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The valley had been settled long before: Celto-Roman cremation graves near Kippel attest to inhabitants since Roman times, while an Iron Age sword above Kippel and Early Bronze Age bow-and-arrow finds at the Lötschenpass reach back even further. The valley’s name itself may derive from the Celtic word loudio, meaning lead, a reference to the ancient mining near Goppenstein, where as late as 1849 an English company extracted silver-bearing lead ore.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, Alemannic settlers migrated from the Bernese Oberland over the Alpine passes into the Upper Valais. Under the barons vom Turn, German-speaking colonists cleared the valley floor of the Lonza and gave the four villages of Ferden, Kippel, Wiler and Blatten the German names they still bear today. According to legend, the “Schurten”, a small-statured aboriginal people of the valley, retreated before the advancing Alemanni into the forests on the shadow side and returned at night in wild disguise to roam their former settlements. Some see in this the origin of the famous mask tradition of the Tschäggättä. Excavations in the “Obri Wald” opposite Wiler in 1989/90 did in fact uncover a settlement dating from around 1000 to 1200, which is associated with this tradition.

Over the Lötschenpass, for centuries the most important trade route between the Upper Valais and the Bernese Oberland, the valley always remained connected to the north. From the early 14th century, Lötscher colonies in the Bernese Oberland can be traced in the records: in 1306 on the Planalp near Brienz, in 1331 in the upper Lauterbrunnen valley and on the Sefinenalp. The lords vom Turn, whose ancestral castle stood in nearby Niedergesteln at the mouth of the valley, had settled their valley folk on their Oberland estates. In 1346, these colonies passed to Interlaken Monastery. Thus a circle closed: the descendants of the Alemanni who had once migrated over the passes returned to the Bernese Oberland as “Lötscher”. From there the family spread further. Since the 15th century it has been documented in the Entlebuch region of the Canton of Lucerne.

Those who remained in the valley went their own way: after the fall of the lords vom Turn had made the Lötschental subject territory of the five upper Valais “Zenden” (districts) of Goms, Brig, Visp, Raron and Leuk, the valley folk gradually bought themselves free of the tithe dues between 1527 and 1786. In 1790, eight years before the Revolution would have brought freedom for nothing, the valley community also bought itself free of jurisdiction for a sum that was enormous for it, and in 1795 gave itself a constitution of its own. They did not wait for freedom. They acquired it.

The Lötscher who settled in Marbach in the Entlebuch, and who hold citizenship rights there to this day, are the ancestors of our family. Their journey from the mountain valley to Central Switzerland spans seven centuries. To this day the name stands for reliability and staying power, in business as in private life.

The Lötscher sign reaches back further than everyday peasant life: in its form it is a rune, a double, mirrored Man rune. The Man rune, the sign for the human being, was already interpreted by Olaus Wormius as the man “who stretches his arms to the heavens and contemplates the wonders of the stars”. That such a sign could become a house mark in a Valais mountain valley points to the origin of its bearers: the Upper Valais was settled in the early Middle Ages by immigrating Alemanni, and with them the ancient tradition of rune and kinship signs probably also came over the passes into the valleys.

In the Valais, house marks carried particular weight: notched into wooden tally sticks, they governed the water rights and alp shares of the village cooperatives. There the house mark was literally the share certificate in the common property. When peasant families began to adopt their own coats of arms from the late Middle Ages onwards, many raised their old mark onto the shield. So too the Lötscher: the mark above the trefoil attests that this coat of arms was not designed at a herald’s court but grew out of the everyday property and legal life of a Valais mountain-farming family.

That it is precisely the Man rune, the image of the human being with arms raised to the starry sky, that stands at the heart of this coat of arms is a quiet foreshadowing of its motto: per aspera ad astra, through hardship to the stars. The journey of this family from the barren mountain valley across seven centuries is held in both: in the ancient sign as in the Latin line that interprets it.

Professionally, Marcel Lötscher held leadership positions in the financial sector for many years, including as a member of the executive board of a Swiss financial group. From 2012 to 2022, he headed the Asset Management and Markets division of the Financial Market Authority (FMA) Liechtenstein and was a member of its executive board. During this time, he served for over ten years on international financial market regulation bodies, including the ESMA Board of Supervisors and the European Regional Committee of IOSCO. He subsequently led the European regulatory strategy of an international trading platform for digital assets. Since 2023, Marcel Lötscher has served as a member of the board of directors of LAWCONSULT AG, advising on corporate and legal matters. He also lectures and publishes regularly on questions of financial market law.