Hermine Speier (1898 to 1989)

In 1934, Hermine Speier became the first female employee in the Vatican in the modern sense of employee with a salary and a pension plan. She wasn’t a nun, and more surprisingly, she wasn’t even Catholic.
 

Hermine Speier at work in the Vatican Museum

If you are looking for a job in the Vatican today, and we are talking any job, there are severe restrictions as to who is eligible to get such a job. The Vatican makes no bone about it: Equal opportunities are a myth and they don’t join the game of make believe all other governments are embroiled in. If you want to join the Swiss Guards, you have to be Catholic, a Swiss national, and a member of the Swiss army. For any other job, you have to be a Catholic.

But in 1934 when Hermine Speier was hired by the Vatican Museum, the situation was different. There was no talk equal opportunity then, but there was a need. Hermine Speier had just been sacked by the German Archaeological Institute in Rome for being a Jew. With recommendation from her (German) boss Ludwig Curtius, she applied to the Vatican Museum for a job. There was no job; and the mere idea of a woman working for the Vatican sent shock waves through the establishment.

Pope Pius XI was unimpressed by his establishment and created a job for her breaking with every known convention on the way to doing so. She was employed as curator of the museum’s photographic archive on a pay per day basis, an arrangement that was later changed to a full contract. Her former boss Ludwig Curtius was sacked as director of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome in 1937 for his refusal to embrace Nazi doctrine.

When the Nazis started to round up Jews in Rome in 1943, Speier was moved to the nunnery of St. Priscilla together with other Jewish families. The nunnery was chosen on purpose for having a back entrance that led directly into the catacombs of Rome. This honeycomb of tunnels under ancient Rome had been used for the same purposes by the Christians under persecution by the Roman Empire. It allowed the nuns to remove anyone within minutes in case of a possible search by the Gestapo.

After the war, Hermine staid on with the Vatican Museum until 1967; she also converted to Catholicism. For having done so without duress, she was shunned by her family until her death. At her funeral, all family members with the exception of one forgiving brother were absent. Bigotry, it seems, is not an exclusively Christian attribute.

Hermine Speier was born in 1898 in Frankfurt on the Main; she studied German language, history, and philosophy in Giessen and then transferred to Heidelberg to finish off in archaeology under the tutelage of Ludwig Curtius. She worked as assistant to Bernhard Schweitzer at Konigsberg University until she followed Curtius to the German Archaeological Institute in Rome where she was curator for the photographic archives. This job like the later one in the Vatican hadn’t existed before.

During her tenure in the Vatican she published four major works dealing in archaeology and edited several more. She left her mark on the archaeological community in Rome with it traces in the writings of many other authors of both factual and fictional works in several languages. She retired at the age of 70 from her post in the Vatican and died in 1989 in Montreux, Switzerland. She is buried in the German Cemetery in Rome (Campo Santo Teutonico).

Further reading
How Many Monarchies Exist in Europe?
The Elect Circle of Elected Monarchs on Europe's Thrones
The Life of Irmingard Princess of Bavaria

Indian President Prathibha Patil on State Visit to Switzerland

Indian President Prathibha Patil has been on a two days state visit in Switzerland. She started the official program of her visit in Bern (seat of the Swiss federal government) and continued through Lausanne to Geneva from where she left for a state visit to Austria.

Prathibha Patil and Micheline Calmy-Rey

Indian President Prathibha Patil began her two days state visit to Switzerland in Bern. On Bern‘s Parliament Square, the 76-year-old President and her husband were welcomed by the Federal Council with military honours. The Federal Council is Switzerland’s government composed of its seven ministers. In the morning, Patil and her delegation had taken a private tour of the historic centre of Bern.

The President of India’s tour included visits to the bears in the Bärengraben, the Rosengarten, the Cathedral of Saint Vincent and the Clock Tower. Earlier in the afternoon, Prathibha Patil had been privately greeted by Micheline Calmy-Rey at the Hotel Bellevue where they exchanged gifts customary for state visits.

After the official reception, the Indian President and her entourage were welcomed into the Bundeshaus. The Bundeshaus is the seat of the government and the parliament of Switzerland. Topics of the state visit are bilateral talks in the areas of finance and economy. Among other things, both countries have been negotiating on a free trade agreement since 2008. It should be completed by end of the year.

Switzerland and India have maintained intensive economic relations for many years. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), India is the fourth most important trading partner for Switzerland in Asia. India's economy grew by 10.4 percent in 2010. The IMF has forecast a 8.2 percent growth for 2011. Swiss direct investment in India amounted to 3.3 billion Swiss francs in late 2009 or 0.4 percent of total Swiss investment abroad.

According to the Chamber of Commerce Switzerland-India, direct investments are only the tip of the iceberg. Swiss companies have invested considerably more in India. An estimated 170 Swiss companies have a presence in India and employ about 60,000 people. Swiss companies in India also do pioneering work in developing a dual vocational training system following the Swiss educational system.

In the morning of the second day, Prathibha Patil and Micheline Calmy-Rey received business representatives at the Hotel Bellevue in Bern. The Indian President, who was accompanied by a 45-member business delegation, stressed in her speech that the target of their visit was to intensify the bilateral economic relations between the two countries.

