Werner Stauffacher
Werner Stauffacher was Landammann of Schwyz (attested between 1309 and 1338). According to the founding legend of Aegidius Tschudi , Stauffacher was Schwyz's representative in the Rütli oath , dated November 8, 1307, and founded the Swiss Confederation there together with Walter Fürst for Uri and Arnold von Melchtal for Unterwalden .
swell
The historical Werner Stauffacher was a son of Rudolf Stauffacher, himself Landammann of the Schwyz valley. Werner Stauffacher is first documented in 1309, and as Landamman of Schwyz between 1313 and 1316/7. Together with his brother Heinrich, he was influential in the fairy tale dispute with Einsiedeln .
Between 1338 and 1374 other Werner Stauffachers are named, sometimes also as Landammann. One of these documents is a valid one from June 29, 1368 in the archive of the municipality of Steinen , which a Werner Stauffacher sealed. It is unclear whether the document from 1338 still concerns the same Werner Stauffacher as 1313-1317.
Founding legend
Tschudi ( Chronicon Helveticum , approx. 1550) names Werner Stauffacher as the representative of Schwyz on the Rütli oath . The conspiracy of the Confederates is placed in the context of the plans of the Roman-German King Albrecht I to deprive the three original cantons of their imperial immediacy and to make them Habsburg fiefdoms .
Tschudi names Werner Stauffacher as the son of Landammann Rudolf Stauffacher. He tells of an encounter between Stauffacher and Bailiff Gessler in Steinen , when the latter rode through the Schwyz region on the way from Uri to Küssnacht. This episode is told as the immediate reason for the establishment of the Swiss Confederation: Stauffacher greets Gessler standing in front of his new house. Gessler wants to forbid farmers building houses without his consent and threatens with expropriation. Stauffacher tells his wife, the Stauffacherin, about the encounter. This advises him to conspiracy with Unterwalden and Uri, who also suffer from the tyranny of the Vogt. On the advice of his wife, Stauffacher goes to Uri and finds there great displeasure at the newly built castle Zwing Uri. He finally turns to Walter Fürst and proposes a secret alliance. Fürst agrees and proposes the inclusion of Arnold von Melchtal in the federal government.
reception
Friedrich Schiller immortalized Stauffacher in his play Wilhelm Tell in 1804 .
During the Second World War , Stauffacher became a symbol of national intellectual defense . During this time he appears in Meinrad Inglin's short story Jugend eines Volkes (1933), in various plays and in Leopold Lindtberg's film Landammann Stauffacher (1941).
Pictorial representations of the encounter between Stauffacher and Gessler are present several times in stones (for example on the facade of the Stauffacher chapel) and on the Schwyz town hall.
In the Zurich district of Aussersihl , Werner Stauffacher was named after a group of closely neighboring streets and squares from the end of the 19th century: Stauffacherstrasse (1893), Stauffacherplatz (1898; renamed Ernst-Nobs- Platz in 2003), Stauffacherbrücke (1899), Stauffacherquai (1902 ); later the Stauffacher tram stop was added, the name of which has been transferred to an entire section of the street. Other Swiss towns with a Stauffacherstrasse are Arbon , Bätterkinden , Bern , Emmenbrücke , Lugano , Schaffhausen and St. Gallen ; there is a Stauffacherweg in Lucerne , Solothurn and Zuchwil .
literature
- Ralf Jacober: Stauffacher, Werner. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2012 .
- Peter Kaiser: Liberation tradition. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2009 .
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stauffacher, Werner |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Envoy from the original canton of Schwyz |
| DATE OF BIRTH | before 1315 |
| DATE OF DEATH | after 1368 |