Hans Fässler (born 27 February 1954) is a Swiss historian, politician (Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, SPS), satirical revue artist, political activist and teacher of English. He has been involved in both political institutions and grassroots movements and writes articles for various newspapers, magazines and other publications.
Biography Hans Fässler was born in 1954 in St. Gallen and grew up in the Lachen neighbourhood in the west of the city. On his mother's side, his family came from the canton of Glarus, on his father's side from the Appenzell region. He attended Feldli primary school and Schönau secondary school and then entered Burggraben state grammar school in 1969, from which he graduated with A-levels ("Matura B") in 1973. He went on to study English Language and Literature, General History and British-American History at the University of Zurich and, after a one-year language stay in Penarth (South Wales), graduated with an MA in English and HistorySee Hans Fässler's MA Certificate of Zurich University and a Master of Advanced Studies in Secondary and Higher Education.See Hans Fässler's Secondary and Higher Education Certificate His MA paper analysed the imagery of reform and revolution in the works of Percy B. Shelley.See Prof. H. Petter's expert opinion on Hans Fässler's MA paper Hans Fässler has been a translatorSee his translation into German of two essays by American sociologist Robert N. Bellah: "Zivilreligion in Amerika" and "Religion und sie Legitimation der amerikanischen Republik". In: Heinz Kleger, Alois Müller (Hrsg.): Religion des Bürgers. Zivilreligion in Amerika und Europa. Kaiser Verlag, München 1986, S. 19-63, and also his translation from German into English of Silvano Möckli, "Direct Democracy in Nine Countries: A Survey", in: Beiträge und Berichte des Instituts für Politikwissenschaft an der Hochschule St.Gallen, 175/1991. and an interpreter, and he has worked in pre-school, primary, grammar school, vocational, and adult education, both as a supply teacher and a teacher of English, German, History, and general education subjects.
From 1992–2018 he was a teacher of English at the state grammar school of the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Trogen. He is the father of two adult sons and is married for the second time. His leisure activities included volleyball (i.e. first league with STV St. Gallen volleyball club) and mountaineering (first direct ascent of the Öhrli west face in the Alpstein range).
Historical research Toussaint Louverture and Haiti
For the 200th anniversary of the canton of St. Gallen (2003), Hans Fässler created the politico-satirical revue "Louverture died in 1803"Homepage "Louverture stirbt 1803" with financial support from 'Pro Helvetia', the Swiss arts and culture foundation.Pro Helvetia's list of recipients of financial contributions for art projects 2005 Research on its historical background led him to study the history of Toussaint Louverture,In 2002, he co-founded the annual pilgrimage to the Fort de Joux, where Toussaint died on 7th April 1803 Haiti, slavery, and of Swiss participation in slavery. In 2005, he published the results of his research in his book "Reise in Schwarz-Weiss. Schweizer Ortstermine in Sachen Sklaverei" (Travels in Black and White. Local Appointments in Matters of Slavery). The book was translated into French and published 2007 by Duboiris in Paris under the title "Une Suisse esclavagiste. Voyage dans un pays au-dessus de tout soupçon" with a foreword by Doudou Diène (former UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance).Website of Swiss bookstore Librairie Payot
Postcolonial Research Since then, Hans Fässler has devoted himself to the fields of slavery, (post-)colonial studies, reparation and anti-black racism, both as a journalist and a public speaker. He has tried to incorporate historical research-results into current political discourse and vice versa. For example, in the context of the debate on Switzerland as a colonial society without colonies, which began towards the end of the 1990s, he has launched numerous political initiatives at federal, cantonal and municipal levels. Political journeys took him to Haiti (Port-au-Prince) in 2003,Material on the stay in Haiti to France (Atlantic and triangular trade ports La Rochelle, Nantes, Bordeaux) in 2007 and 2008, to the Senegal (Dakar and DjilorLéopold Sédar Senghor, the poet and first president of the Senegal, spent some of his youth there, because his family on his mother's side was from Djilor.) in 2005 and 2008,Documents and images on the stay in Dakar (Senegal) to French Guiana (Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni) in 2013., and to Antigua in 2019. In spring 2019, Hans Fässler started to offer guided toursAngebote für Stadtführungen «On the Traces of Racism»Material auf der Website des Kantons SG and «On 'Race War' and Class War» in St. Gallen.
Demounting Louis Agassiz Since 2007, he has been working with the Transatlantic Committee "Demounting Louis Agassiz",Members of the committee which he founded in order to reassess the Swiss glaciologist and natural scientist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873). This process has involved both the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC),Article in "Die Alpen", the Swiss Alpine Club's monthly magazine, September 2016 which appointed Agassiz as an honorary member in 1865.,Celia Luterbacher: Swiss Alpine Club stirs debate over history’s racist scientists. Swissinfo, 29. September 2017. and the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (HDS), where a new Agassiz entry is due to Fribourg-based Romance studies graduate Hans Barth.Letter by Hans Barth to the director of the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 2nd January 2017 Hans Fässler is in close cooperation with the Swiss-Haitian-Finnish artist Sasha Huber.See articles on Sasha Huber's website In 2012, the exhibition "Glaciologist, Racist: Louis Agassiz (1807-2012)", which was conceived and researched together with typographer Hannah Traber and Hans Barth, was on display for the first time in Grindelwald's Museum of Local History.Dani di Falco: Brauner Schnee. In: Die Zeit, 28. Juni 2012. The repercussions of this exhibition travelled as far as Boston.Article Louis Agassiz exhibit divides Harvard in: The Boston Globe, 27 June 2012. It is also largely due to initiatives by Barth and Fässler that in September 2018 the city and the university of Neuchâtel decided to rename 'Espace Louis Agassiz' and call it 'Espace Tilo Frey'. The renaming was carried out on 6 June 2019.Platz in Neuenburg nach Frauenrechtlerin statt nach Rassist benannt. Auf: Swissinfo, 6. Juni 2019.
