This is Part 5 of a five-part series on the Sommerfeld family, tracing the later life of Yvonne Sommerfeld and her son Edgar.
Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here.
We now turn to the central figure in this long traverse through the Sommerfeld family—Yvonne Sommerfeld. It was her interactions with Josef Jakobs and Werner Adolf Goldstein in 1934 that first piqued my curiosity. Was this mysterious woman from Nice, France, even real? Was she involved with the French Intelligence Service, as Josef had suspected? Let’s see what the Swiss Archives have to say.
Early Life
Alice Yvonne Sommerfeld was born 6 June 1906 (some documents say 6 July or 7 June) in Bremgarten, near Bern. At the time of her birth, her father, Georg, was transitioning from a dubious career as a silk merchant to one as a book-seller. Her mother, Marie, took care of the two children, Margarete (born 1901) and now Yvonne. We know very little of Yvonne’s early years, but it seems likely that she went to school and, as she got older, perhaps helped her father in his bookshop and publishing firm. The family’s relatively stable life was turned upside down in 1923 when Georg declared bankruptcy, and the family moved to Geneva.
A Single Mother
The next decade leaves few documentary traces, but by the early 1930s Yvonne was no longer living a settled life. On 6 April 1934, she gave birth to a son, Edgar Sylvain Sommerfeld, in Nice, France. Initially, Yvonne refused to acknowledge him, but when the boy was 3 or 4 years old, she took him back to Switzerland. This little vignette, from a later file on Edgar, is extremely perplexing. Did she leave the child with the midwife or an institution? Why did she come back and accept him as her own? The Swiss files do not explain the circumstances, leaving us with many unanswered questions. It is clear, however, that Yvonne was struggling. She was an unwed mother and the father of the boy was never acknowledged.
French Intelligence Service Agent?
A few months after giving birth, Yvonne was living in Geneva at Chemin de Moillebeau with her father and interacting with Werner and Josef. According to later contemporary news reports, Werner led investors to believe that Georg Sommerfeld had offered to pay Werner CHF 60,000 if he married his daughter, Yvonne. While Josef thought that Yvonne and Werner were romantically involved, it is unlikely that Werner or Josef were involved in conceiving Edgar, as there is no evidence that either was in Switzerland or France the previous year. Josef suspected that Yvonne was connected with the French Intelligence Service, but provided no evidence for his suspicions. He claimed that Werner had denounced Yvonne to the Swiss authorities who suspected her of hostile activities against Switzerland. I haven’t found anything that would confirm that, although, given that it’s the intelligence service, one would be unlikely to find such documents easily. Josef did seem to imply that Yvonne moved between Geneva and Nice quite regularly and gave her address in Nice as Rue des Fleurs 5. He also stated that he and Werner were initially arrested because of their association with Yvonne. That seems unlikely, as elsewhere Josef states that it was the discovery of the fraudulent gold that triggered their arrest.
At the same time, developments in Yvonne’s immediate family further complicated matters. In 1936, Yvonne’s unwed sister Margarete gave birth to a little girl, Evelyne. Unlike Yvonne, who refused to disclose (or did not know?) the identity of her child’s father, Margarete eventually married Meier Gaston Frank Gundelfinger, a stateless Jew who had fled the Saarland in 1933, seeking refuge in France. Under Swiss law, a woman lost her own citizenship when she married, and took on that of her husband. Upon her marriage to Gaston in France, Margarete essentially became stateless. Little Evelyne’s own citizenship was a bit of a muddle, given that when she was born in Switzerland, Gaston wasn’t officially her father.
By 1938, Yvonne seems to have been working as a commercial traveler, often in the company of her father. What they sold, and to whom, is unknown. But it is here that we begin to see a pattern forming. On 2 August 1938, Yvonne was listed in the Swiss Police Gazette, being sought by the Ticino police for fraud in Lugano. This sort of police notice would show up over and over again with the Sommerfelds: stay in hotels and leave without paying. It was a modus operandi that would eventually catch up with them.
