Linus of Castelmur

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Linus of Castelmur (2020)

Linus von Castelmur (born January 7, 1957 in Basel ), entitled to live in Tumegl / Tomils (Graubünden) and Basel (Basel-Stadt), is a Swiss historian and diplomat.

Education and historical research

Linus von Castelmur attended the Humanistic Gymnasium in his hometown until 1976 , where he graduated. From 1976 to 1982 he studied history, French and Slavic philology at the Universities of Basel and Paris (1982 lic. Phil. I University of Basel). A junior scholarship from the Swiss National Fund to promote scientific research and teaching at the Münchenstein grammar school (1983-1989) enabled him to conduct extensive archival studies in Bern, Washington, London, Paris and Koblenz, which he completed with a dissertation on Swiss-allied financial relations after the Second Completed World War I (1991 Dr. phil. I University of Basel with Martin Schaffner and Georg Kreis ). In 1991/92 he completed a postgraduate course at the Institut universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva ( International Training Course on Security Policy and Disarmament under the direction of Curt Gasteyger ).

Entry into the Swiss Foreign Ministry

In 1990 von Castelmur joined the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) , where he first worked in the European department ( integration office ) in Bern and then at the Swiss embassy in Hungary. After completing a postgraduate degree in security policy in Geneva, he was employed in the multilateral European security department (Political Department III, CSCE / OSCE service) from 1992 to 1996.

Secretary General of the Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - World War II

After the treatment of dormant assets of Holocaust victims by Swiss banks and the role of Switzerland in World War II in general had been increasingly criticized in the mid-1990s, von Castelmur became head of the historical task force in the newly established Task Force Switzerland - Second World War in September 1996 Section before being appointed General Secretary by Jean-François Bergier , President of the International Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War (ICE) . He was released from the FDFA for this task. From March 1997 to March 2001 he was responsible for the administrative, personnel, financial and organizational matters of the ICE as well as for the relations of the commission to the federal administration and to the media. The ICE was endowed with a comprehensive mandate, far-reaching powers and significant financial resources. It published its twenty-five-volume final report in March 2002 and thus made a significant contribution to the reassessment of a long suppressed past.

Representation of interests abroad

After rejoining the FDFA, von Castelmur was deployed to bilateral posts abroad: from May to December 2001 he worked as deputy head of mission at the Swiss embassy in Australia and from December 2001 to May 2005 in the same position in Denmark. Due to its security expertise, he returned in 2005 back to multilateral security policy: He was appointed Deputy Head of Mission of the Swiss Mission to the NATO appointed in Brussels (2005-2008), where in the Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Council and the Partnership for Peace - committees issues of Euro- Atlantic security order, interoperability and security projection in unstable contexts were in the foreground.

In 2008, von Castelmur was appointed Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo by the Swiss Federal Council (side accreditations in the Republic of Congo and Gabon) with residence in Kinshasa, where he worked from November 2008 to March 2012. In 2011 he was appointed ambassador to Syria by the Federal Council; Due to the ensuing civil war and the closure of the embassy in Damascus, he was never able to take up his post. At the end of 2011 he was newly appointed ambassador to India (side accreditation in Bhutan) with residence in New Delhi, where he represented Swiss interests from March 2012 to July 2016. Since September 2016, he has represented the Swiss government as ambassador to South Korea, who lives in Seoul.

Linus von Castelmur is a second marriage to the curator and head of cultural affairs, Françoise Gardies. You live and work in Seoul and Basel.

Works (selection)

  • Stages of Swiss legal harmonization policy 1862–1874. The dispute over the unification of traffic law in the area of ​​tension between federal and cantonal jurisdiction , Basel 1982.
  • Swiss-Allied financial relations in the transition from the Second World War to the Cold War . The German assets in Switzerland between forced liquidation and release (1945–1952) , Zurich 1997. 2nd edition. ISBN 978-3-905311-06-8 .
  • The Washington Agreement of 1946 and relations between Switzerland and the Allies after the Second World War , Berne 1999, DODIS.
  • Benedikt von Tscharner and Linus von Castelmur, The work on a European security model for the 21st century , in: Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg / ISFH (ed.), OSCE Yearbook 1996, Baden-Baden 1996, p. 237-251.
  • A stage for work and life: approaches to the Embassy building in New Delhi , in: Bruno Maurer (Ed.): A Tropical House. The Embassy of Switzerland in New Delhi. Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-85676-326-8 , pp. 30–37.
  • Architectural polyphony - a counterpoint in a city landscape, in: An encounter with light, Portfolio with 12 photographs by Hélène Binet edited by the Embassy of Switzerland in South Korea on the occasion of the opening of the new building, Seoul 2019.

Web links

Commons : Linus von Castelmur  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dormant assets - 458,000 descendants of Holocaust victims compensated. April 6, 2019, accessed June 7, 2020 .
  2. ↑ On work for the ICE: Press release appointment January 30, 1997
  3. ↑ L. von Castelmur remains Secretary General, 6.5.1999. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Max Frenkel, Who leaves the ship ?, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 22, 2001
  5. ↑ Max Frenkel, Between Kamikaze and Patriotism, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 30, 2001
  6. ↑ Jürg Altwegg, Back to the Depot. The Bergier Commission has to publish its files in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 10, 2001
  7. ↑ On the ICE in general
  8. ↑ UEK final report 2002
  9. ↑ A final appraisal of the ICE can be found in Thomas Maissen, Denied Memory. Dormant assets and the Swiss world war debate 1989–2004, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-03823-204-1
  10. ↑ Press release Appointment Kinshasa
  11. ^ Press release Appointment New Delhi
  12. ↑ Press release Appointment Seoul
personal data
SURNAME Castelmur, Linus of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss historian and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel