Louis Schittly died on Wednesday January 1 in Mulhouse at the age of 86. Son of a peasant, humanist, doctor, globetrotter, anarchist, writer, great defender of the Alsatian language, Louis Schittly had a more than full life. A thousand lives.
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After having surveyed the land, having also cultivated it in his lush garden in Bernwiller (Haut-Rhin), Louis Schittly will be able to return there. A well-deserved rest. THE co-founder of Médecins sans frontières, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1999, writer, farmer, died yesterday, Wednesday January 1. He was 86 years old.
What lives. The plural is not too much for this son of a peasant who has embraced as many professions as causes. With one goal: to change the world. Born in 1938 into a peasant family in Bernwiller, marked by the consequences of the First World War, the young man wanted to become a missionary. A (love) revelation during a retreat at Mont Sainte-Odile will make him change his mind. He found his vocation: doctor. Humanitarian doctor.
After studying in Strasbourg then in Lille, immediately after graduating, he joined the Red Cross in December 1968, following a classified ad. Destiny often depends on a few things, an insert. He leaves for Biafra (West Africa). There, in the midst of the conflict, he will be confronted with the horrors of war and the deprivation of civilian populations, particularly children. He will also consider specializing in pediatrics.
On his return in 1970, eventful, thanks to the friendships made at Biafra and those that he maintains in Paris, of which, Bernard Kouchner, he participates in the creation of GIMCO (Emergency medical-surgical intervention group). GIMCU would later become MSF, Doctors Without Borders. The two men remained close throughout their lives.
His life will then be that of a “French Doctor”. He travels the world, in war zones, forgotten, bruised. Ivory Coast (1970), Viet Nam (71-72), Afghanistan (80), Mali (87), Serbia (90), South Sudan (96).
Vincent Froehly, made a documentary on Louis Schittly in 2023, “Of Earth and War”. A tribute, before its time, to his mentor met in 1983 and who would become a second father, “spiritual, spirituous, intellectual and festive”.
Above all, for me, it is the example of the free man. I don't think I know anyone who was as free as him.
Vincent Froehly, director, friend
“He was the guy I argued with, but above all for me, he was the example of a free man. I don’t think I know anyone who was as free as him. He was someone who boosted your life. Who took it. You thought that's life, that's it, cushy, and he brought relief to all that. What you may have thought impossible to do or a little complicated, with him, it became possible. Plus, he had showmanship, which is not bad for a documentary. Look, he died on January 1, 2025, it's easy to remember and I think it will help us remember him.”
History will remember him, that's for sure. In 1999, Louis Schittly won the Nobel Peace Prize for co-founding MSF and saving thousands of people.
Louis Schittly could have stopped there. Just caring for the most vulnerable. But the man with the bushy mustache has more than one trick up his sleeve.
Between two suitcases, Louis Schittly wrote four books, a testimony of his experience at MSF but also bilingual tales, and in 1975 produced a documentary, The Godmother (D'Goda). He defends, in his own Alsatian language, a peasant world as he knew it in his childhood. It is an ode to the small peasantry, to the return to the land and to self-sufficiency in opposition to a paralyzing and deadly globalization.
All over the world, it's always the same bastards who decide wars and it's always the same ones who take bombs to the face, small villagers, small farmers
“The great story of his life was the small peasantry. He came from a background of small peasants and above all, he had a kind of fascination with war and that's undoubtedly what got him taken to the war fields as a doctor She expressed himself through his trip to Biafra and Vietnam On returning, he looked at his peasant world a little differently saying, but it's true, these are. always the same bastards who decide wars and it's always the same people who get bombs on their faces, small villagers, small farmers. Everywhere they are the same victims. Hence his film D'Goda to try to warn the small farmers of his own village. At home, there are no weapons, no war, no B-52s bombing, but we are still waging war on you in another way and if we don't react, we will disappear. us, small farmers.he, the little peasant, is the free man, the only one. The one who knows how to feed himself and who doesn't need anyone else, and that's also why he has always been threatened.” explains Vincent Froehly.
On the occasion of the restoration of this documentary, we dedicated a Rund Um to it.
In Bernwiller, Louis Schittly becomes a field doctor again, “Rabbit Doctor” he said. Country doctor cultivating the land. Observing passing and farmyard birds. A committed man, always, a little angry. He also readily defined himself as an anarchist.
Doctor Schittly was no different in Alsace from what he was elsewhere, on a humanitarian mission, he was a demanding doctor who showed great tolerance for human beings
Elisabeth Halna, retired doctor, friend
Elizabeth Halna worked with him for 25 years at the Sentheim medical practice (68). She remembers a colleague, a friend, rigorous and attentive. Often out and about, always there for her. “I think that Doctor Schittly was no different in Alsace from what he was elsewhere, on a humanitarian mission, he was a demanding doctor who showed great tolerance for the human beings he took care of. When HIV arrived, he went for anonymous and free testing at the hospital and we were, at the convalescent home, one of the first places where infected patients could get quality follow-up care. pay attention to human, that's I think his main quality as a friend too. He was a faithful friend, who was never in the conventional. Faithful in joy and distress and present, very present. .”
The man does not lack spirituality either. HASalmost a lifetime Catholic practicing, he becomes atheist, then he converted to orthodoxy in 1981. He became Grégoire.
He built in his orchard in Bernwiller, a small Byzantine church dedicated to Saint Gregory the Athonite. His funeral will take place on Saturday afternoon in his native village.
Under the gaze, surely a little misty, of its patron saint. Surrounded by his friends and fervent admirers. Of which François Dangel, who will perhaps quote the words of the Alsatian poet Sylvie Reiff who had portrayed Louis Schittly so accurately. “In my eyes, you are the last universal Alsatian, peasant, free and believing, emancipated from all supervision, therefore anarchist.”
