Karl Karrer

Karl Karrer (born March 22, 1815 in Bümpliz , † April 18, 1886 in Sumiswald ) was a Swiss politician . For almost four decades, from 1848 until his death, he was a member of the National Council (in 1861/62 as President of the National Council ).

biography

The son of a tailor who immigrated from the margraviate of Baden studied law at the University of Bern from 1834 to 1839 . In 1841 the member of Zofingia was admitted to the bar and then worked as secretary of the building department of the canton of Bern . The radically liberal cantonal government appointed Karrer as governor of the Trachselwald district in 1846 . When the Conservatives temporarily came to power four years later, they did not confirm him in office despite his moderately liberal stance. He then opened a law firm in Sumiswald, which he ran for over three and a half decades.

Also in 1850 Karrer was elected to the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern, of which he belonged until his death. In 1855, 1861 and 1862 the Grand Council elected him to the government council , but all three times he rejected the election. For many years he was a member of the Bern State Economic Commission. As a member of the board of directors of Berner Kantonalbank , he was particularly committed to expanding the railway network. Together with Gottlieb Berger , he was one of the "magnates of the Emmental ". Another concern was the correction of the Emme .

In October 1848, Karrer ran for the first elections to the National Council in the Emmental constituency . There the elections turned out to be particularly complicated due to the fact that several candidates were twice elected and waived. He himself got on in the third ballot and was elected in the sixth ballot. He was re-elected twelve times in a row and was President of the National Council in 1861/62 . The democratic movement of the 1860s with their demands for direct democracy , he was skeptical. As in 1870 in Canton Ticino broke out because of the dispute over the cantonal capital of unrest, he was part of a federal intervention sent as federal commissioner there to calm the situation. Later he was a federal representative on the board of directors of the Gotthard Railway Company .

Web links

• Peter Stettler: Karrer, Karl. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .