Christoph Blocher
Swiss politician, industrialist, and former member of the Swiss Federal Council
Christoph Wolfram Blocher (German pronunciation: [ˈkrɪstɔf ˈblɔxər]; born 11 October 1940) is a Swiss industrialist and politician who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 2004 to 2007. A member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC), he headed the Federal Department of Justice and Police. As an industrialist, he became wealthy as CEO and majority shareholder in the EMS-Chemie corporation, now run by his daughter, Magdalena Martullo-Blocher.
A controversial figure, Blocher is known for his role in transforming Swiss politics, shifting it to the right, as well as the Swiss People's Party, which has become "the dominant force in national politics". As he "developed a eurosceptic and anti-immigration agenda that has shaken up the cozy post-war consensual system prevailing in neutral Switzerland", Blocher served as the de facto leader of the SVP and a symbol of the party, holding its vice presidency from 2008 until 2018.
Early life
Blocher was born 11 October 1940 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, the seventh of eleven children, to Wolfram (1897–1972) and Ida (née Baur; 1908–1994). He primarily grew-up in Laufen-Uhwiesen and later in Kilchberg. His father was a pastor and his mother a homemaker. His second great-grandfather Johann Georg Blocher (1811–1899), a teacher, originally hailed from Beuggen near Rheinfelden in the Grand Duchy of Baden and immigrated to Switzerland around 1833, becoming a citizen in the village of Schattenhalb in the Bernese Alps, in 1861.
Blocher served in the Swiss military as an Aerial Defense Regiment Commander and Colonel.
The public source identifies “Christoph Blocher” as swiss politician, industrialist, and former member of the Swiss Federal Council. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Christoph, Blocher and Swiss.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q123857. VIAF identifies the subject as 22945749. The Library of Congress control number is n85297668. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 2004, 2007 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Christoph Blocher” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.