wrote: “[T] he greatest and most lasting achievement to which Dr . H. Seiler can look back on the integration of Switzerland. Hotel industry in the national economy. He got our hotel business to be recognized and valued by the federal authorities as part of the economic life of our country. ”From a British point of view - that of the main clientele of the early winter sport - the London Times of August 18, 1961 (No. 55,163, p 12) summarizing the development of Zermatt into a winter sports area in her obituary for Hermann Seiler: "[H] is an example and enterprise did much to make Zermatt the ski center it is now."

literature

Vita Dr. Hermann Seiler, in: Present and Future Problems of Swiss Tourism. Festgabe for Hermann Seiler , ed. from the Swiss Tourist Association, Zurich 1946, p. 167 ff .; also in: Swiss Heads of the Present , Vol. I, Zurich 1945, p. 221 ff.
Obituary Dr. Hermann Seiler, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 21, 1961, No. 3055, Sheet 9 and August 24, 1961, No. 3085, Sheet 5.
Mark Andreas Seiler: One glacier - one hotel - one family. Horizons of a Valais hotelier dynasty , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2012, ISBN 978-3-905756-67-8 .
Joseph Jung: The Laboratory of Progress. Switzerland in the 19th Century , NZZ Libro, Basel 2019, ISBN 978-3-03810-435-3 , p. 524; 526 f.

Web links

seiler.ch - Website of the Seiler family of hoteliers
Bernard Truffer: Seiler, Hermann. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

^ Bernhard Holes: The Austrian Feldkirch and its Jesuit colleges, St. Nikolaus' and 'Stella Matutina'. Mainz Studies in Modern History, Vol. 22 , Frankfurt a. Main 2008, p. 446.
↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 26, 1910, No. 56, p. 2.
↑ Stadtgemeinde Brig (ed.): 800 years of Brig , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2015, p. 162.
↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung of May 30, 1929, No. 1036, sheet 1.
↑ Zermatt: Village and health resort in the mirror of a family. 125 years of Seiler Hotels ed. from Seiler Hotels Zermatt, Visp 1982, p. 51 ff.
↑ The Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote in its edition of December 28, 1928 (No. 2438, page 5) with reference to the successful initiation of the Zermatt sport winter by Hermann Seiler: “The great work, which was the 'groundbreaking' in the history of our hotel industry. Papa '[Alexander] Seiler [the elder] once started by founding the Zermatt summer health resort, has recently been crowned by a new, logical act of his descendants. ”The Walliser Bote, the most important German-language newspaper of the Kantons, in the edition of September 6, 1955, p. 1, with reference to the first half of the century in memory: “Dr. We owe Hermann Seiler's initiative at that time to the introduction of winter sports in Zermatt, which today brings in more earnings than the summer season. The Seiler Hotels and the whole Vispertal can be grateful to him for this. ”Cf. in particular the London Times of January 18, 1929, No. 45,104, p. 15 and February 16, 1929, No. 45,129, p. 15.
↑ In detail on the early Zermatt winter season with numerous text and images Mark Andreas Seiler: One glacier - one hotel - one family. Horizons of a Valais hotelier dynasty , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2012, ISBN 978-3-905756-67-8 , p. 273 ff.
↑ Extensive with numerous illustrations Mark Andreas Seiler: A glacier - a hotel - a family. Horizons of a Valais hotelier dynasty , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2012, ISBN 978-3-905756-67-8 .
↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 8, 1952, No. 282 (6), sheet 5.
^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung of September 22, 1903, No. 263, p. 2; Landscape photos of this balloon ride in: Eduard Spelterini. Photographs of the balloon pioneer , ed. by Thomas Kramer and Hilar Stadler, Zurich 2007, pp. 46 and 50.

personal data
SURNAME	Seiler, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss politician and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH	April 28, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brig
DATE OF DEATH	August 16, 1961
Place of death	Brig

[1] Bernhard Holes: The Austrian Feldkirch and its Jesuit colleges, St. Nikolaus' and 'Stella Matutina'. Mainz Studies in Modern History, Vol. 22 , Frankfurt a. Main 2008, p. 446.

[2] Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 26, 1910, No. 56, p. 2.

[3] Stadtgemeinde Brig (ed.): 800 years of Brig , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2015, p. 162.

[4] Neue Zürcher Zeitung of May 30, 1929, No. 1036, sheet 1.

[5] Zermatt: Village and health resort in the mirror of a family. 125 years of Seiler Hotels ed. from Seiler Hotels Zermatt, Visp 1982, p. 51 ff.

[6] The Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote in its edition of December 28, 1928 (No. 2438, page 5) with reference to the successful initiation of the Zermatt sport winter by Hermann Seiler: “The great work, which was the 'groundbreaking' in the history of our hotel industry. Papa '[Alexander] Seiler [the elder] once started by founding the Zermatt summer health resort, has recently been crowned by a new, logical act of his descendants. ”The Walliser Bote, the most important German-language newspaper of the Kantons, in the edition of September 6, 1955, p. 1, with reference to the first half of the century in memory: “Dr. We owe Hermann Seiler's initiative at that time to the introduction of winter sports in Zermatt, which today brings in more earnings than the summer season. The Seiler Hotels and the whole Vispertal can be grateful to him for this. ”Cf. in particular the London Times of January 18, 1929, No. 45,104, p. 15 and February 16, 1929, No. 45,129, p. 15.

[7] In detail on the early Zermatt winter season with numerous text and images Mark Andreas Seiler: One glacier - one hotel - one family. Horizons of a Valais hotelier dynasty , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2012, ISBN 978-3-905756-67-8 , p. 273 ff.

[8] Extensive with numerous illustrations Mark Andreas Seiler: A glacier - a hotel - a family. Horizons of a Valais hotelier dynasty , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2012, ISBN 978-3-905756-67-8 .

[9] Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 8, 1952, No. 282 (6), sheet 5.

[10] Neue Zürcher Zeitung of September 22, 1903, No. 263, p. 2; Landscape photos of this balloon ride in: Eduard Spelterini. Photographs of the balloon pioneer , ed. by Thomas Kramer and Hilar Stadler, Zurich 2007, pp. 46 and 50.