Former NZZ head of department Sigi Schär has died
Sigi Schär, the former head of the NZZ’s Zurich bureau, has died. The «grand seigneur of local journalism,» as he was described in an obituary in the NZZ, died last Wednesday at the age of 72 after a long illness, according to the obituary.
Thomas Ribi, who took over from Sigi Schär as head of department at the NZZ in 2006, described his predecessor in Tuesday's edition of the NZZ as "a native of Zurich through and through" - even though Schär had always attached great importance to being a native of Solothurn rather than Zurich. Schär was born in Oensingen in 1942 and later attended secondary school in Solothurn. After an administrative apprenticeship, he worked for a while at General Motors Suisse SA in Biel to improve his French.
"But I was attracted neither to cars nor to French, but to art, literature, jazz and theater," Schär recalled in a guest column he wrote for the Altstadt Kurier shortly after his retirement. That's why, he said, he decided in 1965 to move to the city of Zurich, which "could fulfill all my longings." Schär found a part-time job at a specialist book publisher and worked at the Hechtplatz Theater in the evenings. After a detour through the presidential department of the city of Zurich, he landed at the Verkehrsverein in the 1970s, where, in his own words, "Zurich first became my profession." As deputy director of transportation, it was his job to promote Zurich abroad as a congress city and to sell the big hotels to men and women. Thus, as a Zürich salesman, he traveled loaded with the alphorn, especially to America, blowing the alphorn for Zürich.
Late entry into journalism
Sigi Schär only found his way into journalism at the age of 36. In 1978, he joined the local editorial team of the NZZ. There he wrote about the city council and about everything and anything that moved Zurich, about the Sechseläuten, about the Knabenschiessen, about urban planning, building and architecture. In 2001, he became head of the Zurich section of the NZZ. Five years later, he took early retirement for health reasons. Even as a journalist, he remained true to his great love, the theater. He was able to live this out at the Theater am Neumarkt. He was a member of the board of directors for almost 20 years, eight of them as president. He was instrumental in saving the theater, which was threatened with closure. Sigi Schär was married to Johanna Tremp. The former SP cantonal councilor and municipal councilor of the city of Zurich died last March at the age of 68. (SDA)
