Michael Gelzer

Michael Gelzer (born July 23, 1916 in Schaffhausen ; † 1999 ) was a Swiss diplomat .

Life

Gelzer was a son of the theologian and rector of the Basel Mission Heinrich Gelzer and a nephew of the ancient historian Matthias Gelzer . His younger brother was the missionary and translator David Georg Gelzer . He himself completed a law degree and completed his doctorate as Dr. jur. from. He entered the diplomatic service and became a lawyer in the Foreign Ministry, the Federal Political Department , on December 24, 1946 , and was promoted to first class lawyer on October 17, 1950. He then worked from August 20, 1951 to January 21, 1955 as the legation secretary at the legation in Romania , and during this time between December 10, 1953 and April 28, 1954, he also acted as chargé d'affaires ad interim . He then moved to the embassy in the Federal Republic of Germany as a legation secretary and remained there until March 21, 1957, before being employed as deputy head of a section in the Foreign Ministry from March 21, 1957 to 1959.

Gelzer was then head of the financial and economic services between 1959 and 1961 and, since January 1, 1960, head of a section of the Political Department of the Political Department. He was then from 1961 to 1965 Counselor at the Embassy in the United States , where he was most recently head of the Economic Department from 1963. After his return, he was head of the West Section of the Political Department of the Political Department between 1966 and 1973 and, at the same time, since 1967, Deputy Head of the Political Department of the Political Department. During this time he became a member of the European Security Conference working group on December 16, 1969, which was responsible for the preparation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), and from 1970 to February 20, 1975 he was also a member of the Commission for the Investment Risk Guarantee (IRG). After a reorganization of the Political Department, he acted from July 16, 1973 to 1974 as Deputy Director of the Political Directorate of the Political Department and at the same time as Head of Political Department II of the Political Directorate of the Political Department, responsible for bilateral and multilateral relations. Subsequently, Florian was a member of the working group from May 1974 and was President of Commission I responsible for missions. The working group Florian dealt with the tasks and working methods of the Political Department and developed recommendations for reorganization.

On March 16, 1975 Gelzer succeeded Hans Lacher as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and held this post until he retired on July 31, 1981, after which Charles Müller became his successor there. In this function he represented the Federal Council on July 12, 1976 at the funeral of former Federal President Gustav Heinemann and on May 11, 1977 by former Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard .

Fonts

• Switzerland in the international economy. Speech. Hanover 1976.

Web links

• Literature by and about Michael Gelzer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Documents by and about Gelzer, Michael in the Dodis database of Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Urs Gelzer: Gelzer, Matthias. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

predecessor	Office	successor
Hans Lacher	Swiss ambassador in Cologne 1975–1981	Charles Muller