Werner Haller was the eldest of four children from a modest family in Cham in the canton of Zug; his father was a welder of condensed milk cans in the local Nestlé factory. After the School of Transport in Lucerne, he joined the PTT, initially as a mobile agent. He worked in various post offices throughout Switzerland.
In 1938, he spent three months in Italy, sent by the PTT to learn Italian. On his return, with two of his colleagues, he made a "detour" to Libya to see the country. Finally, he applied for a job in Basel, at the district management of the Post Office. There, playing violin in a small amateur chamber orchestra, he met their pianist. They got married on April 27, 1943.
Long before the war, Werner had met people involved in what was then called the Oxford Group. Shortly after Moral Rearmament bought the Caux-Palace, the position of postal clerk in Caux was advertised. Werner applied and he and his wife moved to Caux in 1951 with their two children. In Caux, he had three passions: his post office, his immense vegetable garden and, always, music, he on the violin and his wife on the piano. For more than 25 years, he lived for and through these three passions. Later, after his wife suffered a stroke, he took care of her for 10 years.
Click here to read a longer biography in the obituary written by one of his granddaughters, Dominique Haller.