Addressing Switzerland and Slavery In his most recent campaign, he has urged the City of Chicago to reassess Swiss Bank UBS's degree of compliance with the Slavery Era Disclosure OrdinanceText of Chicago's Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance see: American Legal Publishing and to analyse whether or not failure to comply with this ordinance shall deem any contracts with UBS voidable on behalf of the city. The said ordinance is the work of Alderman Dorothy Tillman, who sponsored the bill in 2003. After the case of Swiss merchant-banker Jakob Laurenz Gsell (1815–1896),UBS acknowledges slavery ties, in: Chicago Sun-Times, November 3, 2006 Fässler is referring to the case of Swiss merchant Johann Ulrich Zellweger (1804–1871),Swiss national TV report "Kulturplatz" on "Slavery then and now" who made large profits from Cuban sugar slavery and the slave trade and later became the founder of a UBS predecessor bank.Letter of 5 January 2018 to the Chicago Department of Procurement Services In November 2019, Hans Fässler founded the "Swiss Committee on Reparations for Slavery" (SCORES), which consists of about 100 personalities from or in Switzerland who are in favour of reparations for slavery (also by Switzerland).Names of the SCORES signatories In December 2019, he was able to announce this foundation publicly for the first time in a speech at a UN meeting in Geneva.Text of the UN talk To support the demand for Swiss reparations and to document Swiss slavery relations, Hans Fässler, together with fellow historian Klaus Stuckert, maintains the CARICOM Compilation Archive, arguably the most comprehensive collection of Swiss slavery relations with the Caribbean and beyond. CARICOM Compilation Archive, from 2018 onwards
In 2026, Hans Fässler authored the expert opinion «Zurich, Berne, Solothurn, Slavery 1719–1839»English translation of Hans Fässler’s expert opinion of 18 March 2026 in connection with the criminal complaint filed by Shelley Moorhead (US Virgin Islands) against the cantons of Zurich, Berne, and Solothurn for aiding and abetting slavery.English translation of Shelley Moorhead’s complaint of 1 September 2026
Political career
Party Politics During his grammar school years, Hans Fässler was active in a right-wing student group with, amongst others, Konrad Hummler, Adrian Rüesch, and Valentin Landmann.Hans Fässler: Vom Spitzel-Chaffeur zum PUK-Mitglied. Wie Ernst Rüesch junge Spitzel zum Einsatzort fuhr. In: Jakob Tanner, Jürg Frischknecht, Paul Rechsteiner: Schnüffelstaat Schweiz. Hundert Jahre sind genug. Limmat Verlag, Zürich 1990, S. 79-84 In 1978, in the context of a re-establishment of the local chapter of the "Young Socialists" (JUSO), he joined the Social Democratic Party (SP) of the City of St. Gallen. In 1979 he became a member of the Swiss Union of Public Service Personnel. From 1980 onwards, he was under political surveillance from the cantonal police intelligence service of St.GallenSee: Secret service document concerning contact with PLO spokesman on Hans Fässler's website and from the city of Zurich,See: Secret service document concerning popular initiative to abolish swiss army on Hans Fässler's website while secret files also existed in the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland and in the security service of the armed forces. In 1984 he was elected to the cantonal legislature of St. Gallen, of which he was a member until 1994. From 1986 to 1993, Hans Fässler was party and parliamentary group secretary of the SP of the canton of St. Gallen.
Activism In 1986, legal proceedings against him for violating military secrets were suspended on grounds of parliamentary immunity.Hans Fässler, Kriegsvorbereitungen. Eine kürzere Satire samt zehn längeren Dokumenten. In: Roman Brodmann, Andreas Gross, Marc Spescha (Hrsg.): Unterwegs zu einer Schweiz ohne Armee. Z-Verlag, Basel 1986, S. 158–166. In the context of an anti-apartheid movement picket against the local branch of UBS, the District Court of St. Gallen acquitted him in 1989 from a charge of violating Article 292 of the Swiss Criminal Code. In 1990 he was convicted and fined for breach of the peace and coercion during a sit-in blockade against work in progress for the Neuchlen-Anschwilen military training ground.See: Richard Butz, Hansueli Trüb, Peter Weishaupt (Hrsg.), Widerstand gegen Waffenplätze in der Schweiz, Zürich 1992 Hans Fässler contributed to the preamble to the constitution of the canton of St. GallenText of the 2001 constitution as part of the working group conference in 2001. From 2005 to 2009, he was president of the teachers' union (KKK) of the state grammar school in Trogen and a member of the trade union negotiating delegation to the canton's social partnership conference.
Grassroots