August R. Lindt

Dr. August Rudolf Lindt (5 August 1905 – 14 April 2000), also known as Auguste R. Lindt, was a Swiss lawyer and diplomat.

In 1928 Lindt earned a Doctorate in Law from the University of Bern with a dissertation on Soviet corporate law.

Later in life he received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Geneva and Wilmington, Delaware, USA.

Between 1928-30 Lindt worked in banks in Paris and London.

Something he later said himself he was not at all suited, making numerous embarrassing mistakes and costing his employers dearly.

During Lindt's time in Paris he met two Russian emigrés, André Galitzine and Boris Kaufman and produced and financed their first film, an early social documentary short Les Halles centralle (c1929).

Kaufman went on to become a cinematographer who shot for Jean Vigo (L'Atalante) and helped introduce a neo-realistic style into American films including On The Waterfront and 12 Angry Men.

He won 2 Oscars.

Between 1932-39 Lindt was based in London working as a foreign correspondent for Swiss, German and British newspapers.

His work took him to Manchuria, Liberia, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Romania.

During the winter of 1939-40 he was a war correspondent with Finnish forces during the Russo-Finnish War.

Lindt’s experience of how a small population could resist a strong aggressor had a strong influence on his later advocacy of radical measures for Swiss resistance during the Second World War.

Whilst in England he met and married his second wife, Susannah Dunsterville, while she was a member of the Old Vic Theatre Company.

The couple had three children.

In 1940 following the fall of much of Europe including France and the Netherlands an ambiguous radio address by Swiss Federal President Marcel Pilet-Golaz was taken by many as signalling a potential weakening of the government and army’s resolve in the face of what appeared to be an imminent Nazi invasion.

This and other government broadcasts also appeared to reflect a growing impatience from conservatives with the slowness of the Swiss system and their desire for a more authoritarian style of government.

Consequently Corporal Lindt together with several officers gathered in secret and formulated a plan to if necessary take control of the army ensuring it would continue to fight even if the government and the army leadership capitulated.

They drew up a manifesto at the meeting which called for unconditional armed resistance and the renewal of Switzerland based on the following basic principals: military comradeship and discipline; the federal principle of democracy; the unconditional respect for the individual and the family; and the rejection of a totalitarian state.

However whilst arranging a follow-up meeting news of the Offiziersverschwörung and its intentions accidentally got out, and several members were arrested and imprisoned initially suspected of being part of a defeatist organization and for high treason.

Lindt who had escaped arrest made a direct appeal on the group's behalf to politician Hans Oprecht and through him to General Guisan, the commander of the Swiss army.

He informed them of the group’s true motivations and objectives.

This directly lead to the prisoners’ sentences being reduced, and ultimately all were pardoned and reinstated to their previous positions.

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War Lindt joined the Swiss horse mounted cavalry as a corporal before in 1941 joining Swiss military intelligence for the rest of the war.

Offiziersverschwörung (Officers’ Conspiracy)

He served as Chairman of UNICEF in 1953 and as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1956 to 1960.

Lindt was born in Bern, Switzerland, the son of August Ludwig Lindt, a pharmacist and chocolate manufacturer and Lina Rüfenacht.

He was the nephew of Rudolf Lindt of Lindt & Sprüngli.

Lindt was married four times.

Through his second marriage he was son-in-law to Major-General Lionel Charles Dunsterville, a life-long friend of Rudyard Kipling and inspiration for the character of Stalky in Kipling's Stalky & Co. His third marriage was to Ileana Maria Pociovălişteanu Bulova.

, widow of Arde Bulova, Chairman of the Bulova Watch Company.

As a result of Lindt's strong personality, his independence and extensive international experience, he is regarded as one of Switzerland's most important figures of the 20th century.

His career, which extended far beyond mere diplomacy was closely linked to contemporary Swiss and international history.

His life was shaped by his moral courage and his commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights.

The newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung described August R. Lindt as increasingly representing Switzerland's moral conscience.

Switzerland's humanitarian tradition was not always official policy, but often grew out of resistance.

Lindt managed to combine the two.

His views weren't always well received.

For example several Swiss politicians were outraged that, as a Swiss representative at the UN's International Conference on Human Rights in 1968, he morally condemned the apartheid system.

As Commissioner General of the ICRC for the Nigeria-Biafra aid operation, he reported the Bührle company's arms deliveries to Nigeria to the Swiss Federal Council, which later led to the so-called Bührle scandal.

In 1987 he publicly campaigned against what he saw as the dismantling of the right to asylum and in later life he warned against a hardening of political attitudes towards real refugees.