Max Leo Keller

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Max Leo Keller (born August 22, 1897 in Zurich , † February 13, 1956 in Birmensdorf ) was a Swiss engineer and politician of the front movement .

Life

The son of Franz Alexander Keller and Frieda Keller born. Reif studied engineering and political science in Zurich , Bern and Darmstadt . From 1918 he worked as an electrical engineer in Switzerland and the USA. In 1931 he received his doctorate as Dr. rer. pole. From 1932 to 1939 he was director of the Bernese office for the introduction of new industries, then a consulting engineer. At the political level he was from 1933 economic policy journalist for the fascist National Front and from 1938 to 1939 Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Neue Basler Zeitung .

In July 1940, after France's defeat by Germany, Keller and his like-minded people began to hope for an upswing of right-wing forces, the so-called Second Front Spring . The Federal President Marcel Pilet-Golaz received Keller and Ernst Hofmann for an official meeting. On October 10, 1940, there was a conference in Munich under the direction of Klaus Hügel with the front leaders Hans Oehler , Benno Schaeppi from the Bund loyal Confederates of National Socialist Weltanschauung (BTE), Ernst Burri , Arthur Leonhardt from the Swiss Society of Friends of an Authoritarian Democracy (SGAD), where Keller represented the NSB. With the support of Rudolf Heß , Keller succeeded in becoming the new head of the Swiss National Movement (NBS). On November 15, 1940, the two hundred were submitted , demanding the elimination of the bourgeois newspapers in Switzerland and the expulsion of the League of Nations from Switzerland. Thereupon the Federal Council banned the NBS on November 19, 1940.

On June 10, 1941, the federal prosecutor's office carried out a blow against the illegal activities of the NBS. Keller was arrested. For lack of evidence he was released on bail, whereupon he left Switzerland in November 1941 for Germany, where he became director of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring in Berlin and Weimar. He prepared expert reports on the Swiss electricity industry. In 1944 he tried to unite the fighting National Socialist Swiss Abroad to form the Federation of Swiss National Socialists .

After the war, Keller returned to Switzerland and was sentenced to a total of 14 years in prison for violating military secrets and attacking the independence of the Swiss Confederation. The Divisional Court 6 sentenced him on January 9, 1946 to 2 years for violating military secrets. On July 3, 1948, Max Leo Keller was sentenced by the Federal Criminal Court to 12 years in prison for attacks on the independence of Switzerland. Among other things, the close relationship with the German legation in Bern was his undoing.

Keller was the great-grandson of the politician and co-founder of the Christian Catholic Church Augustin Keller . He was married to Clara geb. Kunz.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Catherine Arber: Frontism and National Socialism in the City of Bern, Berner Zeitschrift für Geschichte, page 48

literature

personal data
SURNAME Keller, Max Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss engineer and politician of the front movement
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1956
Place of death Birmensdorf