A Swiss Liferaft in a Time of War
As war consumed most of Europe, the Sommerfelds clung to their safety in Switzerland. Margarete and Evelyne, who had been living in France with Gaston, managed to sneak into Switzerland shortly before the Germans overran Paris. They moved in with their father for a time, but with Yvonne and Edgar also in residence, it was a tight fit.
In March 1940, Yvonne’s name appeared in the Swiss Police Gazette again. This time she was sought, along with her father and mother, for pension fraud “involving a large sum” in Zurich. Yvonne and Georg were both listed as commercial travelers. The notice also included a Berta Josephine Wyss (b 20 November 1883), possibly an aunt, who was unfortunate enough to be sucked into their orbit. The warrant was resolved a week later (perhaps they were located or arrested). The following month, the outstanding 1938 police notice on Yvonne, for fraud in Lugano, was also resolved.
While Georg and Yvonne were commercial travelers, Margarete was caught in a difficult position; as a stateless refugee, she struggled to support herself and Evelyne. Yvonne seems to have no such trouble, providing a slightly more stable home environment for Edgar, although the Swiss authorities did not agree. An August 1943 child welfare report on Evelyne noted that the Sommerfeld household was dirty and slovenly. The family was loud and disruptive to the neighbours. Edgar and Evelyne were often out on the street where the other children were afraid of them. The living situation was unstable, however, and Margarete and Evelyne began to stay in hotels where they left without settling the bills.
By 19 December 1945, Yvonne was living with her father (and Edgar) near Lausanne and sent a letter inviting Margarete and Evelyne to visit them for the holidays. It seems likely that Margarete and Evelyne took up Yvonne’s offer. The following April, Yvonne wrote to the child refugee agency that was supporting Evelyne, and said that the girl was living with her, that she had a garden for the child to play in, and that the support money could be sent to her. Local child welfare authorities, who went to investigate, however, reported that neither Yvonne nor her father had time to care for the child, and that she was “completely neglected”.
Within a few years, Yvonne’s domestic instability was compounded by a new factor: her association with Harald Tobler, which brought her into direct and sustained contact with Swiss criminal and consular authorities.
1949: Fraud in Italy
In 1948, Harald Tobler (born 1 February 1920 in Signau/BE) emerged as a central figure in Yvonne’s life. He was unlikely to be Edgar’s father—having been only 13 at the time of the boy’s conception—and he had his own family, having married Mina Schlup in 1942. While Tobler was ostensibly a businessman, official records from late 1948 depict a man in constant legal flight.
From April to July 1948, Yvonne had been traveling with her father in Switzerland, with their most recent stay at the Grand Hotel St. Gotthard in Lucerne. At some point, she met Harald, who recruited her as an interpreter for a business trip to Italy. The business trip clearly morphed into something far longer than Yvonne, or her father, had expected. A few months later, a Swiss Police Gazette notice stated that Yvonne was “missing”. It remains unclear whether the ‘missing’ notice was a result of her father’s concern or the authorities’ inability to serve her with warrants. Regardless, the trio—a married businessman, his unmarried “interpreter,” and her teenage son—made for a conspicuous presence as they moved through the hotels of Northern Italy.
Fraud in Lugano & Milan
On 21 October 1948 the Ticino police issued an arrest warrant for Tobler, following a CHF 700 hotel fraud at the Albergo Dante in Lugano. He was simultaneously being sought by Bern authorities for “violation of maintenance obligations” (possibly a failure to provide child support). Yvonne was quickly pulled into this legal wake. By 9 November, the Ticino police published a residence inquiry for Yvonne and Edgar Sylvain, accusing her of a CHF 491.70 fraud in Lugano.
By March 1949, Tobler and Sommerfeld were in Milan, Italy, just south of Lugano. On 7 March, Tobler rented a Fiat 1100 from Bino Bricarello of Milan, stating he was traveling to Prato in Tuscany and would return the car by 12 March. He failed to do so, citing mechanical problems and promising payment that did not arrive. Although he sent a partial payment of 100,000 lire and requested to continue the rental, Bricarello refused, explaining the car was provisionally registered and had to be returned. When Tobler suggested Bricarello retrieve the car himself, the frustrated owner turned to the police.
While still in possession of the unreturned car, Tobler and Sommerfeld appeared at the Swiss Consulate in Florence on 23 March 1949. Though Yvonne successfully requested a passport extension, the Consul General immediately notified Swiss police of their location. Consular officials warned the pair that they faced arrest if they failed to settle their outstanding debts.
This diplomatic pressure likely forced a temporary retreat. In mid-April 1949, Tobler finally returned the Fiat to Bricarello in Milan, though he characteristically disputed the final amount owed. Shortly thereafter, in early May, the couple sent substantial payments through the Consulate to settle their 1948 Lugano debts—CHF 700 from Tobler and CHF 495 from Sommerfeld.
Fraud in Prato
Tobler’s difficulties in Italy continued. In mid-June, a hotel and garage in Prato filed complaints over unpaid bills. The manager of the Albergo Stella d’Italia had housed Harald and Yvonne for three months and, after paying regularly, they had stopped settling their account, which quickly rose to 145,000 lire. When the manager learned they were preparing to leave town, he filed the official complaint. Similarly, Renato Palmerini, a garage owner in Prato, had repaired Tobler’s Fiat 1500 and was owed about 110,000 lire.
Tobler’s car was seized under Italian law, which treated unpaid lodging debts as fraud, and the case was reported in local Italian newspapers. Consular correspondence describes a consistent pattern: Tobler and Sommerfeld lived well, stayed in prominent hotels, traveled with a large dog, and spent freely—while repeatedly falling behind on payments. A consular official described Tobler as not a hardened criminal, but a man living beyond his means. After securing a private loan, Tobler was able to pay off his debts and get his car back. Whether he ever repaid the private lender is unknown.
Fraud in Bergamo
The couple then relocated to Bergamo, where unpaid obligations followed. In February 1950, the manager of the Grand Hotel Moderno & Ristorante informed the Swiss Consulate that Tobler had abandoned personal belongings as collateral for an unpaid bill and could no longer be reached, forcing the hotel to sell the items to recover its losses.
Whether Yvonne was ever the secret agent Josef Jakobs suspected remains unproven. However, the archives reveal a woman who was certainly an expert in the ‘underground’ world of identity evasion and cross-border flight—possessing the fluency in French, German, and Italian, and the “commercial traveler” cover story, that such a life would require. But while Yvonne and Harald navigated these shadows, the impact on the next generation was becoming clear. At 14 years old, Yvonne’s son, Edgar, lived an unsettled life centered around high-end hotels and constant travel, likely precluding any formal schooling. While this itinerant lifestyle allowed the Yvonne and Harald to avoid immediate imprisonment through careful negotiation with authorities, the lack of stability would eventually have long-term consequences. As Yvonne’s presence in Swiss files begins to fade, the focus shifts toward Edgar’s own emerging legal record.
Edgar Sommerfeld: An Unraveling Life
By the early 1950s, Edgar Sommerfeld was already well known to Swiss child-welfare authorities. They had first placed Edgar in corrective care in 1949, beginning with a short stay at the Selnau Boys’ Home (25 July–22 August 1949), followed by transfer to the rural reformatory Schloss Kefikon on 22 August 1949. From the start, institutional reports were bleak. A detailed Selnau assessment described Edgar as compliant to the point of servility, unable to maintain basic norms of behaviour, and profoundly shaped—so the staff believed—by “simple-minded relatives” who idolized him, undermined discipline, and competed for his loyalty with gifts, tobacco, food parcels, and promises of rescue. The family saw the boy as the offspring of a great lineage. In the home’s view, Edgar was spoiled, morally neglected, and being actively destabilized by family interference.
