Karl Killer (politician)

Karl Killer (* 26. June 1878 in Gebenstorf , † 7. January 1948 in Baden ; heimatberechtigt in Gebenstorf and Baden) was a Swiss politician ( SP ), teacher and textbook author . From 1919 to 1943 he was a national councilor , from 1927 mayor of Baden and from 1943 the first social-democratic Aargau council of states . He was also a member of the Aargau Grand Council for over three decades . Politically, he was particularly committed to expanding the education system.

biography

The son of the teacher and farmer Franz Rudolf Killer and Maria Müri attended the community school in Gibstorf and the district school in Brugg . From 1893 he graduated from the Wettingen teacher training college . Shortly before completing his training, Killer was elected teacher at the comprehensive school in the village of Asp in the municipality of Densbüren in 1897 . A year later he switched to high school in Villigen . There he was temporarily president of the agricultural cooperative. He won a competition from the cantonal education directorate with a paper about the congestion in primary schools in Aargau.

From 1907 Killer worked at the community school in Baden . He won an educational competition organized by the Education Department to create reading books for third to fifth grades that were then in use for a quarter of a century. He also wrote a collection of exercises with instructions for free essays, which appeared in three editions. Promoted to rector of the school, he introduced handicraft lessons for boys, student meals and student accident insurance. From 1912 to 1928 Killer was President of the Aargau Teachers' Association.

In 1912 Killer joined the Social Democratic Party and was elected to the Grand Council the following year . In 1919 he successfully campaigned for the canton to take over the salaries of elementary school teachers, combined with the introduction of a cantonal school tax. The creation of a new tax law and the revision of the school law are also among his merits. In 1922/23 he was the first social democrat to preside over the cantonal parliament.

In 1919, Killer was also elected to the National Council, as the first social democrat in Aargau. His main concerns included the fight against tuberculosis and the revision of the alcohol monopoly and the alcohol law . In 1927 Killer was elected mayor of Baden, which meant that he was politically active at community, canton and federal level until his death. In Baden he mainly dealt with construction projects (school houses, swimming pool, slaughterhouse, cemetery, hospital expansion), he also introduced free burials and started a municipal housing program.

In 1936, Killer divorced his first wife, the nurse Rosina Freitag, after 33 years of marriage; in the same year he married the teacher Anna Fritz. In the elections to the Council of States in 1943 , he was elected to the Council of States as the successor to Gottfried Keller . He was able to assert himself against the brother of the deceased, government councilor Emil Keller (ten years earlier he was inferior to Hans Fricker ). During the Second World War he chaired the pardon commission, which reviewed the death sentences of traitors.

literature

• Biographical Lexicon of the Canton of Aargau 1803–1957 . In: Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau (Ed.): Argovia . tape 68/69 . Sauerländer, Aarau 1958, p. 455-456 .

Web links

• Sarah Brian Scherer: Killer, Karl. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .