Willi Ritschard

He presided over the Federal Council in 1978 and from 1980 onwards was the head of the Federal Department of Finance. He announced his resignation on the 28 September 1983 and died still in office on 16 October 1983.

Willi Ritschard and Greti Hostettler married in 1941 and had two children, Margaretha Ueker-Ritschard and Rolf Ritschard, who would become an member of the Executive Council of Solothurn. He died on the 16 October 1983, during a hike on the Grenchenberg near Grenchen. His funeral service took place in the St. Urs and Victor Cathedral in Solothurn on the 20 October. He was buried in Luterbach, where in 2011 the Executive Council of Luterbach announced that Ritschard would be able to rest in Lautebachs graveyard without restriction, and extended this right to all of Luterbachs honorary citizens.

Willi Ritschard is remembered as the first Federal Councilor of the working class. Ritschard was a celebrity politician and the punk band Hertz released a song about him while he was still in office. His nickname was Willi National. He was a well known speaker, credited with being authentic. He acknowledged that he didn't write all his speeches by himself. Some were written by the writer and journalist Peter Bichsel, who was his neighbor. Two books with quotes of his were released during his tenure as a Federal Councilor, one in 1975 and another in 1982. Both were published by the Benteli publishing house.

On the 5 December 1973, he was elected into the Federal Council where he assumed the Department of Transport and Energy. At the time he was elected despite not being the officially designated candidate of his own party. He observed his election in front of a TV at home. In 1974 he called the Nuclear Energy supporter Michael Kohn to the Energy Commission which caused some controversy within the anti-nuclear movement. In 1975, as protestors occupied the construction site for the nuclear plant in Kaiseraugst, Ritschard was able to calm the situation offering the occupiers a halt for its construction for the time negotiations would take place. In 1978 he presided over the Federal Council. The Nuclear Law developed under his lead, the Swiss citizens accepted in a national referendum in 1979. He was not amused when he had to attend dressed in black tie to a royal banquet on the 1 May, the International Workers' Day during the occasion of Queen Elizabeths state-visit to Switzerland in 1980.

In 1947, Ritschard became the president (Gemeindeamman) of Luterbach, which he stayed until 1959. In 1955 he was elected into the National Council (The Federal Parliaments lower house). In the National Council, he made himself known as a defender of workers rights and demanded the limitation of foreign workers in 1962, which made him really popular also beyond party lines. In 1964 he was elected into the Executive Council of Solothurn. As such he supported the Inter-cantonal Commission for the harmonization of taxation. He also supported nuclear energy and was in the Board of directors of Atel (today Alpiq). The construction of the Nuclear Power Plant in Gösgen, Canton in Solothurn began in 1972.

In 1945 he became the secretary of the Solothurn branch of the Construction and Woodworkers Association (SBVH). On the Balmberg he established a Workers Education School and in 1965, he became the president of the Association for the Furtherance of the Workers School, an office he kept until he died. In the workers union, he saw the workers rights better defended if they were brought forward jointly together with politicians of the SP in the state administration, instead proclaimed during a rally.

Willi Ritschard (sometimes Willy Ritschard; 28 September 1918 – 16 October 1983) was a Swiss politician of the Social Democratic Party (SP) and remembered as the first and only working class member of the Federal Council, the Swiss Government. Prior to that, he was also an Executive Councilor of Solothurn and a member of the National Council.

Willi Ritschard was born on the 29 September 1918 as the son of Ernst Emil Ritschard, a shoemaker in Deitingen and Social Democrat and Frieda (née Ryf), in Canton of Solothurn on the 29 September 1918. As a child, he was beaten by his neighbors, for him being a son of workers, left–wingers. He lost both parents at the age of sixteen. He made an apprenticeship as a heating engineer but later got involved in the workers union. He attended numerous classes at the Swiss Workers Education Central which was established by the SP politician Max Weber.