11 June 2014. Brigitte Walz and Bettina Witte have donated some of the writings of their father, Dr. Eduard Naegeli to the archive. The bequest includes 131 items focusing on the lecture cycle entitled “The New World View”, on the integration of art into the University of St.Gallen and on penal reform. The significance of the bequest is not just that it includes a remarkable number of letters from distinguished academics and artists, such as Max Brod, Werner Heisenberg, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Mirò, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Hans Arp and Christo and Gerhard Richter. It also makes it possible to re-evaluate important chapters of the university’s history and potentially rectify them in places.

University President Thomas Bieger and Executive Director Markus Brönnimann personally thanked Ms. Walz and Ms. Witte on behalf of the university.The documents can be viewed in the university archive by prior appointment.

Lecture series with distinguished academics

Naegeli (1906-1977) was one of the most distinguished professors in the university's history. A lawyer, he taught at the university for decades as associate professor from 1941, as associate professor emeritus from 1944 and as full professor from 1948 until his death in 1977. He specialized in commercial law and the Code of Obligations (including competition law, securities law, foreign-exchange and banking law and employment law). At the beginning of the 1960s, he campaigned tenaciously and successfully for the integration of art in the construction of the new university campus in the Rosenberg. The lecture cycle on “The New World View" (1950-1952), which he organized with fellow professors and the philosopher Jean Gebser, gained international recognition and involved distinguished academics in a variety of fields (including Werner von Heisenberg, Arthur March, Max Bense and Max Brod).

Commitment to art

Always fascinated by culture and art, Naegeli also was very involved outside the university. He was president of the St.Gallen Kunstverein (art association) from 1954-1970 and president of the Swiss Art Association from 1965 until his death. In the 1950s, he founded the “Neue Musik St.Gallen” association, which he also directed, and was also program manager for the local Cineclub for many years.

His commitment to penal reform also gained international recognition: Naegeli was working in this field as early as the beginning of the 1960s, and in autumn of 1969 he founded and became the head of a highly successful Working Group for Penal Reform at the university. Naegeli was in great demand as an expert at numerous conferences and debates at home and abroad. The Center for Rehabilitation Planning was established from the working group in 1976.