Stans, 29.11.2019 – Brigitt Flüeler
“I have lived the most bitter and beautiful hours of my life in the Waldstätten.”
Heinrich Zschokke’s year in Central Switzerland
Heinrich Zschokke did not like it at all that he had to travel to Stans. To the head of the “Bureau de culture nationale ou d’esprit public” this order came “very inconvenient”. But Nidwalden was a powder keg. Not the only one in Central Switzerland. In Uri and Schwyz, the Helvetic officials had only recently been chased away. The army marched in. There were many dead. And now there are fears of an uprising in Nidwalden as well. Or – better said – another one. Already eight months ago – in September 1798 – the army had bloodily suppressed an uprising there. Over 400 people died. Most of them after the battle, because the soldiers had slaughtered women, children, the elderly and the sick, plundered the land, burned down a quarter of all houses. Such things could not be allowed to happen again. That is why the Board of Directors of the Helvetic Republic sent Heinrich Zschokke to Stans to “make wise and powerful precautions to ensure due respect for the laws” and thus prevent another uprising. On May 14, Zschokke received the order, the next day he arrived in Stans…