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Harald Link

b. 1955

Born
12 Jan 1955, Basel
Country of birth
Switzerland

Living person. The family sees only the name, dates and photo; everything else stays private unless they choose to share it.

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Facts and their sources

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A life in time

  1. Born · Basel

    Birth, Basel

What was it like?

The world around Basel, 1955: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Harald was born around the same time as Hugo Chávez, Jackie Chan, and Tom Hanks.

Born around the same time

  • Hugo Chávez

    1954 · president of Venezuela (1999–2013); revolutionary and military officer

  • Jackie Chan

    1954 · Hong Kong actor and martial artist (born 1954)

  • Tom Hanks

    1956 · American actor and film producer (born 1956)

  • Martina Navratilova

    1956 · Czech-American tennis player

  • Vladimir Putin

    1952 · President of the Russian Federation

  • Angela Merkel

    1954 · chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021 (born 1954)

Fashion

Stocking support methods

During the 1950s, children often used elastic garters to hold up their knitted wool stockings, as tights only became common in the late 1950s.

Girl's clothing in Switzerland

Between 1950 and the late 1960s, girls commonly wore knee-length skirts or dresses with blouses, while trousers only became more frequent around 1970.

Music

Festival music and dance traditions

Traditional music played at festivals included the alphorn, used for mountain calls to cattle, and the bödeler, a rhythmic clog dance from Central Switzerland.

Instruments used in the home

People played diverse traditional instruments at home, such as the Toggenburg house organ, hackbrett (hammered dulcimer), violin, accordion, and halszither (a type of cittern).

Getting around

Cars became mass transport in mid-century Switzerland

In the 1950s and 1960s, the automobile became a mass transport mode, significantly expanding the travel radius of ordinary people compared to the mid-century period when most needs were met locally.

Around 1950–1950

Carriages were still used for travel in 1950

In 1950, reaching remote destinations like Our Chalet in Adelboden often required combining train travel with a local bus, followed by a horse-drawn carriage for the final leg.

Daily life

Washing could take two days

In some places, people still relied on communal laundry schedules; one testimony says it took about two days to finish washing because the shared laundry room could be used only every six weeks.

Electrification made appliances commonplace

By the 1950s, electrification let Swiss households buy and use more electric appliances, including washing machines and refrigerators, directly in their apartments and houses.

Food

Shift in Milk Consumption

Between 1950 and 1960, Switzerland shifted from raw milk consumption toward specialized products like yogurt, cream, and pasteurized milk.

Around 1945–1949

War created the Ragusa chocolate bar

After the war, the popular Ragusa chocolate bar was created by stretching limited cocoa supplies with nuts imported from Italy.

Prices and wages
Around 1959–1959

Worker household income and expenses, 1959

In 1959, the average annual income for a husband in a Zurich worker household was around 11,100 francs, with about 1,560 francs spent on clothing for the entire family. Families often supplemented their income with home gardens for vegetables and fruit.

Around 1950–1950

Gasoline versus bread prices in 1950

In 1950, one liter of gasoline in Switzerland cost 62 rappen, which was more expensive than a kilogram of brown bread. A skilled worker could earn no more than the equivalent of 4.5 liters of gasoline per hour.

Work
Around 1954–1954

Demanding conditions for domestic workers

In 1954, domestic service contracts could legally require a 15-hour workday and a six-day workweek, with only eight hours of rest allowed per week.

Around 1950–1950

Long working hours in the 1950s

In 1950, the average working year was 2,400 hours, compared to 1,600 hours today, with the typical work week lasting nearly 50 hours.

News and letters

Apprentices memorized complex postal geography

To cope with sorting, apprentices had to memorize the entire geography of Swiss post offices, a challenging skill known as Pöstlergeographie.

Daily mail volume doubled in fifteen years

Between 1949 and 1964, the number of letters processed in Switzerland doubled to eight million per day.

During their lifetime

  1. 1959

    Magic formula government established

    In 1959, the four largest political parties adopted the magic formula to permanently divide the seven government seats among themselves.

  2. 1971

    Women gain voting rights

    Women were granted the right to vote in federal elections for the first time in 1971.

  3. 1980

    Zurich youth riots erupt

    In May 1980, youth riots erupted in Zurich against city funding for the opera house, triggering a wave of similar protests across Swiss cities.

Family

Spouses