Walter Kempin

Walter Kempin (born June 25, 1850 in Hottingen ; † December 1, 1926 in Rüschlikon ), occasionally also spelling Walther Kempin , was pastor of the Protestant Reformed parish of Zurich-Enge from 1875 to 1885 . In 1882 he founded the “Central Association of the Swiss Red Cross”, which he headed until 1885. The Swiss Red Cross (SRC) was established in 1898 with the adoption of statutes and the establishment of nationwide structures from the association and the largely inactive "Auxiliary Association for Swiss Armed Forces and Their Families", which was founded in 1866 .

Life

Walter Kempin studied Protestant theology at the universities of Zurich and Tübingen from 1868 to 1872 and was ordained as a pastor in 1872 . In June 1875 he married the lawyer Emilie Spyri . From 1875 to 1885 he worked as a pastor of the Evangelical Reformed parish of Zurich-Enge and as editor of the "Swiss Journal for Charitable". In 1882 he founded the “Central Association of the Swiss Red Cross”, which he chaired for three years. In 1885 he resigned as a pastor due to tensions in the parish and also withdrew from the Red Cross Association.

At the urging of his wife, who is not as in Switzerland attorney was admitted, the family immigrated to the autumn 1888 United States from. However, Walter Kempin returned to Zurich with two of their three children at the turn of the year 1889/1890 and continued his own law studies at the university there from 1890 to 1892 , which he had started from 1885 to 1887 after the end of his activity as pastor . His wife followed him back to Switzerland in the summer of 1891. In the same year they opened a “Swiss-American law firm” together, in which Walter Kempin worked as a lawyer, but his wife was only allowed to act in an advisory capacity without admission. The marriage broke up later, however, for reasons not known in detail. Emilie Kempin-Spyri went to Berlin in November 1895 with the aim of a professional reorientation .

Walter Kempin also worked in Germany from 1896, first as a newspaper editor and from 1906 as a lecturer at the higher commercial school in Elberfeld and from 1911 in the same position in Cologne . In 1914 he married Anna Hedwig Adam for the second time. A year later , at the age of 65, he received his doctorate from Heidelberg University . He became impoverished due to inflation after the end of the First World War and returned to Zurich in 1924. He died two years later.

Works (selection)

• Development of accounting theory and the closing technique. Cologne 1910
• The problem of cameral accounting: The accounting of the states and municipal administrations. Cologne 1915

literature

• Walter Kempin - unrecognized founder of the SRK? In: redcross.ch. The SRK magazine. Special edition 140 years SRK, 2006, p. 4

Web links

• Markus Bürgi: Kempin, Walther. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Literature by and about Walter Kempin in the catalog of the German National Library