For many years he accompanied the financial and tax policy of the canton of Zurich with reports and comments: But Rudolf Bolli also liked to write about the little things of everyday life. He died on October 25 at the age of 86.
Saying what is going on, explaining where the core of a problem lies: Rudolf Bolli.
He took it seriously, with himself and with others. Hardly any of the daily meetings in the Zurich section of the NZZ went by without Rudolf Bolli criticizing an article by a colleague. Often quite dedicated. Here an unnecessarily bombastic formulation, there a crooked metaphor, an imprecise statement or a factual error that should not have happened. Everyone waited every morning for Rolf, as he was called on the editorial board, to speak and were sometimes annoyed when he did. But you knew he was right.
His own lyrics were clear, free of frills and characterized by an effort to say what needed to be said as simply as possible, even when it was complicated. But by no means simpler than the subject at hand would allow. You could feel the teacher that he was based on his training. The pedagogical impetus also guided him as a journalist. Rolf wanted to say what’s going on. To make it clear where the core of a political problem lies. And only then to say what he himself thought of the matter.
sober look
Journalism begins with an interest in the world and people. Rolf was a curious person. And he was not only interested in the big questions of politics, but also in the little things that he observed on the street, on the way to work or during the lunch break. He often paid tribute to these in glosses or aperçus with a few concise lines. However, his special area of expertise was cantonal finance and tax policy, which he pursued for a long time as a journalist – and from 1983 to 1995 also as a cantonal councilor of the FDP.
His skill in presenting complex relationships in a comprehensible manner was demonstrated. The mechanism of financial equalization, for example, the fine details of the tax tariff or the pitfalls hidden in the billion dollar budget of the canton of Zurich, which some members of the cantonal council would never have noticed if Rolf had not pointed them out emphatically. The sober view also guided him when he accompanied the deliberations on the new canton constitution that came into force in 2005 or the debates on the privatization of the airport. The ones with the abbreviation “Bl.” drawn comments had it all. And they were feared.
The Karajan of the screen
Rolf Bolli could write bitingly. But he always focused on the matter, not himself. Years ago he told me that journalists take themselves far too seriously. Rightly so. Nevertheless, Rolf was a passionate journalist. No one was surprised when he continued to write after retirement to draw attention to things that were given too little attention or that he felt were going in the wrong direction – for example because the compass for the zeitgeist was in danger of being lost by currying favor with the spirit of the times , which was really important.
Rolf did this with articles and letters to the editor and a blog, which he ironically described as a “side blog” – there he wrote with just as much commitment as humor about everything: from apples and pears to models to Shakespeare’s plays and Georg Baselitz’ pictures. Rolf Bolli attached great importance to traditional values. But he was also a big jazz fan and was one of the early adopters. When it came to computers, he was considered an avant-gardist in the NZZ for years. His editorial colleagues jokingly called him “the Karajan of the screen”.
Rolf’s self-made projections for the cantonal elections made history in the 1990s. They were as accurate as those from the Statistical Office, but sometimes available a little quicker. That was typical of Rolf: he didn’t want to rely on what others were doing, but got to the bottom of things, precisely and critically. Because he was convinced that this was the only way he could form his own opinion. On October 25, Rudolf Bolli died at the age of 86 after a short illness.