After the assassination of Vatslav Vorovsky on 10 May 1923, the whole world looked to Lausanne. Illustration by Marco Heer
After the assassination of Vatslav Vorovsky on 10 May 1923, the whole world looked to Lausanne. Illustration by Marco Heer.

Death of a diplomat

In May 1923, Maurice Conradi shot dead a Soviet diplomat in Lausanne. The act itself and the subsequent acquittal of the murderer led to a major diplomatic dust-up.

Thomas Quinn Marabello

Thomas Quinn Marabello

Thomas Quinn Marabello is a historian and President of the Swiss American Historical Society (SAHS). He lives in Washington, DC.

Website: sdsdsd
On 10 May 1923, Soviet diplomat Vatslav Vorovsky was killed in Lausanne, shot at close range by Swiss-Russian Maurice Conradi. The attack took place during the Lausanne Conference, which was held to negotiate the recognition of Turkey and its borders as successor state to the former Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the First World War.
Portrait of Maurice Conradi, 1923.
On the evening of 10 May 1923, Maurice Conradi shot... Wikimedia
Portrait of Vatslav Vorovsky, taken before 1923.
... Soviet diplomat Vatslav Vorovsky in Lausanne. Wikimedia

The Treaty of Lausanne

The Ottoman Empire had fought alongside the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria) in the First World War. After the defeat to the Entente Powers, consisting of Britain, France and Russia, the Middle East was reconfigured, marking the end of the Ottoman Empire once and for all. Under the Treaty of Sèvres, Turkey was forced to give up large swathes of its territory in 1920. But the Turkish nationalists under Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) rejected this treaty and achieved military success in the Turkish War of Independence between 1919 and 1922. This forced the victorious World War I Allies to enter into new negotiations, which were starting in November 1922 in Lausanne. The new Republic of Turkey regained a number of territories and blocked plans to shift its borders.

The Soviet Union was not officially allowed to participate in the negotiations in Lausanne, as it was not considered one of the victorious powers in the First World War. While Russia had been part of the Entente until 1917, following the October Revolution and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, it withdrew and agreed to a separate peace deal with the Central Powers in 1918. The Allies saw this as treachery and froze the country out.
Vatslav Vorovsky was a fervent Bolshevist, rising to become a high-ranking Soviet diplomat after the October Revolution in 1917. He was only present at the negotiations in Lausanne as an observer, as the Great Powers of Britain and France refused to accept the Soviet Union as an equal negotiating party (see box). The fact that the Swiss government had nevertheless granted Vorovsky a visa caused outrage, particularly in anti-communist circles.
Vatslav Vorovsky arriving for a day of negotiations in Lausanne.
Vatslav Vorovsky arriving for a day of negotiations in Lausanne. gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Protests and demonstrations sprung up in and around Lausanne when Vorovsky arrived in late April 1923. But they came to an abrupt end on 10 May. That evening, Maurice Conradi entered the dining room of the Hôtel Cécil, where Vatslav Vorovsky was having dinner with two other Soviet diplomats. As the Soviet delegation was not on an official trip to Lausanne, they lacked police protection. This allowed Conradi to approach the table unimpeded and to fire several shots at the group. Vorovsky died instantly, and his two dining companions – Ivan Ahrens and Maxim Divilkovsky – were injured. The perpetrator made no attempt to resist arrest.
Police photograph of the body of Vatslav Vorovsky at the Hôtel Cécil in Lausanne.
Police photograph of the body of Vatslav Vorovsky at the u003cemu003eHôtel Cécilu003c/emu003e in Lausanne. Université de Lausanne, Collection photographique Reiss

An act of personal vengeance

Maurice Conradi, whose family had emigrated from Graubünden to St. Petersburg in the 19th century, had fought against the Bolsheviks on the side of the White Army in the Russian Civil War. After the Bolsheviks’ victory, Conradi’s wealthy family were stripped of their possessions and both his father and uncle were murdered. Maurice fled to Switzerland and swore vengeance.

The murder of Vatslav Vorovsky caused international outrage, particularly in the Soviet Union, where huge waves of protests took place and calls for retribution grew ever louder. The Soviet foreign minister Georgy Chicherin declared Switzerland “a league of murderers”. But the mood was different in Switzerland, with some in conservative and anti-communist circles even welcoming the attack.
Footage of Vatslav Vorovsky’s funeral, 1923. YouTube
Maurice Conradi was charged with murder and two counts of attempted murder on 9 August 1923. But in the trial by jury at a court in Lausanne, Conradi’s lawyer Théodore Aubert managed to turn the charge against his client into a charge against the Soviet Union. Because of the politicisation of the trial, the conservative lawyer from Geneva managed to get his client acquitted in November. While five of the nine jurors believed Maurice Conradi guilty, a two-thirds majority would have been needed for a conviction.

I have done a good thing because the Russians have ruined Europe.

Maurice Conradi
The attack – and the verdict in particular – had far-reaching diplomatic implications for Switzerland. Maurice Conradi’s acquittal was dubbed a legal scandal by the Soviet Union and prompted Moscow to break off ties with Switzerland immediately. This breakdown of relations would last until 1946.

Incidentally, despite the tensions, the Conference of Lausanne continued. On 24 July 1923 the participating states signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which safeguarded the sovereignty of the newly-founded Turkish Republic, replacing the Treaty of Sèvres.
Captured on film: the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in the summer of 1923. YouTube, British Movietone
After his acquittal in Lausanne, Maurice Conradi stumbled through life: he consumed alcohol and cocaine, dealt drugs, went on rampages and came into conflict with the law more than once. Finally, in 1929, he fled to Algeria to join the French Foreign Legion. For this, he was sentenced in absentia to two months in prison in 1931. Although some newspapers announced Conradi's death in the same year, he lived on until 1947. He spent his last years in the Grisons (Graubünden), where he had to watch Switzerland move closer to the Soviet Union again in 1946. He would not have liked this political move.

Published on: 06.05.2025

Modified on: 07.10.2025

URL: https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2025/05/death-of-a-diplomat/

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