Walter Stucki

Walter Otto Stucki (born August 9, 1888 in Bern ; † October 8, 1963 there ; entitled to live in Konolfingen ) was a Swiss politician ( FDP ) and diplomat . He gained notoriety primarily through his involvement in the bloodless liberation of the city of Vichy and the arrest of the head of state Vichy-France Pétain, as well as through his negotiations on the Washington Agreement .

The attribute "large", with which his name was given by contemporaries ("the big Stucki"), was used to distinguish it from his colleague Carl Stucki ("small Stucki").

Rise and Pre-War Years

Stucki studied law at the University of Bern and obtained an advocate license . During his student days he became a member of the Swiss Zofinger Association . In 1917 he became Secretary General of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs (EVD) for two years . From 1924 to 1935 he was head of the negotiating delegation for economic issues with foreign countries and in 1925 director of the trade department of the EVD. In 1933 Stucki was appointed minister and two years later elected to the National Council for the FDP in the canton of Bern . At the same time he began to work as a delegate of the Federal Council for foreign trade.

Time as ambassador in occupied France

From 1938 to 1944 Stucki was Swiss envoy in Paris and later in Vichy. After the fall of the Third Republic in May 1940, Stucki and a large part of the French leadership elite, including the then Deputy Prime Minister Pétain, withdrew to Vichy. From Vichy, Stucki supplied the Swiss authorities with information using a smuggled shortwave transmitter. On August 19, 1944, Cécil von Renthe-Fink's demand for Pétain's arrest almost led to a German air and artillery attack on the city of Vichy, which was prevented thanks to a courageous appeal from Stucki to the German commander, General von Neuborn could be. Pétain was arrested without a fight on August 19, after Stucki's mediation.

Walter Stucki's tomb at the Bremgarten cemetery in Bern

After the collapse of the Pétain regime, Stucki traveled to the Massif Central to talk to the advancing Maquis . Thanks to Stucki's interventions, Vichy was evacuated by the Wehrmacht without a fight when the Allied forces marched on. Acts of retaliation by the Maquis against the “collaborating” population were almost completely absent.

Postwar Years and Washington Accords

In 1945 Stucki became head of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Political Department and the Commission for Swiss-Allied Negotiations. In August 1945 he brokered the surrender of Japan .

In the following year he was the Federal Council delegate for special missions and headed the commission for the Swiss-Allied negotiations in Washington . In 1947 he took part as a delegate at the Havana Conference on World Trade and Employment, and in 1952 at the London Conference on German debts and Swiss assets vis-à-vis the former German Reich.

Fonts

• From Pétain to the Fourth Republic. Verlag Herbert Lang & Cie, Bern 1947.

literature

• Edgar Bonjour , Konrad Stamm: Walter Stucki. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Landry Charrier: Walter Stucki, Ministre de Suisse à Vichy (1940–1944). International conference “La Suisse entre consensus et conflits. Enjeux et représentations », Clermont-Ferrand, November 19, 2015. Editions et presses universitaires de Reims, Reims 2016, ISBN 978-2-37496-024-1 .
• Konrad Stamm: The "big Stucki". A Swiss career with a cosmopolitan format. Minister Walter Stucki (1888–1963) . Biography. NZZ Libro, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-03823-812-6 .
• Walter Stucki in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available).
• Thierry Wirth: Vichy capitale de la France (1940-1944). In: Collection Mémoire d'Allier, Editions Les trois Roses, 2015, ISBN 978-2-919431-11-3 .

Web links

• Walter Stucki in the Dodis databaseof diplomatic documents in Switzerland
• Walter Stucki in the archive database of the Swiss Federal Archives
• Newspaper article about Walter Stucki in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christian Lecomte: Vichy veut tuer ses vieux fantômes. In: Le Temps . October 31, 2008.
2. ↑ Mario König : Interhandel : The Swiss Holding of IG Farben and its Metamorphoses - an Affair about Property and Interests (1910–1999) (= publications of the ICE. Volume 2). Chronos, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-03-400602-0 , p. 283 ( summary ; PDF; 16 kB).
3. ^ ^{A b} Christoph Wehrli: An extraordinary diplomat. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . March 20, 2013 (review).
4. ↑ Urs Gehriger: Minister between all fronts. In: Die Weltwoche . October 20, 2011.
5. ↑ Marc Tribelhorn: How a Swiss Helped End the Second World War. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 6, 2018.
6. ↑ Guido Koller, Simone Chiquet: The liberation strike after the war. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. May 23, 2016.
7. ↑ Martin Stoll: When the FBI targeted Switzerland. In: Süddeutsche.de . March 6, 2014.