Fridolin Anderwert (19 September 1828, in Frauenfeld[1] – 25 December 1880) was a Swiss politician.
He was elected to the Swiss Federal Council on 10 December 1875 and was member of the council until 25 December 1880.[2] He was affiliated to the Free Democratic Party of Switzerland.
During his office time he held the Department of Justice and Police and was Vice-President of the Swiss Confederation in 1880.
On 7 December 1880 he was elected President of the Swiss Confederation for the year 1881. Immediately after the election a nasty campaign against him broke out in the press, in particular about the eating habits of the obese bachelor, but also rumors that he was a regular visitor in brothels.[3] Drawn by physical exhaustion and severe depression,[4] Anderwert killed himself on Christmas Day 1880 on the "Kleine Schanze", a small park next to the Houses of Parliament.[5] The only published sentence of his farewell letter states: "They want a victim, they shall have it."
- ^ "Anderwert, Joseph Fridolin". www.deutsche-biographie.de (in German). Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ "Fridolin Anderwert". www.admin.ch. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ Amstad, Marina. "Suizid im Bundesrat". blog.nationalmuseum.ch. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ "FridolinAnderwert". hls-dhs-dss.ch. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ "La grande et la petite histoire du Conseil fédéral (3/24). Critiqué et affaibli, il se suicida - Le Temps". Le Temps (in French). 11 July 2007. Retrieved 5 November 2024.