Where is it? Mystery surrounds Unspunnen Stone 40 years after theft

Throwing the original Unspunnen Stone in 1955 Keystone

On June 3, 1984, the Unspunnen Stone was stolen by separatists in the Swiss canton of Jura. The “political hostage” was found, but was then stolen again in 2005 – and it hasn’t been seen since.

“We would still like to have the stone back,” says Peter Michel, president of the Interlaken Gymnastics Club, which owns the stone and would like to exhibit it in a museum.

Maybe it’s in the Jura. Maybe it’s at the bottom of Lake Thun. Maybe nobody knows where he is. “There are many theories,” Michel told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA. But of one thing he is certain: “If the stone does come back, it will do so in a spectacular way.”

The stone was stolen for the first time exactly 40 years ago. The Bélier Group of young Jura separatists stole it from the Interlaken Museum of Tourism. No easy feat, as the stone weighed 83.5 kilograms.

The Unspunnen Stone is actually a competition stone that has to be thrown as far as possible. The original stone was first thrown in 1808 at the second Unspunnen Festival, which still takes place every 12 years in the town of Interlaken, near the old ruin of Unspunnen Castle, in the Bernese Alps. Without this original stone the Interlaken Gymnastics Club had to find a replacement; a similarly heavy stone was found in the Grimsel region.

Brief return

The 1808 stone was returned in 2001, apparently on a private initiative and not agreed with the Bélier Group, separatist spokesman Jonathan Gosteli told the Berner Zeitung three years ago. It was delivered rather randomly to Shawne Fielding, a model and former wife of the former Swiss ambassador in Berlin.

However, the Bélier Group, unhappy with the result of the Swiss national referendum in 1992, in which voters decided against joining the European Economic Area (EEA), had chiselled European stars and their coat of arms into it, as well as the date of the vote. The stone no longer weighed 83.5kg and was therefore no longer usable as a competition stone.

In 2005 the stone was stolen again, this time from the lobby of the Victoria-Jungfrau Hotel in Interlaken. The thieves left behind a paving stone with the Jura coat of arms painted on it. The stone has been missing ever since, and hopes for its return have regularly been raised.

Peter Michel says the last time he tried to recover the stone was in 2011 before the Unspunnen wrestling festival. In 2017, ahead of the next wrestling event, which takes place every six years, rumours were again circulating about a possible return. Interlaken Gymnastics Club was willing to talk, but the hopes remained unfulfilled.

‘Witness to history’

After Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, the first female federal councillor from the Jura, took office in 2023 – shortly before another Unspunnen wrestling festival – the gymnastics club wrote a letter to her. Michel does not know whether she replied. At least there was no movement on the matter.

Baume-Schneider told the NZZ am Sonntag last August that it was time for the people concerned to think about how and when the Unspunnen Stone would be returned. “At an institutional level, the Jura question is over,” she said. The stone remains missing.

“I’ve experienced a lot with the stone,” Michel says, adding that he thinks about it from time to time. If the stone came back, he would like to put it in a museum. “The stone is now a witness to history.”

Translated from German by DeepL/ts