Thomas Zaugg

Historian, PhD, postdoctoral researcher

Some of my recent research topics, summed up in pictures: Piazza San Marco in Venice in 1963, the Vie catholique section at the 1935 World’s Fair in Brussels, exposition of Swiss cultural policy in 1943 and Italian workers in a factory in Zug, Switzerland, in 1984.

News

The official Labor Day is celebrated in Zug, as in this photograph from 1981 in the Coop restaurant, in a rather restrained manner. The New Left, on the other hand, seeks new opportunities, taking their protests to the streets or occupying buildings.

Work, negotiate, march – sources from the new Trade Union Archive in the Canton of Zug

What role did the trade unions play in Zug, which became the most prosperous canton in Switzerland? What structures did they organize themselves into? Sybilla Schmid Bollinger and Bruno Bollinger have indexed the holdings in the Zug State Archives. Together with me, they provide an overview of previously completely unresearched documents. The overview will be published in 2025 in the “Tugium” yearbook.

From the oldest surviving trade union record, the cash book of the Zug Timber Workers’ Union from 1889, to the founding of the Trade Union Cartel in 1938, to the conflict between the New Left with the established union leaders since the 1970s, this union archive, which was indexed up until 2023, provides deep insights into the working world in Zug and beyond – but it also raises questions.

Modern church architecture and economic order

With the construction of the Gut Hirt Church in the 1930s, modern church architecture found its way into the Catholic city of Zug in Central Switzerland. The architectural competition for the concrete and laborers’ church resulted in various designs in the Neues Bauen style, such as that by Fritz Metzger (see illustration).
 
How did political Catholicism engage with industrial modernism? Why did neoliberal circles increasingly enter into dialogue with Catholic social teaching after 1945? And how did Catholics critical of capitalism come to terms with the market economy? Such questions of appropriation are the focus of my article in the anthology “Appropriation as Practice of Memory”, edited by Prof. Dr. Franziska Metzger and Prof. em. Dr. Dimiter Daphinoff, published by Böhlau.

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The American Business Dream

Since 1924, elites from industry, trade and commerce, representatives of the art and museum business and many other professions have been discussing virtually everything at the Rotary Club Zurich. The minutes of their luncheons contain insightful information about the club members as well as great deal of politics: social utopias from the 1920s, middle-class recipes against the crisis of the 1930s, travel reports from the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In 1958, the Catholic women’s rights activist Gertrud Heinzelmann gave one of the rare lectures by women on the occasion of the Swiss Exhibition for Women’s Work (SAFFA).

Above all, the Zurich Rotarians were longing for America. It was the land of opportunity, but they were not afraid to question it. This is the focus of my article, available here with excerpts from sources and in an audio version, read by Martin Butzke.

The anthology by Georg Kohler and Niklaus Peter can be ordered from Rüffer & Rub, with further contributions by Claudia Franziska Brühwiler (on the United States at the time Rotary was founded at the turn of the century) and Carl-Hans Hauptmeyer (on German Rotarians during the Nazi regime).

Swiss cultural policy at the Othmar Schoeck Festival

Why is the funding of culture in the canton of Schwyz being criticized? And why did Swiss cultural policy begin in the 1930s? At the Othmar Schoeck Festival 2023, we discussed cultural policy topics from the day before yesterday to the day after tomorrow – a lively discussion with the initiator Bruno Steiner, Katrin Rieder, Markus Brülisauer, the moderator Karin Landolt and the host Alvaro Schoeck. The whole talk is now available at kulturfragen.ch.

KADOC Fellowship 2024

I am very grateful to have been awarded the KADOC Fellowship 2024 for Religion, Culture and Society. KADOC is the Interfaculty Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society at KU Leuven. Established in 1976, KADOC is not only one of the leading cultural heritage institutions in Belgium, but also an international centre for the study of the interaction between religion, culture and society in the 19th and 20th centuries. The stay in Leuven will give me the opportunity to conduct research in the KADOC archives.

New entry in the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland

The HLS has revised many of its articles on members of the Swiss government. These include my article on Philipp Etter, in which an audio recording is included for publication for the first time. See also the contributions from Memoriav.

Recent books

The first Swiss foreign minister

In the early decades, modern Switzerland had no foreign policy. It was widely believed that its strengths lay in domestic policy and not in external appearances. Numa Droz (1844–1899) from Neuchâtel was the first Federal Councillor to recognize the need for a Swiss foreign policy. Elected in 1875 at the age of 31 as the youngest Federal Councillor in history, Droz became head of the Political Department in 1887. Urs Kramer wrote this book until shortly before his death. I revised it and added an introduction. Foreword by Prof. Dr. Tobias Straumann.

“His clear vision of the major international issues facing Switzerland stands out in a world where foreign policy is reduced to its utilitarian dimension.”

Olivier Meuwly, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte



Biography of a long-time politician

During his 25-year term of office from 1934 to 1959, Philipp Etter (1891–1977) initiated the Pro Helvetia cultural foundation, advocated Romansh as the fourth national language, supported the expansion of the ETH and laid important foundations for the introduction of the AHV and IV social security schemes. However, the controversial image of an authoritarian, Catholic conservative statesman in the 1930s and during World War II remained influential both in the public eye and in research. The verdicts on Etter have ranged from “pseudo-Mussolini” to “unacknowledged anti-Semite” and “patriotic non-Swiss”. Philipp Etter’s private estate has brought previously unknown aspects of this personality to light.


“Despite the limitations and questions raised, this extremely detailed biography restores a personality in all its complexity, temporal depth and intimacy.”

Stéphanie Roulin, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte