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The Universal House ofjustice was saddened to learn recently of the passing 0er. Fritz Semle, stalwart, devoted and tireless Champion of the Cause of God. His unflagging work on behalf of the children of his country, and his many years of dedicated service to the Bahá’í community of Switzerland are remembered with particular admiration. You may be assured of the loving prayers of the House of Justice in the Holy Shrines for the progress of Mr. Semle’s soul throughout all the
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IN MEMORIAM 1992—1997 297
divine worlds. Prayers will also be offered for the solace and strengthening of his clear family.
Department of the Secretariat May 9, 1996
ritz Semle was nineteen years old when
he was called into the German army at the outbreak of World War 1. After six months of intensive training he was sent to the front. He fought at Flanders and the Vosges and witnessed the horror of the Somme Offensive where more than a million soldiers were slaughtered within four months. He remembered most vividly
July 24, 1916: This day the attacks and the slaughtering
seemed so horrible that it couldn’t get worse. I was in a German troop that had had 500 men: by evening only 12 were still alive. I was covered with blood, looking like a butcher, and was one meter above the ground as it was covered with dead bodies. All of a sudden the French attack started again. When I saw the first line ofmen running towards us I shouted, in French, that we were injured. We wouldn’t have had a chance. We didn’t have guns left to defend ourselves; the only thing I had was a revolver. They started running in out direction, man beside man with rifles ready to kill. I shouted again in French that we were injured and that they shouldn’t shoot. About 20 men approached us and formed a Circle with me standing in the middle. I started talking to them in French and they were very surprised that I spoke their language. I told them that I had been to Geneva, Switzerland—in the middle of that battlefield we started a discussion. They kept asking me questions and I kept answering. Then,
suddenly, a French Captain came and saw us talking. He approached us with a revolver in one hand and a whip in the other. He shouted, “/11le en 404712!” (“Get on!”) and they all disappeared. He himself came closer. About two meters in front of me he stopped and aimed his revolver directly into my face, his finger on the trigger. I thought, “That’s it.” I was sure that he was very angry and full of hatred for all Germans. I didn’t say a word. He stood there, aiming at me but he didn’t shoot. Suddenly he said that I should turn around and run. “What a gentleman,” I thought. “He will shoot me in the back.” I turned around and started running. Just in front of me I saw a big shell hole and jumped into it. After a short while I turned around and nobody was there anymore. Everybody was gone. I was all by myself. I suddenly heard an inner voice that kept repeating: “It’s no coincidence that I am still alive, it’s no coincidence that I am still alive.”
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After four years in French captivity, Fritz was released and went to Nfirnberg, Germany, where his mother was living. He had become a rebel; he was searching for something that would change the world and never allow war to happen again. About two months later he had a dream in which he saw a majestic figure standing by the door of his room in a long robe and wearing a turban. Fritz was haunted by that king-like image.
Soon afterward Fritz went to see his aunt in Stuttgart, Germany, and she introduced him to the Schwarzm family who were Bahá’ís. As he entered their living room, he saw a photograph of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Whom he immediately recognized as the majestic figure he had seen in his dream. Fritz accepted the Faith at once and stayed in Stuttgart to learn as much as possible about it.
Early in 1921 Fritz went back to Switzerland settling in Amriswil, near Lake Constance, where he became the manager of a toy factory. He tried to find other Bahá’í’s, but he was the first in the Germanspeaking part of Switzerland. (Much later he learned of Professor Auguste Forel and Mr. and Mrs. De 130115 in the Frenchspeaking part of the country.)
His parents, Fritz and Betty SemleTroster, were from Nurnberg, Germany, where young Fritz was born on October 27, 1896. The Semle family later moved to Lucerne, Switzerland, where he finished his schooling. Before meeting the Bahá’í’s Fritz’s religious education had come from his father, who had talked with him about God during their hikes together on Mount Gotthard. In his opinion God was much closer to us out in nature than in “some incense—laden churches.”
‘79 Frau Alice Schwarz-Solivo, see “In Memoriam," 7719 Bahá’í World, vol. XIV, pp. 377—78.
Fritz returned to Niirnberg to begin an apprenticeship as a cook and pastry chef. After three years he planned a round—theworld trip, working his way in different l'irst—class hotels. But World War I changed his life forever.
On September 8, 1924, Fritz married Ella Itin, who also declared her belief in Baha’u’llah. Their son Niels was born the following year. The family lived in Amriswil where Ella worked in a home for children. Soon a little group ofseekers was gathered, and in 1928 Fritz sent the news to the beloved Guardian and received a reply:
He [Shoghi Effendi] was very glad to hear from you and to know of your “association” in Amriswil and all your activities there. He wishes you all success in your efforts for the various subjects you had talked about to your society and for the Esperanto classes you had started. He does hope and pray that you will in time establish a truly Bahá’í centre there and will arrange to keep in close touch and association with various Bahá’í groups in Germany and Austria.
Martha Root visited Fritz and Ella that year. The night she arrived, she gave a talk in Esperanto to friends that the Semles had invited, with Fritz translating into German. At that time Esperanto seemed to be a great tool for teaching the Faith. Fritz had seriously studied the language and taught Esperanto classes.
In 1932 the factory where he worked closed and moved to a small town in the Rhine Valley. It was the Great Depression, and the Semles decided to move so that Fritz could continue working for the firm. They bought a house in Wolfhalden with a view overlooking Lake Constance and then
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IN MEMORIAM I 992—1 997
all the way to the Austrian and German borders. The Semles called their new home Morgemomze (Morning Sun), a name it has kept.
In considering the move they worried about the children in the home where Ella worked, most of whom had been abandoned in the aftermath of the war. Ella and Fritz were concerned that they would not receive proper care. Their solution was to unofficially adopt all of the youngsters and take them with them to Morgensonne. They also took their foster—child Alice and Lotti Hibig, a young girl who worked with Ella.
A friend described Morgensonne:
. twenty—five happy faces around the very long table in a simple dining room of. a Swiss chalet, flooded with sunshine pouring through small but many windows, each window a picture of hilly countryside overlooking a lake. Blue sky, green hills dotted with fruit orchards and the darker green of the fir trees on the heights above seem to form one whole with the joyous atmosphere of this home, where sunshine radiates from the hearts, and where life is a joyous song of thanksgiving and praise to the Merciful Father of all.
Plates ate busily filled and passed on from hand to hand, a contented “Thank you Daddy, thank you Mommy,” signaling that a plate has reached its destination. When each one has his or her share, all heads incline, all hands are joined, and a grace is murmured in unison, which translated runs like this: “Let all mankind become as brothers, Let the earth be filled with Thy
peace. Bestow upon us quietness and
strength. Help us to build the Peace of the World.”
There are no “servants” or “maids”: all are daughters and sons. Mr. and Mrs. Semle are Father and Mother to them all.
When Hitler imposed a ban on the Bahá’í Faith in Nazi Germany in June 1937, the correspondence between the Swiss and German Bahá’ís was restricted. Fritz received one last postcard from Stuttgart where the Grossmanns, the Mühlschlegels, and the Schmidts had gathered.
There were but a few Bahá’ís in Switzerland: two in Geneva, three in Ziirich, and two in Wolfhalden. They started to meet regularly and arranged to get the German translation of J. E. Esslemont’s Bahia 710% and the New Em From Germany, even though the Gestapo was searching everything at the border control. They had it printed in Switzerland.
In 1943 the Semles hosted the second summer school for all the Swiss Bahá’ís. Later a message came from Haifa:
To the dear Bahá’í friends who were gathered in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Semle for Bahá’í Summer School on August 2nd, 1943.
The Guardian has just received your loving message dated Aug. 2nd, from Wolfhalden, and he has instructed me to answer on his behalf. He was so happy to hear that you had all met, in such a spirit oflove and unity, in the hospitable home of the dear Semle family, and he hopes that year by year this institution of a Babe“ Summer School, though now in the embryonic state, will
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grow until it becomes one of the best known and most learned in the Bahá’í world.180
It is only right and fitting that Switzerland—a country of such noble ideals—should produce, in the course of time, an exemplary Bahá’í community.
He assures you, each and every one, of his loving prayers on your behalf and for the success of your teaching work.
During this time Ella gave birth to their second child, Elisabeth Ruha, and Fritz, having changed his citizenship, was called into the Swiss Army to protect the border near Geneva.
In 1947 the first Local Assembly of the Bahá’ís in the region was established in Heerbrugg, close to where the Semles lived. The teaching activities intensified when the first American pioneers came to Switzerland. Anna Kunz, born in Switzerland, returned from the United States and settled in Bern. That same year, Elsa Steinmetz and her sister, Fritzi Shaver, arrived and settled in the capital as well. At the beginning of the Ten Year Crusade in 1953, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís ofItaly and Switzerland was formed, and Fritz was elected to it.
In 1962 Switzerland was able to elect its own National Spiritual Assembly, and Fritz was elected one of its members. Just a year later he was able to join the other delegates
‘80 Fritz remembered these words when, in his eighties, he witnessed the establishment and growth ofLandegg Academy, not far from where the summer school was held. The Academy. later named Landegg International University, closed in 2004.
from around the world at the International Convention held in Haifa for the first election of the Universal House ofjustice.
Ella passed away in 1967, and three years later Fritz married Lottie Habig, and they continued to live in Morgensonne. Meanwhile the Bahá’í work in Switzerland slowly began to flourish. In 1979 almost sixty years after Fritz arrived in the country, there were thirty—two Local Spiritual Assemblies around the republic.
In August 1992 the Hand of the Cause of God Amatu’l—Baha Rúḥíyyih Khánum visited Fritz in Wolfhalden. On this occasion he handed to her all the original letters he had received between 1928 and 1956 from the Guardian. Sitting in his garden with Rúḥíyyih Khánum, Fritz enthusiastically shared his life’s experiences with her. Then he said, “Being now at the age of ninety—six, I hope to be able to continue to serve the Bahá’í Faith during the coming Four years.”
On May 2, 1996, in his ninety—ninth year, Fritz Semle passed on to the Abhá Kingdom, surrounded by his wife, Children, grandchildren, and great-granddaughter. He left them a legacy of steadfastness and faith. Among his many notes was found:
I am grateful and happy that I was allowed to serve God and His Messenger Baha’u’llah and I will also do so in His infinite, spiritual Worlds.