The Swiss President in turn mentioned the dynamic rhythm in the economic relations and invited Indian companies to use Switzerland as a gateway into the European market. That the economic potential is far from exhausted was stressed by Valentin Vogt, President of the Swiss Employers' Association and a member of the Executive Committee of Economiesuisse. The potential could be even further expanded by means a free-trade agreement between India and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) to which Switzerland belongs. The negotiations on just such an agreement are currently held and are reported to be in an intensive phase.

Following the business meeting, the two presidents travelled to Lausanne where they were welcomed by representatives of the University of Lausanne. The President of India and the Swiss Federal President were present at the signing of an agreement between the University of Lausanne and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations on Indian studies to be offered at the university.

Thanks to this memorandum of understanding, Indian professors will take turns in teaching for one semester at a time at the University of Lausanne. Rector Dominique Arlettaz welcomed the signing of the memorandum for offering the students greatly expanded courses related to India. The chair is funded almost exclusively by India.

After attending the University of Lausanne, Prathibha Patil boarded the paddle steamer La Suisse in Morges and proceeded to Geneva in style accompanied by Micheline Calmy-Rey. The President of India then flew from Geneva to Austria for a further state visit.

Further reader
1608: Walking From Somerset to India
James Abbott and Abbottabad
Nonexistent Switzerland

Pity the Middleton Family

Many might think that having a Royal Duchess as a daughter must be like a dream come true. The reality is far from that. That being related to a member of the Royal Family resembles more to a nightmare is mainly due to the press and the media.

Carole Middleton, family matriarch

Hockey mums play for it; tiger mums go on the prowl for it: Marrying their daughter off to a Royal Duke is the ultimate accolade of achievement. But it happened to Carol Middleton’s daughter Kate instead. She is neither a hockey mum nor a tiger mum. If she were one, she would have failed, because these obstreperous mums lack the main characteristic that is needed: Reticence.

Love happens even in high places, and who can say that is a bad thing? But the time of organised intermarriage between the ruling houses is over since the Great War; the future in-laws of a Royal Prince are now as predictable as the lottery. Not that these in-laws had always been above reproach. In that sense, Prince William was actually extremely lucky not only with Kate Middleton’s parents Carol and Michael, but also with her sister Pippa and her brother James.

But that is where the fairy tale ends, or so it seems. The press is constantly carping about the Middletons cashing in on their Royal connection. They haven’t reason to do so and what meagre evidence they present is apocryphal. What they are doing is called journalism by envy and by jealousy. It is time they got a grip on reality and attacked those that really are cashing in.

Carol and Michael Middleton have been received at Buckingham Palace on more than one private occasion; they have been invited to Ascot by the Queen and arrived officially with the Royal cavalcade. The Queen can’t say what she thinks, that is not part of her job. But it is little things like these that indicate her approval of the Middleton family and their behaviour. And it drives embittered little journalists up the walls and makes them out of reason cross.

To Buckingham Palace insiders, Carol Middleton has become The Steel Marshmallow Mark II; Mark I was the Queen Mother. Photographer had once described her as a marshmallow made in a welding machine; he probably was right. Carol has even adopted one of the Queen Mother’s dictums: Never complain, never explain. If she doesn’t say it, she is very good at following it to the letter. It has served her well, obviously.

So they are cashing in on their Royal connection? Where, please? They ran a business in the past and they keep on running it. So far, I have seen no offer from any journalist to pay them for doing nothing and in turn taking on their 30 employees; have you? Their business Party Pieces is not only a good business; in its niche, it is market leader in the United Kingdom. It was that before Kate Middleton became Catherine Duchess of Cambridge. They sell tat, so what? If you sell tat, one of the obvious subjects of this tat is the Royal Family. The press will just have to learn to live with that. That the family has to pay for their own security on the other hand seems to be perfectly alright with these selfsame journalists. Maybe they should be made to pay for the policemen that are on the beat in their neighbourhood.

Pippa Middleton was accused of the same thing when she appeared at Wimbledon and at Roland Garros before that. When she was presented with a gift by the president of Peugeot while in Paris, she was accused of cashing in on her Royal connection. What should she have done? Slap the old man in his face? Envy, jealousy, call it what you want, but such journalists are not worth the name. That Pippa was stopped by the government from travelling to the continent on at least one occasion because of another terrorist panic attack in Whitehall, nobody mentioned. But it’s not much fun, being the sister of a Duchess.

Justin Bieber‘s marketing and Party Pieces have recently concluded a deal for merchandising his tat. It was immediately alleged that this deal was only done because of their Royal connections. No honeys, it was done because they are the market leader. No one, as far as I can tell, has yet accused Justin Bieber of cashing in on the Middletons connections. Funny world, isn’t it?

At least the Queen and Prince Charles appreciate their reticence and circumspection. The family is supported by Royal staff from both sources whenever issues arise. The holistic approach in presenting this normal family alongside the Royal Family seems so far to pay off. But all in all, you really don’t wish the situation they are in on your worst enemy.

Further reading
New Dream Team: Pippa Middleton and Justin Bieber
William and Kate: Title History
How Royal Succession Works in the United Kingdom