Switzerland Edward Blocher, 1935 (b/w photo)

Eduard Blocher, pastor, born on 16.11.1870 in Basel, died on 24.3.1942 in Kilchberg near Zurich, undated admission. He was technical manager of the cotton spinning mill "Neue Welt" near Basel and studied theology at the universities of Zurich, Marburg and Berlin. Later he had a vicarage in France and a position in the bilingual parish office of Sidi-bel-Abbes in North Africa with the Foreign Legion. From 1897 to 1905 he was pastor in Sion and until 1941 pastor for the cantonal hospitals, Zurich. In 1905 he was secretary of the "Deutschschweizerischen Sprachverein", 1912 its chairman. In 1915 he and others founded the "Deutschschweizerische Gesellschaft" and the Germanophiles "Stimmen im Sturm aus der deutschen Schweiz". In 1921 he was a founding member of the "Volksbund fuer die Unabhängigkeit der Schweiz" (Association for the Independence of Switzerland), from which he left before his death. His grandson Christoph Blocher is president of the Zurich SVP today, 2003.