1950-1952: Escape to Belgium
That pattern quickly became visible in practice. On 16 March 1950, Edgar escaped from Kefikon, crossed illegally into France, then returned to Switzerland, where he stayed briefly with his grandfather Georg Sommerfeld and an aunt. He then made his way to Bern, where police apprehended him and returned him to Selnau. By 13 April 1951, the 17-year-old Edgar was back at Selnau Boys’ Home. Reports from this period describe him as “slimy and pitiable,” boasting about a “wonderful free life” while openly discussing venereal disease and recounting sexual experiences to other boys despite explicit instructions not to do so.
Only days later, on 18 April 1951, Edgar was given a small outdoor work assignment. He spoke of wanting to become “a decent person.” Minutes later, he climbed the iron fence and escaped once again. This time, however, he also stole a suit and coat from a former roommate, valued at CHF 170. He was no longer just a fugitive; he was now a thief. Selnau staff concluded that Edgar suffered from severe moral neglect, an aversion to work, and could only be rehabilitated in a closed institution—provided, they emphasized, that his relatives were kept at a distance.
Instead, family ties continued to shape events. The Swiss authorities thought that Edgar had likely received help from his grandfather, Georg Sommerfeld, and that he was either in northern France or in Belgium. Officials later tracked down Yvonne Sommerfeld and Harald Tobler in Antwerp in November 1951, but both refused to disclose Edgar’s whereabouts. The guardian viewed both as a profoundly negative influence on the boy and described their life as unstable and opaque. Edgar, he warned, was not being encouraged toward work or discipline, but exposed to the “temptations of urban life.”
By late summer and autumn 1952, Swiss consular authorities were actively involved. Despite assumptions that Edgar had moved on with his mother and Tobler to Stuttgart, Germany, Belgian police confirmed that he was still in Antwerp, living alone at Pension Van Daele, with his board paid in advance by his mother. Under the 1900 Swiss-Belgian agreement on the restitution of minors, Swiss officials pressed for his repatriation.
The effort succeeded. In November 1952, Edgar was arrested in Antwerp, placed under Belgian child protection and aliens police supervision, and formally handed over to Swiss authorities. On 10 November 1952, accompanied by his guardian Carlo Grassi, Edgar was repatriated to Zurich on a temporary passport issued solely for the return journey. Travel costs were charged to Swiss federal offices.
By the time he crossed back into Switzerland, Edgar was no longer simply a troubled adolescent. He was a minor known to multiple welfare institutions, juvenile prosecutors, police forces, and consulates—his movements shaped as much by institutional failure and family resistance as by his own repeated acts of flight.
1953: A Vagrant in Paris
Less than a year later, Edgar was on the run again. On 7 September 1953, he escaped from the Education Home of Montagne-de-Dièsse. He then burgled a château in the Bernese Jura and crossed the frontier at Basel, presumably on foot. He was apprehended by the police in Haut-Rhin who ordered him to return to Switzerland. Instead, he went to Toulouse where he was refused French residency. Undeterred, he hitchhiked to Paris where he was arrested on 13 October. He initially told the police that he was German, then Belgian, before finally admitting he was born 6 April 1934 in Nice of an unacknowledged father and a Swiss mother. He was sentenced to 6 weeks in prison at La Santé for violation of immigration law.
After being released on 26 November 1953, Edgar showed up at the Swiss Legation in Paris, requesting financial assistance. The Swiss Legation refused to repatriate him and extradition was also denied. The Swiss felt that it was up to the French police to escort Edgar to the border. The French police, however, had neither the personnel, nor the money to escort Edgar, nor the many other young men in similar situations. The Swiss authorities noted that many of these young men were abandoned on the streets of Paris where they were exposed to successive imprisonments, convictions for vagrancy and pressure to enlist in the Foreign Legion. Edgar was lucky, in that his mother intervened and managed to get him repatriated to Switzerland.
1958: Swiss or French?
Edgar’s movements continued to surface sporadically in official files. Whether he was again physically present in France by 1958 is unclear; what is clear is that he had again attracted the attention of French authorities.
