Dr. Max Leo Keller (born 22 August 1897 in

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich ...

, died 13 August 1956 in Birmensdorf, Zürich) was a Swiss engineer and politician of the .

Life

The son of Franz Alexander Keller and Frieda Keller b. Ripe studied engineering and political sciences in

, Bern and Darmstadt. From 1918 he worked as an electrical engineer in Switzerland and the USA. In 1931 he received his Ph.D. From 1932 to 1939 he was the director of the Bernese Office for the Promotion of New Industries, working as an advisory engineer. From 1933 onwards, he was a political economist for the Fascist National Front and from 1938 to 1939 Chairman of the Board of the newspaper, ''Neue Basler Zeitung''. In July 1940, after the defeat of France against Germany, Kellermann and his fellow-citizens came to the hope of an upsurge of right-wing forces, the so-called second ‘’’’, a term used by Swiss fascists to describe the predicted surge in fascism, referring back to the first ''Frontenfrühling'' in 1933. The Swiss President,

Marcel Pilet-Golaz Marcel Pilet-Golaz (31 December 1889 – 11 April 1958) was a Swiss politician. He was elected to the Swiss Federal Council on 13 December 1928 and handed over office on 31 December 1944. He was affiliated to the Free Democratic Party. Dur ...

, welcomed Keller and the leader of the (ESAP), , to an official meeting. On 10 October 1940, under the leadership of Klaus Hügel in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, a conference was held with the leaders of the front,

Hans Oehler Hans Oehler (18 December 1888 – 7 January 1967) was a Swiss journalist and a sympathizer of Nazism. Initially a journalist, Oehler turned his attention towards producing pro-German material. Later he was one of the founders of the ''Schweizer ...

and of the (BTE) (Confederation of Loyal Confederates of the Socialist Weltanschauung), Ernst Burri and Arthur Leonhardt of the (SGAD) (Swiss Society of Friends of an Authoritarian Democracy). Keller represented the NSB in the conference. Keller was supported by Rudolf Hess, as the new head of the National Movement of Switzerland (NBS). The group demanded closer ties with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, and other radical steps such as calling for the elimination of the bourgeois newspapers of Switzerland and the expulsion of the League of Nations from Switzerland. On 19 November 1940 the Federal Council banned the NBS, citing fear of German annexation. On 10 June 1941 the Swiss Federal Prosecutor led a blow against the illegal activities of the NBS. Keller was arrested. For lack of evidence, he was released on bail, whereupon he left Switzerland in November 1941 for Germany, where he became director of the

Reichswerke Hermann Göring Reichswerke Hermann Göring was an industrial conglomerate in Nazi Germany from 1937 until 1945. It was established to extract and process domestic iron ores from Salzgitter that were deemed uneconomical by the privately held steel mills. The sta ...

in Berlin and in Weimar. He produced brought experience from the Swiss electricity industry. In 1944 he tried to unite the opposing national socialist societies abroad as a federation of Swiss national socialists. After the war, Keller returned to Switzerland and was condemned to a total of 14 years for breaching military secrets and attacking the independence of the Swiss Confederation. Keller was the great-grandson of the politician and co-founder of the

Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland The Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland is an Old Catholic denomination in Switzerland. This denomination is part of the Union of Utrecht (Old Catholic). Recent developments In 1871 the Zürich Catholic community planned to build a chu ...

Augustin Keller Augustin Keller (10 November 1805, in Sarmenstorf, Aargau – 8 January 1883) was a Swiss politician and a co-founder of the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland, the Old Catholic Church in Switzerland. He is considered to have started th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keller, Max Leo 1897 births 1956 deaths Politicians from Zürich Swiss Roman Catholics Swiss collaborators with Nazi Germany Swiss prisoners and detainees National Front (Switzerland) politicians Nazis convicted of crimes People convicted of treason against Switzerland