The “shampoo king” is no more
J. Alexander Baumann is dead. The nationally known former national councilor was a dazzling SVP politician, patron and officer.
–Attorney and National Councilor J. Alexander Baumann in the spring session of 2008.
Photo: Laurent Crottet (LMS)
The former SVP national councilor and entrepreneur J. Alexander Baumann died at the age of 79. He died of a heart attack at his home in Davos on Wednesday evening.
The consistently right-wing politicizing Thurgau was from 1995 to 2011 in the National Council. As a lawyer, he sat for a long time on the Legal Commission, which he chaired in 2000 and 2001. For years, as leader of the SVP parliamentary group, he had a significant influence on the composition of the courts at federal level on the court commission.
Baumann, the “shampoo king” from Kreuzlingen, as he was sometimes called in the parliament building, was an entrepreneur through and through. His father Josef, from Uri, bought the small business Rausch in Kreuzlingen in 1949. It was the first company to produce liquid hair soap at the end of the century before last.
Son Alexander changed direction after three semesters of pharmacy studies and studied law in Zurich. After completing his dissertation in 1974, he switched to the family company, which he later ran together with his brother Marco for decades.
In addition to his job and politics, J. Alexander Baumann also made a career as a militia officer. In the end he was a divisional adjutant with well over a thousand days of service. Accordingly, the army was also close to his heart in Bern. Although he was never represented in the Security Policy Commission, he repeatedly sought disputes with SVP Federal Councilor Samuel Schmid and the then head of the army, Christophe Keckeis, with countless inquiries and advances. From Baumann’s point of view, these led the army in the wrong direction.
In Baumann’s political commitment, an attitude was always noticeable from which he never deviated in principle – more economic freedom instead of bureaucracy, personal responsibility instead of paternalism, protection of victims instead of perpetrators. He accepted resounding defeats in the National Council and public scolding in advances that followed this line. His appearance and his media presence, sometimes (at first glance) pedantic-looking advances, brought him national fame.
With such an advance, Baumann ensured that the National Council sessions continue to start at 8 a.m. – and not fifteen minutes later. He used it to wash the heads of those who hurried home during the sessions to spend the night there and then arrived back in Bern the next day at 8 a.m. from Zurich. “They should just take an earlier train if they want to be in the Parliament building on time,” he said, explaining the actual trifle. For him it wasn’t. Alongside weighty political issues, such things were typical of Baumann.
However, Baumann was able to distinguish between loud appearances in public and discreet work behind the scenes. For the selection of judges proposed to the Federal Assembly, he worked quietly in the background; he took the necessary consultation with those responsible for the other parties very seriously. For agreements with the political competition, he often showed his consensus-oriented and charming side; Accordingly, he did not only have opponents in left-wing circles.
As a private citizen, Baumann, the connoisseur, was often generous. If the chemistry was right, he would support people and institutions or open the doors of his extensive network of contacts, which stretched beyond political borders.
He did that even when they were politically different than he was. Animal welfare was particularly important to him. Shooting down wolves and scaring bears away – for Baumann this was tantamount to a crime against nature.
With the death of Baumann, an entrepreneur with a big heart, a dazzling militia politician and old-school officer has gone forever. Baumann leaves behind his wife and two adult children.
Benjamin Gafner has been Federal House Editor since 2000. His reporting focuses on security and migration policy issues.
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