Walter Baechi

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Walter Baechi (approx. 1961)

Walter Albert Baechi (born November 4, 1909 in Zurich ; † December 5, 1989 in Meilen ) was a Swiss lawyer from Zurich and in 1982, together with Hedwig Zürcher, co-founded the euthanasia organization Exit . He was its president until 1989, then honorary president until his death in the same year . He was a member of the State Ring of Independents (LdU).

biography

Baechi grew up as the only child of Albert Baechi (1883–1976) and the primary school teacher Hedwig nee Huber (1882–1932) in the then still independent rural community of Witikon (now a district of Zurich) , who came from a peasant family and was vice-director of the Zürcher Kantonalbank . His parents divorced in 1922 while he was still in high school ; it was awarded to the mother. He earned the teacher training college Wettingen the teacher's certificate, practiced the profession as a teacher but never out, but then studied Jus at the University of Zurich . In 1933 he completed his studies with a state and bar exams and opened a law firm in Zurich.

In 1961 he was the spokesman for the opposition Zurich section of the largest traffic club in Switzerland, the Touring Club Switzerland , which brought about the dismissal of the long-time director Josef Britschgi, whom she accused of corruption . In his own estimation, Baechi's great fame led to the fact that he surprisingly became the first substitute with the sixth best result in the 1964 National Council elections, although only on the 35th list of the Landesring der Independent in Zurich. 1966, in the election of Sigmund Widmer to the Zurich city president , he moved under the Law to the National Council after the election but declined to whom they are not compatible with the role of a forensic deemed lawyer.

He was very interested in culture. At an advanced age he attended Greek lectures and seminars as a guest auditor in order to be able to read the classics in their language. The poems and songs of Hans Roellis , which he performed on the guitar, were also important to him . In 1933 he founded the Hans-Roelli-Bund to take care of them and also supported Roelli financially. He was also a passionate mountain hiker.

Baechi's first marriage from 1934 to 1952 was with Luisa Pardo de Leygonier (1905–1989), who came from a French-Spanish family and grew up in Hamburg, with whom he had three sons and a daughter. The eldest son is the draftsman and painter Balz Baechi (* 1937); With his Isabel and Balz Baechi Foundation , half financed by his father's inheritance , he restores wall paintings worldwide . The second eldest son, Mathis (* 1939), was also a lawyer and worked in Baechi's law firm during his studies and after the bar exam, before opening his own. The daughter Regina (* 1945) is married to the agricultural sociologist and depth psychologist Theodor Abt . The youngest son, Koni (* 1943), took his own life in 1962 at the age of 19 together with his young friend Heidi. In 1953, Baechi married the Swedish painter Magnhild Baechi, born Leijer (1915–2002), in his second marriage. From his father's second marriage, he had a half-sister, Doris Röthlisberger-Baechi (1930-2014). In the Swiss Army he achieved the rank of captain as commander of Füs Kp III / 67 . The aspired higher military career was denied to him after a temporary release from company command because of too harsh treatment of the soldiers.

He took his own life “with a cheerful mind” because, according to the text he had prepared for his obituary notice, he was not willing “to accept the mental and physical deterioration to the end in old age”. Since he did not suffer from any fatal illness and did not meet the criteria for assisting suicide at the time, he chose one of the other suicide methods described in the exit suicide instructions, suicide through carbon monoxide poisoning . The "ruthless" approach, which he had unmovedly announced at the party on his 80th birthday, was "a gruesome exercise" for his family, according to his friend and abdication speaker Pierre Wenger.

career

Baechi achieved his first success, which established his reputation as a "star lawyer", in 1936 when he awarded the unusual revision after a jury trial and in 1938, after he had published the appeal request in a brochure, the acquittal of his wife in 1934 for alleged poisoning Dental technician Hans Näf who was sentenced to life in prison. The case, which is reminiscent of the murder in Kehrsatz , had an aftermath in 1948 in the form of an obvious accusation of revenge by the unsuccessful district attorney, Otto Gloor, of Baechi in connection with another case in which he defended accused of a major property crime and used false documents in good faith had, accused of forgery of documents. Baechi was acquitted.

