**Macabre memorial: the glass sarcophagus containing the remains of Alberik Zwyssig.** Staatsarchiv Uri / Photo collection / Bauen

The dramatic rescue of a composer’s remains

Alberik Zwyssig (1808–1854), the musical monk from Uri who composed the Swiss Psalm, had an unhappy life. And then, after his death, his remains were dug up and reburied during the Second World War.

Michael van Orsouw

Michael van Orsouw has a PhD in history and is a performance poet and author. He regularly publishes historical books.

Website: geschichte-texte.ch

Alberik Zwyssig’s father, something of a ruffian, was placed under the protection of a legal guardian after getting involved in a brawl. He then signed up as a mercenary in the Netherlands, and promptly lost his life on the field of battle. Zwyssig’s mother was left alone with five children, including the young Johann Josef Maria Georg. The boy grew up being passed around from one relative to another. Then, at the age of 19, he found refuge within the walls of Wettingen Abbey, where he became a monk and adopted the name Father Alberik or Albericus. He would remain at the Cistercian monastery until it was dissolved practically overnight in 1841.

**One of his compositions would outlast his turbulent lifetime: monk Alberik Zwyssig portrayed in wax, circa 1840.** Bern Historical Museum. Photo: Nadja Frey

The monks were given 48 hours in which to leave their home in the canton of Aargau. Alberik Zwyssig made his way to the canton of Zug, where he was taken in by his brother Peter. When the latter was forced to sell his country estate, Father Albericus joined fellow members of the Wettingen order in an attempt to set up a new religious community in the former Franciscan monastery of Werthenstein in the canton of Lucerne. But the venture did not meet with success. Zwyssig was therefore glad to receive an invitation to teach music at the Cistercian convent attached to Wurmsbach Monastery near Rapperswil-Jona. In 1854, he moved on to the former Benedictine abbey of Mehrerau outside Bregenz, together with six monk priests and three brothers. However, just six months after making this fresh start in the Voralberg district of Austria, Zwyssig died of pneumonia one day after his 46th birthday.

**The last place Zwyssig lived and worked: Mehrerau Abbey near Bregenz, circa 1890.** ETH Library

During his unsettled life, Alberik Zwyssig probably only found solace in the world of music, the one place where he was not constantly being hounded. He played the piano, organ, violin, guitar and various wind instruments. And he composed his own pieces, including, in 1841, the Swiss Psalm with its famous opening lines: “When the morning skies grow red, And over us their radiance shed….”. The song was to outlive the man who created it, proving extremely popular at the singing festivals that were frequently held in the 19th century, despite the fact that it sounded more like a religious song of praise. And it even found its way into the hymn books.

**The song that would go on to achieve national significance: the original handwritten manuscript of the Swiss Psalm, 1841.** Swiss National Library

Zwyssig’s Swiss Psalm was thus a well-known song, but still a long way off becoming the Swiss national anthem. A first attempt in 1894 to have the Swiss Psalm officially declared the Swiss national anthem failed spectacularly when the Swiss Choral Society vehemently opposed it on the grounds that Zwyssig’s melody created “harmonic and rhythmic difficulties” for the singers. And so little more was heard of Zwyssig and his Swiss Psalm. The musical monk did not hit the headlines again until the Second World War, when two separate incidents coincided to thrust the man and his music back into the spotlight. On the one hand, the Swiss Psalm reached its centenary, an occasion that was celebrated extensively in Zug, where the song had first been performed in public. At a time when the Second World War was in full flow, any reminder of home-grown Swiss culture was more than welcome. And in 1941, Nazi Gestapo and SS soldiers stormed Mehrerau Abbey near Bregenz, where Father Albericus lay buried. A member of the order observed the “uncouth men in leather trousers and everyday civilian clothing, men from the Innsbruck Gestapo and SS men”. The unfortunate clergyman was subsequently banned from exercising his profession and required to leave the German Reich immediately, as he had allegedly spoken out against the ‘annexation’ of Austria by the National Socialists. Hearing of this, Paul Aschwanden (1911–1984), a lawyer from Zug, feared that the Nazi’s plundering of Mehrerau Abbey would lead to the desecration of the renowned composer’s corpse. He wrote to Federal Councillor Philipp Etter (1891–1977), a fellow citizen of Zug, asking him to do something “to repatriate the mortal remains of this great Swiss to his native land”.

