Toni Hagen

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Toni Hagen (born August 17, 1917 in Lucerne ; † April 18, 2003 on the Lenzerheide ) was a Swiss geologist and pioneer of Swiss development cooperation .

Toni Hagen attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and graduated as an engineer-geologist in 1941 . In 1943 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the geology of the Valais Alps . After a job at the Geodetic Institute of the ETH, he took part in the first Swiss development aid mission to Nepal in 1950, which was the first European to visit the country at the invitation of the maharajah. In 1952 he was employed by the Nepalese government as a government geologist and researched the geological conditions of the Himalayan state on behalf of the United Nations . The aim was, deposits of mineral resources to find and aerial photographs scientifically evaluated.

His position enabled him to visit remote areas of the country that were previously forbidden to foreigners. In doing so, he collected extensive rock samples and film material.

After the violent subjugation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China in 1959, he used his influence on the Nepalese king to enable the rescue and reception of tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees. In 1961 and 1962 he was the chief delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, responsible for their settlement in Nepal and other countries. In his home country, Switzerland, he campaigned heavily for the reception of Tibetan refugees. During this time he also gained the trust of the Dalai Lama , whose tape recordings he transmitted from his exile in India .

Development aid tasks in the context of operations by the UN, in particular the UNDP , took him to numerous countries around the world until 1972. Even after his resignation from the UN, he worked as a consultant for various development and disaster relief organizations in addition to his journalistic work and a teaching position at the ETH, and toured their areas of operation. In 1980 the University of Basel awarded him an honorary doctorate in medicine for his services to development cooperation .

In 1999 Toni Hagen shot the film "The Ring of Buddha" on original locations, in which he also incorporated original material from the 1960s. The framework is determined by a promise that the young Toni Hagen made to one of the Tibetan refugees, the monk Chogye Trishen Rimpoche, a teacher of the Dalai Lama. The latter entrusts him with a ring, but wishes Hagen visit him when the monk's life draws to a close. Hagen complies with this request and finds Chogye Trishen Rimpoche in a remote monastery to return the ring to him.

The trip to Nepal was Toni Hagen's last. He died in April 2003, a quarter of a year after his film opened in theaters, and only three days after the death of his wife Gertrud, on Lenzerheide.

Works

  • Hagen, Toni: Geology of Mont Dolin and the northern edge of the Dent Blanche Nappe between Mont Blanc de Cheilon and Ferpècle (Wallis) . Bern, Kümmerly & Frey, 1948. Diss. ETH
  • Hagen, Toni: Nepal: Kingdom on the Himalaya . Bern, Kümmerly and Frey, 1980. ISBN 3-259-08121-6
  • Hagen, Toni: Ways and wrong ways of development aid: experimenting on the third world . Zurich, Verl. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1988. ISBN 3-85823-167-2
  • Hagen, Toni: Building Bridges to the Third World: Memories of Nepal 1950–1992 . Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 1992. ISBN 3-88345-374-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lukas Mäder: When the Federal Council still defied China. 20 Minuten Online, April 8, 2010, accessed February 27, 2011 .
personal data
SURNAME Hagen, Toni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss geologist and development worker
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucerne
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 2003
Place of death Lenzerheide