CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Paul Schmidhalter

Swiss politician (1931-2005)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 7, 2025
Entity authorityQ119427 ↗
Source-derived summary

Paul Schmidhalter (1 December 1931 – 23 August 2005) was a Swiss politician. He was a member of the National Council of Switzerland from 1983 to 1995 and served as the President of the National Council from 1992 to 1993. He was a member of the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland.

Biography

Paul Schmidhalter was born in the town of Brig, Switzerland, now part of the municipality of Brig-Glis in the Canton of Valais, on 1 December 1931 to Leopold and Olga Schmidhalter. After he finished high school, he studied engineering at ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He operated his own civil engineering practice for a number of years.

In 1973, he was elected to the city council of Brig and the Grand Council of Valais. He held his city council seat until 1983 and his deal in the Grand Council until 1985. In 1983, he was elected to the National Council from Valais. In 1992, he was selected to the council presidency.

Editorial summary

“Paul Schmidhalter” enters the record as swiss politician (1931-2005). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paul, Schmidhalter and Swiss can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1931, 2005, 1983, 1995—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1931-01-12. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Paul, Schmidhalter and Swiss.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Paul Schmidhalter” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Paul, Schmidhalter and Swiss provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q119427. VIAF identifies the subject as 309602046. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931, 2005, 1983 and 1995.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Paul Schmidhalter”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Paul Schmidhalter primary sources, Paul Schmidhalter archive and Paul research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Paul Schmidhalter”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Paul Schmidhalter” 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.