**He helped repatriate Zwyssig’s remains: Federal Councillor Philipp Etter from Zug, 1943.** Swiss National Museum

Etter, who was responsible for the policy underpinning the ‘spiritual defence of the nation’, sought to protect everything remotely connected with Swiss identity and culture – including, in this case, the corpse of the long since deceased Zwyssig. The Swiss consulate in Bregenz leapt into action on behalf of the Federal Council and sounded out the authorities in the German capital Berlin on the possibility of making an exception and allowing the body to be brought back home. The National Socialist Foreign Office had no objections in principle to the repatriation, providing no political demonstration was involved. Federal Councillor Etter agreed to the terms, interpreting this as a friendly move on the part of the Germans, “which we must gratefully accept”. Etter also suggested that Zwyssig’s mortal remains be returned to Bauen on Lake Lucerne, where the monk had been born in 1808. And so it came to be: on Friday, 14 August 1942 at 4 pm, the corpse was disinterred at Mehrerau under the watchful eye of the Bregenz public medical officer and placed in a wooden transport crate. Swiss consul Carl Bitz then drove it himself, in his own car, to Altdorf, where Zwyssig’s remains were placed in the Ölbergkapelle, a tiny chapel adjoining the parish church. They were then transferred to the parsonage at Bauen, Zwyssig’s birth place and place of origin, where he was to be laid to eternal rest.

**The new burial niche for Father Albericus Zwyssig in the parish church at Bauen.** Staatsarchiv Uri / Photo collection / Bauen

But it took over another year for that to happen. The composer’s second burial ‒ this time in his birthplace ‒ did not take place until 18 November 1943, the 89th anniversary of his death. High-level speeches were made by Federal Councillor Etter, representing the state, and Aschwanden, the man who had initiated the rescue. The remains were placed inside an eye-catching glass sarcophagus, so that the skull and bones of the famous native of Uri could be seen by all those in attendance. This glass coffin was then encased within the walls of the parish church in Bauen, and a memorial plaque was added – even though the Swiss Psalm had not yet become the official national anthem at this point. It was not until 1961 that the Federal Council declared Zwyssig’s Swiss Psalm the national anthem. Even then, it was only for a provisional period of three years, at the end of which twelve cantons voted in favour of the Swiss Psalm, while six rejected it, and seven requested an extension of the trial period. In the end, it took Zwyssig’s song a total of 20 years(!) before it received the ultimate accolade: the Swiss Psalm was finally declared the Swiss national anthem in 1981, exactly 140 years after it was first performed.

**Memorial to Zwyssig in Bauen: his second burial took place nearby in 1943.** Seedorf Commune / Photo: Valentin Luthiger

More of: Modern Age Politics Culture Music

Further posts

The “Gilberte legend” lives on

Beat Kuhn 23.08.2022 Gilberte Montavon continued to be a unifying force in Switzerland during World War II. No longer in person now, but on the theatre stage, in bookshops and on the cinema screen.

Scene from the film “Gilberte de Courgenay” featuring Anne-Marie Blanc.

Finding sanctuary in Geneva

Gabriel Heim 08.07.2022 During World War II, hundreds of Jews fled from France into Switzerland via Geneva. After the border was closed in August 1942 this escape route became more difficult to navigate, but not impossible, as the stories of Lilian Blumenstein and Lili Reckendorf show.

Border between France and Switzerland in Geneva, September 1943.

The dark side of chocolate

Andrej Abplanalp 04.12.2017 The demand for chocolate skyrocketed at the beginning of the 20th century, not least because of World War I. This is the dark side of chocolate history.