In 1936 he became secretary of the newly founded LdU and defended its founder Gottlieb Duttweiler in several lawsuits, mostly against monopolies and cartels, such as in 1949 in a defamation process brought against Duttweiler by senior officers Walter Gattiker, Eugen Bircher and Renzo Lardelli. The latter had in fact claimed in August 1947 that Gattiker, director of the Sais belonging to the "oil trust" Unilever opposed by Duttweiler , had only become colonel with the help of Bircher and Lardelli, although they were barely able to do so, who were given seats on the Sais' board of directors would have. Baechi did not obtain the desired acquittal; Duttweiler was sentenced to a fine of 5,000 francs and a conditional prison sentence of 10 days for defamation.

In order to be able to devote himself fully to the new task, he renamed the law firm G & B and left its management to Alois Grendelmeier during this time until he was replaced at the LdU by National Councilor Otto Pfleger . In 1945 he joined the management of the Federation of Migros Cooperatives at the invitation of Gottlieb Duttweiler . However, disagreements about the area of ​​work to be worked on led to Baechi's resignation only six months later.

In 1946 he represented the German writer Bernard von Brentano in the trial of Manuel Gasser , the Brentano, with whom he had once been close friends, in the World Week of September 14, 1945 as "enthusiastic advocate of Nazism " and "rabid anti-Semites had called" and won Gasser's conviction for defamation and defamation .

On the other hand, he was unsuccessful in another lawsuit in 1952 in which he represented the plaintiff Maxim Maximo, who had been permanently banned from entering the country because of endangering the internal and external security of the Confederation, against another Romanian emigrant, Josef Mandl, who represented Maximo as a «particularly dangerous communist agent »Had designated. Not only were Mandl and the co-accused Zurich journalist Rudolf Vetter acquitted, Baechi's accusations of corruption in favor of Mandl against an inspector of the Federal Police and against the Federal Prosecutor's office , which attracted a great deal of public attention, also turned out to be completely unfounded , according to an investigation ordered by the Federal Council .

In the 1960s, attorney Walter Baechi was “one of the spokesmen for James Schwarzenbach's supporters ”. In 1972 he led the sensational trial of Hans Habe against Friedrich Dürrenmatt in the so-called literary dispute. Dürrenmatt had described Habe in the Welt am Sonntag as a fascist in connection with the appointment of Harry Buckwitz as director of the theater . He was convicted of verbal abuse .

In 1977, Baechi represented the Wille brothers' indictment in the legal dispute with Niklaus Meienberg over passages in the film The Shooting of Traitor Ernst S. and a planned play about Ulrich Wille , the father of the Wille brothers. Baechi and the Wille and Mettler families achieved that, in their opinion, defamatory passages were cut out or changed from the film.

Baechi was a substitute member of the Court of Cassation from 1973 to the end of 1979 (highest court in the cantons of Zurich and St. Gallen until the end of 2010) and from 1977 to 1989 a member of the supervisory commission for lawyers of the Zurich Lawyers' Association.

He was President of the Ernst Göhner Foundation , Risch (1972 to the end of 1984), Hugatext AG (sporting goods, formerly Gummi Hug AG), Fällanden (1964–1980), and Vice President of Frucht AG (trading in potatoes, fruits, etc.), Oensingen (1967-1989). After the death of the founder of Stauffacher-Verlags AG and Stauffacher-Buchhandlung AG, Zurich, Eugen Theodor Rimli , he was elected estate administrator and chairman of the board of directors of the companies (1974–1976). He was also a member of several other boards of directors, including Praesens-Film AG, Zurich (1966–1982). He was also a lawyer for the Association of Zurich Police Officers and Circus Knie .

euthanasia

After retiring from professional life at the end of 1979, Walter Baechi founded the euthanasia organization Exit (German-speaking Switzerland) together with Hedwig Zürcher in 1982, following the example of the English association "Exit" founded by Arthur Koestler . He presided over the organization until the beginning of 1989 and was then elected honorary president.

Baechi had recognized that Article 115 of the Swiss Criminal Code (StGB), which only makes euthanasia punishable on condition that it is carried out “for selfish reasons”, provides the legal basis for unpunished assisted suicide in Switzerland.

1975/1976 he defended the " affair Haemmerli " successfully chief physician of Medical Clinic at the Zurich city Triemli , Urs Peter Haemmerli , against charges of euthanasia .

