Toni Hagen

Toni Hagen ( born August 17, 1917 in Lucerne, † April 18, 2003 in Lenzerheide ) was a Swiss geologist and pioneer of Swiss development cooperation.

Toni Hagen attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and earned a diploma in 1941 as an engineering geologist. In 1943 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the geology of the Valais Alps. Following a stint at the Geodetic Institute of the ETH in 1950 he took part in the first Swiss development assistance mission to Nepal, the first Europeans could visit at the invitation of the Maharaja of the country. In 1952 he was hired by the Nepalese government as a government geologist and explored on behalf of the United Nations, the geological conditions of the Himalayan state. The aim was to locate mineral deposits and evaluate aerial photographs scientifically.

His position enabled him, even remote, until then to visit foreigners forbidden areas of the country. He gained extensive rock samples and footage.

After the violent subjugation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China in 1959, he made ​​his influence in the Nepalese king claimed to allow the rescue and reception of tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees. 1961 and 1962 he served as chief delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross for their settlement in Nepal and other countries. In his native Switzerland, he sat down heavily and for the recording of Tibetan refugees. During this time he also won the confidence of the Dalai Lama, whose tape recordings he conveyed from the Indian exile.

Development assistance tasks under operations by the UN, in particular the UNDP, led him to 1972 in numerous countries around the world. Even after his resignation from the UN, he served alongside journalistic activity and a teaching position at the ETH as a consultant for various development and disaster relief organizations and toured their areas of operation. 1980 awarded him the University of Basel for his services in development cooperation an honorary doctorate of medicine.

1999 turned Toni Hagen on location the movie " The Ring of the Buddha", in the he included also original material from the 1960s. The frame story is determined by a promise which has given the young Toni Hagen one of Tibetan refugees, the monk Chogey Trishen Rimpoche, a teacher of the Dalai Lamas. This trusted him to a ring, but wishes Hagen should visit him when the life of the monk to an end. This desire comes Hagen and finds Chogey Trishen Rimpoche in a remote monastery to return the ring to him.

The trip to Nepal was the last of Toni Hagen. In April 2003, he died three months after the theatrical release of his film, and only three days after the death of his wife Gertrude, at Lenzerheide.

Works

  • Hagen, Toni: Geology of Mont Dolin and the northern edge of the Dent Blanche- ceiling between Mont Blanc de Cheilon and Ferpècle (Valais). Bern, mpa, 1948. Diss ETH
  • Hagen, Toni: Nepal: The Kingdom in the Himalayas. Bern, Kummerly and Frey, 1980. ISBN 3-259-08121-6
  • Hagen, Toni: right and wrong ways of development aid: experimenting in the Third World. Zurich, ET Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1988. ISBN 3-85823-167-2 ( ISBN formally wrong )
  • Hagen, Toni: Building Bridges to the Third World: Memories of Nepal from 1950 to 1992. Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 1992. ISBN 3-88345-374-9
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