Schatzacker settlement

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The Schatzacker settlement near Bassersdorf was founded in 1932. It was the most important settlement in Switzerland on the basis of the free economy . The owner of the settlement was dissolved in 2007. The assets of the cooperative went to charitable associations.

history

In Bülach, north of Zurich , an attempt was made to establish a land-based cooperative settlement as early as the 1890s . The initiator of the project known as the Heimgarten fruit growing cooperative , which went bankrupt in 1907, was the economist , life reformer and theosophist Julius Sponheimer . In the early 1930s, Werner Zimmermann , among others a supporter of the free economy movement Silvio Gesells , aroused new interest in the settlement idea. Zimmermann had received impulses in this connection from Duchoborzen , among others , whose settlements in British Columbia he had visited during a world tour. Another impetus for him was the Eden fruit growing settlement near Oranienburg , which he got to know at a vegetarian congress. Zimmermann, who combined the land reform idea of ​​the settlement with Gesell's open-air utopia, found the decisive comrades-in- arms in the Zurich health food store owner Rudolf Müller (1899 to 1986) and in Paul Enz (1898 to 1991), co-founder of the WIR business ring . In the end, it was Rudolf Müller who actually implemented the settlement project, albeit with the assistance of the other two named.

In May 1932 the health food store Müller bought around 73,000 square meters of land, and two months later the settlement and horticultural cooperative (SIGA) was founded to take over the land. The first houses were built in autumn 1931. The project was supported by the Bassersdorf-based contractor Alfred colon stone and the architect Hermann Schürch. Both were members of the SIGA board. About a third of the area was reserved for a community meadow.

In 1937 13 families and six single people lived in the settlement, a total of 39 adults and 22 children. They lived in 13 single and two three-family houses. Among them were the actress Elsie Attenhofer and the cabaret artist Max Werner Lenz . Elsie Attenhofer's husband, the philologist Karl Schmid , also moved to the settlement later .

The products of an organic nursery found good sales at times, some of which was organized through the WIR business ring . A pottery, on the other hand, turned out to be non-existent and had to cease operations again. In 1938 SIGA sold parcels to the former tenants, but remained as a cooperative until 2007.

Basics

SIGA defined the goals and purpose of the settlement in Bassersdorf as follows:

“The Siga (settlement and horticultural cooperative) is a non-profit cooperative and aims to maintain and promote the physical and ethical recovery of the population as a whole. She strives to:

  1. Progressive debt relief of the land and its transfer to the general public as inalienable and innocent property of the general public.
  2. Lease of garden land and healthy, cheap houses with inheritance rights.
  3. Promote natural farming and a healthy lifestyle.
  4. Harmonious upbringing and instruction in useful crafts and sciences.
  5. Protection of working women and mothers (mother's pension) "

Zimmermann described the settlement as a step in the transition : it wants to combine the secure income of the urban profession with the advantages of rural life as far as possible.

literature

  • Daniel Flury: A dream remains a utopia. In: WIRPLUS , July 2012, pp. 22-25. online (PDF file)
  • Olav Brunner: Quarters in a generation change. The 'Schatzacker' in Bassersdorf is changing its face. In: Dorf-Blitz , January 31, 2008, No. 1, pp. 1–3. Online: ( Quarters in the generation change (PDF file))
  • Karin Wenger: Living in harmony with nature. In: Zürcher Landzeitung / ZU / NBT , July 17, 2007, p. 3.
  • Caroline Kesser: The people from the Schatzacker. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , December 12, 1998, p. 97 (weekend). With pictures by Andreas Schwaiger.
  • Werner Onken : Model experiments with socially responsible soil and money. Lütjenburg 1997, online
  • Werner Zimmermann : We are creating free land. 1937.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Onken : Model experiments with socially responsible soil and money . Lütjenburg 1997. ISBN 3-87998-440-9 . P. 23f
  2. ↑ Olav Brunner: The "Schatzacker" in Bassersdorf changes its face. Quarters in the generation change . In: Zeitschrift Dorf-Blitz. Independent monthly newspaper for the communities of Bassersdorf, Brütten and Nürensdorf . Bassersdorf 1/2008. P. 2
  3. ^ Siga - Siedlungs- und Gartenbau-Genossenschaft - Bassersdorf: Document collection in the Google book search
  4. ↑ Werner Zimmermann: We are creating free land! 1937, p. 14.