Marcel Léopold

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Marcel Léopold (* 1902 in Switzerland ; † September 19, 1957 in Geneva ) was a Swiss arms dealer .

Leopold was born in Switzerland to Jewish parents and learned the watchmaking trade . With almost no financial means, he went to China in 1923 and initially became a sales representative for a fashion jewelry factory . He established himself in Tientsin . Thanks to his language skills, he became wealthy and invested in hotels , mines, and the gambling sector . He also sold weapons to both Mao's later strategist Zhu De and the communist adversary Chiang Kai-shek . His fortune enabled him to have a skyscraper built by the French architect P. Mulle from 1936 to 1938 , which he called "Building Leopold".

Leopold Building in Tientsin

When the communists took power in China from 1959 after the Chinese civil war , he was accused of capitalist activities . After 33 months in pre-trial detention in poor conditions, his entire property was confiscated and he was sent to a re-education camp for two years . In 1954 he returned to Geneva penniless with his wife. At first he tried to get into the gambling business, but Calvinist Geneva forbade this. He sold explosives to Algeria for the Algerian independence movement Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) . In 1957 he was arrested by the Geneva police for this. Marcel Leopold was murdered on September 19, 1957, almost at the same time as the arms dealer George Geitser , by the terrorist organization La Main Rouge , a front organization of the French secret service. The murder weapon was a kind of blowpipe , made from a bicycle pump with which a bolt was fired at him. Later there was a rumor in the tabloids that it was a curare arrow. However, the bolt was not poisoned, Léopold died of internal bleeding.

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Un Genevois foudroyé par une fléchette , Tribune de Genève , 7 July 2015, accessed on 10 September 2019.
  2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from March 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Switzerland: Murder, Foreign Style. In: Time Magazine , September 30, 1957.
  4. ↑ Roger Faligot and Jean Guisnel (editors). Histoire secrète de la V e République. Collection Cahiers libres , Édition La Découverte , Paris, 2006, p. 54.
  5. ↑ Rene Wadlow . Political Assassination: Lead up to African Independences on Towardfreedom.com
personal data
SURNAME Léopold, Marcel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leopold, Marcel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss arms dealer
DATE OF BIRTH 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1957
Place of death Geneva