PostedSeptember 15, 2022, 7:48 PM
Bernese JuraThe watchmaking patriarch becomes an honorary citizen
With his 29 passports, the former director of the watch brand Longines was thanked Thursday evening in his town for having made him shine around the world.
The formalities took place in the performance hall of St-Imier, in the presence of the political, military and cultural authorities.
lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé
Walter von Känel as one-man band. “What bullshit did I say?” he will ask during his speech.
lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé
Retired for two years, the former director of the watch brand Longines was named Thursday evening in St-Imier honorary citizen of his commune for having made him “shine around the world”. The one called the chief, von K., the colonel or Walter had warned the municipal authorities: “No street or place in my name during my lifetime!”
At 81, this former watchmaker who embodies the brand with the winged hourglass now lives in his villa, with his wife Yvette who was… his telephone operator, met on the school benches. She was by his side, Thursday evening at the theater, for the awarding of the diploma of honorary citizen, a first in this town of 5,100 inhabitants.
Eyebrows in battle
A keen connoisseur of the markets, a tireless traveler, Walter von Känel left his post at the age of 78, following 51 years with the watchmaking company. The patriarch seemed indestructible and this impression was confirmed this Thursday evening, eyebrows still in battle.
He was described as “paternalistic, warm, hypnotic” and still is. In the telephone directory, he remained “commercial employee”, a profession which he notably exercised at the Federal Customs Office. What a long way since its birth on German soil in 1941!
Camp du Mail
Little Walter was repatriated at the end of the war to Renan, where his parents came from. The “Dictionnaire du Jura” reports that his family was quarantined at the Mail camp in Neuchâtel, to then settle on a farm in Renan that his peasant grandfather had left in 1926 for a job as head cowherd in Mecklenburg. (D).
In his habit as a commercial apprentice, in La Chaux-de-Fonds (NE), his monthly salary was 47 fr. 65. Assistant in the Longines sales department in 1969, thanks to his wife, he became its director in 1988. Within a company which weighed one billion francs a year, in a price range between 1000 and 3000 francs, his experience was incomparable.
Vodka or sake
The man with 29 passports traveled 400 times to China in 1971 and 120 times to Russia in 1974. Last to bed and first to stand, he weathered the watchmaking crises by concluding a contract with a vodka or a sake. His universality led him to call his children Dave and Peggy.
Walter von Känel is an infantry colonel who replies “Present!” when you say his name. This was still the case this Thursday evening. His passion for regional history made this colonel the instigator of a military museum project in Saint-Imier devoted to the Jura troops, around the 9th infantry regiment that he commanded.
The watch market is confronted with American competition, factories are set up and workers join forces, machines are changing the conditions of traditional homework; labor mobility bears witness to this.
Intervals
The train arrived in St-Imier in 1874, gradually linking La Chaux-de-Fonds to Bienne and the main railway lines.
Intervals
Unpacking of the 123rd issue of the magazine “Intervalles”, Thursday at 5:30 p.m., in St-Imier.
lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé
Longines having been created in 1867, this company developed at the same time as anarchism, in the valley of St-Imier. Future radical national councilor, the boss of Longines Ernest Francillon did not tolerate the presence of the labor movement within his factory: he prohibited his employees from being members of the International.
Chance of the calendar, a ceremony organized yesterday in St-Imier took place 150 years exactly following the birth in the same city of the anarchist movement. On September 15, 1872, 15 dissidents from the International Workers’ Association led by Karl Marx founded the “Anti-Authoritarian International”. Historian Florian Eitel published an extensive investigation on this occasion, in the journal “Intervals».