Publications

as author :

  • Administrative act of submission, bilateral administrative act or contract? J. Springer, Vienna 1934 (dissertation).
  • The Näf murder case. The request for revision of February 28, 1936. Aschmann & Scheller, Zurich 1936.
  • 30 years of Grimm. A contribution to the political situation. Weiss, Affoltern am Albis 1942.
  • with Karl Zimmermann: euthanasia. In: Viewpoints controversial. No. 1, Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1983.
  • Euthanasia Postulates. Helbing and Lichtenhahn, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
  • The suicide. Rüegger, Grüsch 1986.
  • Five years Exit (German-speaking Switzerland). Exit, Grenchen 1987.

as editor :

  • Hans Roelli. I go on the long rhinestones. Poems, songs, prose (= Lucerne Poets , 3). Comenius, Hitzkirch 1981. Selection and epilogue by Walter Baechi. With illustrations by Paul Nussbaumer.
  • Six years Exit (German-speaking Switzerland). Exit publications from the first six years. Exit, Grenchen 1988.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Art. 55 Federal Act on Political Rights (BPR).
  2. ↑ a b «I was a combative lawyer». On the 25th anniversary of the suicide of Exit founder Walter Baechi. In: Exit Info. No. 3/2014, p. 21 f.
  3. ↑ a b Alois Grendelmeier : Walter Baechi at the age of seventy. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . November 3, 1979, p. 52.
  4. ↑ The art missionary. In: Tages-Anzeiger . November 17, 2015, p. 23 (archived on the website of the Isabel and Balz Baechi Foundation; PDF; 342 kB).
  5. ↑ Walter Bächi - on his 80th birthday. In: Meilener Anzeiger . November 10, 1989, p. 1.
  6. ↑ Res Strehle: Walter Baechi - cheerful senses in suicide. In: The magazine . No. 28, 13./14. June 1990, pp. 8-13, here p. 11.
  7. ↑ Two big losses. In: Daniel Suter: 30 years of commitment to self-determination. Exit, Zurich 2012, p. 21 (PDF; 2.7 MB).
  8. ↑ Res Strehle : Walter Baechi - cheerful senses in suicide. In: The magazine. No. 28, 13./14. June 1990, pp. 8-13, here p. 8.
  9. ↑ Res Strehle: Walter Baechi - cheerful senses in suicide. In: The magazine. No. 28, 13./14. June 1990, pp. 8-13, here p. 10.
  10. ↑ Walter Baechi: The Naef murder case. The request for revision of February 28, 1936. Aschmann & Scheller, Zurich 1936.
  11. ↑ Remarks on the second trial, Näf. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. November 30, 1938, morning edition, p. 2.
  12. ↑ A strange criminal trial. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. June 23, 1948, p. 9.
  13. ↑ A remarkable condemnation. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. June 14, 1949, morning edition, p. 1.
  14. ^ The verdict in the Brentano-Gasser trial. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. March 27, 1947, p. 22.
  15. ↑ Baseless suspicions. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. July 13, 1952, p. 18.
  16. ↑ Katharina Bretscher-Spindler: From the hot to the cold war. Prehistory and history of Switzerland in the Cold War 1943–1968. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1997, p. 447.
  17. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek : Harry Buckwitz and the world on Sunday. In: The time . No. 24/1970.
  18. ↑ Werner Birkenmeier: Oak leaves against Goethe Medal: The Habe-Dürrenmatt trial in Zurich. In: The time. No. 14/1972.
  19. ↑ Dürrenmatt condemned. In: The deed . June 6, 1972, p. 4.
  20. ↑ Philipp Metzler: "Making the abscess burst". Approaches to Niklaus Meienberg's historiography. Zurich 2001, p. 13 ( Licentiate thesis University of Zurich ; PDF; 1.4 MB).
  21. ↑ Manfred Kuhn: Strong departure of a great fighter. On the death of the lawyer and «Exit» President Walter Baechi. In: Züri Woche . December 14, 1989, p. 3.
  22. ↑ Art. 15 Criminal Code (StGB) .
  23. ↑ Peter Holenstein : Overrun by modernity. In: Weltwoche . No. 22/2004.
  24. ^ The results of the investigation against Prof. Haemmerli. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. July 13, 1976, p. 29.
personal data
SURNAME Baechi, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baechi, Walter Albert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer, founder of the euthanasia organization Exit
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH 5th December 1989
Place of death miles