Peter Ochs

Peter Ochs ( * August 20, 1752 in Nantes, † June 19, 1821 in Basel) was a Swiss politician, lawyer, historian and writer.

Peter Ochs was born on August 20, 1752 in Nantes, France as a child of Albert Ochs, a well-known Basel prosperous merchant, and Louise His.

After a commercial apprenticeship with his grandfather and father in Hamburg ox studied law in Basel and Leiden. 1776, he finished his studies with Dr. iur. 1779 Ochs married Salome Vischer. In 1782 he was appointed as the successor of the Enlightenment Isaak Iselin for town clerk in Basel. In 1787 he was appointed the first governor of the newly founded General Reading Society Basel. In 1790 he obtained the office of the city clerk and then stayed several times as an envoy of Basel in Paris. In 1795 he entered into the negotiations for the Peace of Basel between Prussia and France as an intermediary. In 1796 he obtained the post of Colonel guild master.

As a liberal and a decided representative of the Enlightenment Peter Ochs was commissioned by the French Directorate so that in December 1797 to draft a new constitution for the Switzerland. His design for a Helvetic Republic envisaged to convert the old Confederation on the French model of a loose confederation of states into a modern central government, the cantons were relegated to administrative units. After French troops had occupied in 1798 Federal territories in the spring, Peter Ochs proclaimed on April 12, 1798 from the balcony of the town hall Aarauer the Helvetic Republic. She was closely linked as " sister republic " to the French Republic.

His political opponents attacked Ochs hard and titled his draft constitution, which gave the basis of the new Constitution, as " ox- book ." This hostility led to Ochs was passed over for the elections to the Helvetic Board and until the summer of 1798 the French pressure could enter the Helvetic government.

In 1799 he was pressured by Frédéric - César de la Harpe from office. Following the adoption of the Constitution mediation by Napoleon in 1803 he was able to resume his political activities in the canton of Basel again and he remained in the Restoration period after the final fall of Napoleon in 1815, an important exponent of the political life of his native town and engaged especially in education. In conservative circles, it remained ostracized so that his sons in 1818, still during the lifetime of her father, assumed the name of His.

Peter Ochs also wrote plays and opera libretti, which, however, the success was denied, and he is the author of eight-volume " History of the Town and Country Basle ", published 1786-1822, over 50 years, for certain periods even much longer, the standard work remained and is consulted even today occasionally.

Honors

1989 was founded on the initiative of Markus Kutter a Peter Ochs Society, which dealt until its dissolution with the life and the person of Peter Ochs. So could 1992 an extensive biography are brought out.