Gruppe Olten
group of Swiss authors
The Gruppe Olten (Olten Group) was a club of left-wing Swiss writers who convened at Olten's "Bahnhofbuffet" (railway station restaurant) in the canton of Solothurn in the Swiss plateau from 1970 to 2002.
Initially the group comprised 22 well-established former members of the Swiss writer’s club Schweizerischer Schriftstellerverein (SSV) including Max Frisch, Adolf Muschg, Peter Bichsel, Otto F. Walter and Friedrich Dürrenmatt who in 1971 left the SSV (which they considered to be unprogressive) and became members of the Gruppe Olten.
One of the reasons that led to the separation was that the SSV president Maurice Zermatten had translated into French the official anti-communist “Civil Defense Book”, which commanded citizens on the civil protection of the country in order to strengthen the resistance of the people and to secure the independence of Switzerland. The manual was distributed to all Swiss households during the Cold War.
For the founding members of the group, writing was inseparably associated with political commitment. Their specified goal, to "build a democratic-socialist society" was included in their "Zweckartikel" "written statement of objectives"). That goal was discarded in 2000, which led to the departure of Mariella Mehr. The rest of the "Zweckartikel" reads: " [The Olten Group] ...supports nationwide and international political attempts that involve the fair distribution of goods, democratizing economy and public institutions, saving the world from military and civilian destruction, and the realization of human rights."
In 2002, the Olten Group disbanded in Bern, as did the Swiss writer’s club SSV (in the meantime renamed "Schweizerischer Schriftstellerinnen- und Schriftstellerverband"). A new club, Authors of Switzerland (Autorinnen und Autoren der Schweiz), was established to replace them both.
The public source identifies “Gruppe Olten” as group of Swiss authors. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gruppe, Olten and group.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q367876. VIAF identifies the subject as 133277202. The Library of Congress control number is n86813365. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1970, 2002, 1971 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gruppe Olten” 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.