Philippe Mottu

Philippe Mottu is a Swiss diplomat, author and activist born on 9 October 1913 in Geneva; he died in Lonay (Vaud) on 23 August 2010. In 1946, inspired by the American Frank Buchman, he was instrumental in the acquisition of the former Caux Palace Hotel, a dilapidated hotel above Montreux, Switzerland, by a group of about 100 Swiss, in order to create an international conference centre at the service of European reconciliation and reconstruction. He wrote a dozen of books of political and social philosophy.

The scion of an old Geneva family whose ancestor Jacques Mottu had moved to Geneva towards 1597, Philippe Mottu is the son of the pastor Henri Mottu, moderator of the « vénérable Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève », and of Marthe Mottu, née Reverdin. A graduate of the Political Science school of the Geneva University, he started his professional life in a bank. In 1933 he underwent a deep spiritual experience which led him to undertake theology studies in Lausanne. There, his Latin professor, Jules Rochat, put him in touch with the Oxford Group, soon to become Moral Rearmament (and currently Initiatives of Change). He was immediately won by the ideas and practice of the Oxford Group.

In 1935, Philippe Mottu meets for the first time Frank Buchman, the Oxford Group's founder who visits Geneva with a team in order to talk to League of Nations delegates. It is the beginning of a lifelong friendship, with its ups and downs, through which the two men will exchange abundant correspondence.

In 1938, as European nations re-armed for war, Buchman called for 'moral and spiritual re-armament' as the way to build a 'hate-free, fear-free, greed-free world'. Enthusiastic, Philippe Mottu became one of the main activists of Moral Reamament (MRA) in Switzerland. In this capacity he participated in numerous MRA actions at home and abroad, particularly the massive meeting of Palais Baulieu in Lausanne in 1937 (10’000 participants) or the international meeting of Interlaken in 1938.

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