Rudolf Suter (politician)

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Portrait of Rudolf Suter, President of the MGB administrative delegation, National Council

Rudolf Suter (born March 18, 1914 in Küsnacht ; † March 7, 2011 in Zurich ; legal resident in Basel and Aesch near Birmensdorf ) was a Swiss politician ( LdU ) and chairman of the board of the Migros Cooperative Federation .

Life

Rudolf Suter grew up near Küsnacht. His mother was a sister of Gottlieb Duttweiler . At the age of 13 he was allowed to drive Duttweiler's car alone. He attended a business school in Zurich and worked on free afternoons as a salesman in Migros' vans . After attending school for two years, Suter fell ill and stopped attending school. Duttweiler advised him not to take it up again and instead to start a commercial apprenticeship . From August 1, 1930, he started as an apprentice at Migros. He did not complete his apprenticeship and in August 1932, with Duttweiler's consent, he moved to a company in Ponte San Pietro in northern Italy as a foreign language correspondent . In October 1935 he was sent from Duttweiler to Catania (Sicily) to buy oranges there. He worked there for a few months before spending a few months in Cavaillon in purchasing and sales as well as in the warehouse.

After his return to Switzerland, Suter completed his military service in the Swiss Army, including the officers' school. Between the military services he worked in different departments of Migros and stayed in England for three months to further improve his language skills. Since Duttweiler advocated a strong army because of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, Suter believes that his later career at Migros was strongly promoted by his military achievements.

Between 1937 and 1939 he headed the In Memoriam Bider / Mittelholzer / Zimmermann cooperative . The cooperative, named after the aviation pioneers Oskar Bider , Walter Mittelholzer and Balz Zimmermann , owned not only gliders but also three powered aircraft in the short period of its existence . In 1938 he married.

Rudolf Suter was to take over the management of Migros Ticino in 1939 . In August of that year he was called up for a military exercise, which was extended to July 10, 1940 due to the general mobilization due to the Second World War. He was in action as a fighter pilot of Fliegerstaffel 15, which in June 1940 was involved several times in aerial battles with German warplanes on the Swiss side of the Jura . In the breaks between active service , he was employed by the Migros Basel cooperative , which he managed alone for a time. While he was in charge of the board, the number of branches of the Basel cooperative was increased from 17 to 45. In 1962 he became chairman of the board of directors (own name of Migros: President of the administrative delegation ) of the Migros Federation. He held this position at his own request in 1976 until his retirement due to old age. During his time as Chairman, Migros sales rose from CHF 1,288 million to CHF 5,809 million and the number of members increased from 630,433 to 1,062,345.

At the urging of Gottlieb Duttweiler, he was put on the election list of the LdU for the Grand Council of the City of Basel in 1950 . He was elected several times there and was a member until 1960. After Arnold Gfeller's resignation , he was a member of the National Council from 1962 onwards .

From 1962 to 1973 Suter was president of the Landesring der Independen (LdU) and until 1979 national councilor , elected in the canton of Basel-Stadt . In 1963, Gottlieb Duttweiler's nephew had become his successor as President of the executive administration delegation of the Federation of Migros Cooperatives . At this time he submitted a postulate to protect the buying population from being cheated . From 1962 to 1976, Suter took on responsibility for Migros' cultural funding . He gave Fritz Billeter a carte blanche for a year to hold exhibitions in the Migros Club School Gallery. Hans Heinz Holz severely criticized his cultural policy.

From 1962 to 1993 he was President of the Board of Trustees of the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute and of the “Im Grüene” Rüschlikon Foundation , and from 1963 to 1977 he held the same position at the Foundation for Language Education Centers (Eurocentres) .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Bridge builders : The "Götti" expected more from us , January 11, 1984
  2. ↑ Roman Schürmann: Dangerous victories in the air. The weekly newspaper, No. 3/2008, accessed on August 2, 2020.
  3. ↑ Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund (Ed.): Chronicle of Migros 1925 - 2012 , Migros Media, Zurich, 2013, p. 45
  4. ↑ Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund (Ed.): Chronicle of Migros 1925 - 2012 , Migros-Medien, Zurich, 2013, p. 59
  5. ^ Sibylle Brändli : The supermarket in the head: Consumer culture and prosperity in Switzerland after 1945. Business & Economics , 2000. P. 162.
  6. ↑ Claudia Hunziker Keller: An investigation into the support activities of Migros in the field of visual arts. (PDF; 1.1 MB) Licentiate thesis under Bruno Fritzsche , University of Zurich , 2001.
  7. ↑ Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund (Ed.): Chronicle of Migros 1925 - 2012 , Migros Media, Zurich, 2013, p. 124
personal data
SURNAME Suter, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss politician (LdU)
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Küsnacht ZH
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 2011
Place of death Zurich