Niklaus Scherr

Niklaus Scherr when submitting the flat-rate tax initiative in October 2012

Niklaus Scherr (born May 19, 1944 in Riehen ) is a Swiss politician of the Alternative List (AL) and the Alternative Left . He was the oldest in office in Zurich (elected as a member of POCH in 1978 ) and co-founder of AL Zurich. Niklaus Scherr resigned on January 18, 2017.

Scherr used to be editor of the POCH newspaper , union secretary, manager of the tenants' association in Zurich and a journalist by profession . He has played a key role in several federal initiatives.

biography

Niklaus Scherr was born in Riehen in the canton of Basel-Stadt in 1944. After graduating from the Humanist Gymnasium in Basel in 1963, he studied German, French and Italian literature in Basel , Perugia and Paris . During his studies he stayed in Paris from 1966 to 1969, where he worked as a German teacher and journalist. In 1970 he completed his studies with a licentiate thesis entitled "The Image of the City in Expressionist Poetry".

From 1970 to 1972 Scherr worked as a journalist and translator for the Basler National-Zeitung . He then worked from 1972 to 1975 as party secretary of POCH Zurich . Also in 1972 he married Traute Boie. At this time Scherr was already being watched by the state security; the observations ended with the fishing affair in the late 1980s.

In 1975 Scherr became editor of the POCH newspaper , a position he held until 1979. In 1978, he succeeded the writer Walter Matthias Diggelmann in the Zurich municipal council . In 1980 he was banned from working as a journalist because of his political activities and was unemployed for almost a year. During this phase the book "Basta!" on Swiss policy on foreigners, which Scherr wrote with co-authors.

From 1980 to 1988 he was the union secretary of the Zurich television group at the Swiss Syndicate for Media . According to his own statements, he received his greatest political defeat from the clear rejection of the Mitenand initiative in 1981, of which Scherr was a member of the campaign committee. In 1983 he was elected to the Zurich Cantonal Council, but already resigned after seven meetings in favor of his work in the municipal council. Until the end of the POCH, Scherr played a key role in various citizens' groups in Zurich. In 1988 he became secretary for public relations at the Zurich tenants' association . After POCH Zurich was dissolved on August 25, 1990, Scherr was a member of the POCH Liquidation Commission.

Immediately after the end of the POCH, Scherr was one of the co-founders of the alternative list and then sat for it on the Zurich municipal council. 1990/1991 Scherr was involved in the investigation of the Fichen affair; together with Peter Niggli, he wrote the report on the political police in the city of Zurich, was a co-initiator of the popular initiative “SoS Switzerland without sniffer police”, which was rejected by all the states in 1998 with 75.4% “No ” and a committee member of the Swiss Sniffing State Archives . In 1992 he was one of the co-initiators of the Federal DroLeg initiative , which came to a vote in 1998 and was rejected by all the stands with 74.0% no votes. In 1996 Scherr became managing director of the Zurich tenants' association.

By preventing the privatization of the electricity works of the canton of Zurich (EKZ) in 2001, Scherr achieved a political success in the city of Zurich. In 2008 he coordinated the referendum against biometric passports in the canton of Zurich (the introduction of biometric passports was approved in 2009 with 50.1% yes-votes). In February 2009, the canton of Zurich became the first canton in Switzerland to abolish the flat-rate tax on an initiative. Scherr was described by the WOZ as the "spiritual father" of this initiative. In 2009 he retired as manager of the tenants' association. In 2009/2010 he was one of the co-initiators of the alternative left and has been a board member since then. He was involved in the coordination of the federal initiative to abolish the flat-rate taxation of AL Switzerland, which came to the vote on November 30, 2014 and was rejected with 59.2% no votes and 19 6/2 to 1 positions.

Today Scherr is divorced and lives in Zurich- Aussersihl .

literature

• Authors' group for a progressive policy on foreigners: Basta! Foreign workers in the 80s: a reader. Ed .: Niklaus Scherr. Limmat-Verlag, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-85791-026-7 .
• Niklaus Scherr: "Only make it for the rent ...?" 125 years of the Zurich tenant movement (1891–2016). Published by the Tenants' Association, Zurich, 2016. ISBN 978-3-033-05887-3

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Niggi Scherr resigns after 38 years - David Garcia Nuñez moves up on the local council. (No longer available online.) AL Zurich, December 12, 2016, archived from the original on December 20, 2016 ; accessed on December 12, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Jürg Rohrer: "I swear, resignation is resignation". In: Tages-Anzeiger . January 18, 2017 (interview).
3. ↑ Andrea Trüb: "Inner consistency is appreciated". In: Zürcher Landzeitung . September 8, 2007 (archived on Niklaus Scherr's website).
4. ^ Carlos Hanimann: Entry prohibited. In: WOZ . October 23, 2014, accessed October 31, 2014 . 
5. ↑ Matthias Scharrer: The tenants lose out. Interview with Niklaus Scherr in: Limmattaler Zeitung , December 9, 2012, accessed on October 29, 2018.

Web links

• Website by Niklaus Scherr