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The International Life Of A Swiss Hotelkeeper, Marianne Burkhard

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Among the papers of Ferdinand Sperl there is a

small black book in which he chronicled the stages of

his life from his childhood to the 1960s. This

chronicle is very interesting as it shows first, how the

son of a hotelier was thoroughly prepared for

following in his family's footsteps as a fourth

generation hotelier, and second, how his arrival in the

United States in 1939 and the Second World War led

him to an unexpected career in military intelligence

after which he returned to his career as hotelier.