Dutti in the lake

The most famous photo of Gottlieb Duttweiler shows him swimming in Lake Zurich wearing a hat and smoking a cigar. It was taken on the day that he celebrated Migros’ 25th anniversary with all his employees.

It is 25 August 1950, a perfectly normal Monday. But today in Migros everything stands still, because Gottlieb wants it that way. This day is the 25th anniversary of Migros, and its founder has ordered all shops to remain closed and all sales vans to remain in the depot. He wants to celebrate with the employees and has already paid them a bonus, the size of which “is determined not according to their position, but only according to their seniority”.
But today is “a great day for the Migros – a day of pleasure for the staff”. And so 4,000 come together: “Early on Monday morning, the Hotelplan special trains arrive: from Ticino the red, from Lausanne via Biel the green arrow. And other trains bring those from Geneva, Berne, Basel, and of course, the east and central parts of Switzerland.”
The target is Bürkliplatz, Zurich, from where five ships take the employees to Rüschlikon. But as the ships approach the dock, Duttweiler jumps into the lake and swims towards them. The ships start to tilt when all the employees rush to one side to see this for themselves.
No photograph of Duttweiler has become so imprinted in the collective memory as this one. It becomes the Dutti legend, and in the following week the Brückenbauer writes about the unforgettable arrival in Rüschlikon: “His face was radiant, like only the young faces which believe in the future can be radiant. How true it is that one is only as old as one feels! So old and so full of adventure. Certainly no other boss has greeted his employees as guests in such a manner!”