On 30 October 1958, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to the Swiss Embassy in France, asking for clarity on Edgar Sylvain Sommerfeld’s nationality. Edgar, born in Nice to a Swiss mother and an unnamed father, told French authorities his mother had not initially recognized him. It was only when he was three or four years old that she took him back to Switzerland with her. Edgar claimed to possess Swiss nationality. A couple of months later, the Swiss Federal Office for civil status confirmed that Edgar was a citizen of the municipality of Bremgarten/BE (i.e. he was Swiss). They also noted that he was under guardianship in Zurich (at the age of 24).
This is an interesting piece of information, as Edgar had officially become an adult at the age of 20. Why was he still under guardianship in Zurich at the age of 24? This would suggest that his problems were much bigger than juvenile delinquency and youthful hijinks. Under the Swiss Civil Code of 1907, guardianship could be extended indefinitely for reasons of “mental illness” or “prodigality” (spending money recklessly). The records from the following decade suggest that, in Edgar’s case, it was a volatile combination of both.
1963: A Vagrant in Sicily
In May 1963, 29-year-old Edgar Sommerfeld fled Sanatorium Kilchberg, a psychiatric institution near Zurich. His escape from clinical care immediately triggered the very cycle the guardianship was designed to manage: aimless flight followed by financial collapse. By mid-September, he had drifted to Sicily, where he was found stranded in Catania without money or identification. On 19 September, the Swiss Consul in Catania telegrammed the Federal Police in Bern to request emergency travel documents and repatriation funds. Although the Guardianship Authority approved the costs, they required Edgar to sign an obligation to repay the debt.
The initial attempt to return him failed. On 21 September, the Consulate issued Edgar a temporary passport and a train ticket to Chiasso. Instead of boarding the train, Edgar tore up both the passport and the ticket and disappeared. Three days later, on 24 September, he was arrested in Ragusa while wandering the streets without means of support. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying an illegal knife and a Norwegian sailor’s passport belonging to an “Edvard Larsen.”
Italian authorities charged Edgar with identity deception, passport theft, vagrancy and carrying a weapon. Following his provisional release, the Ministry of the Interior nonetheless ordered his immediate expulsion. The Swiss Consulate intervened again, providing a new temporary passport and travel funds.
On 30 September 1963, Edgar departed Catania under Italian police escort. He was transported by train through Rome, Florence, and Milan to the Swiss frontier at Chiasso. There, he was handed over to the Swiss border police, who delivered him to his legal guardian in Zurich, Mr. Walser.
The 1963 Sicily episode illustrates an established pattern in Edgar’s life: fleeing institutions, aimless travel, and petty criminality. His mental state, characterized by the Swiss Consul as “fragile,” led to behaviour which required constant diplomatic and financial intervention from the Swiss state.
1972: Child Abduction
By 1971, Edgar was living at Florastrasse 26 in Zurich with his wife, Antonia (née Laurieri), and their daughter, Silvia. Despite his employment as a chasseur (bellboy or porter), his life remained marked by the same instability seen a decade earlier.
On 29 December 1971—one day after Silvia’s third birthday—Edgar disappeared from the family apartment with the child. Antonia reported them missing that same day, informing authorities that Edgar had withdrawn the entire balance of CHF 10,000 from Silvia’s savings book before fleeing. She expressed grave concern that Edgar was incapable of caring for the child and that her upbringing was “endangered” by his impulsive flight.
Antonia suspected Edgar intended to leave Switzerland for Israel or Greece. His movement was tracked via postcards he sent back to Zurich. On 30 December 1971, he sent a card from Innsbruck, Austria, stating that they would stay there for two or three days before heading to Yugoslavia. A couple of weeks later, on 12 January, a second postcard arrived from Venice, Italy.
Given the potential for international transit, the Swiss government issued notices to embassies in Belgrade, Athens, and Tel Aviv, providing precise descriptions of the pair: three-year-old Silvia, with her long dark brown hair and red wool coat, and Edgar, dressed in a green suit and a camel-coloured winter coat.
The search ended abruptly on 6 February 1972, when Edgar and Silvia returned to Zurich from Italy. The records do not indicate whether the CHF 10,000 was recovered or if legal or psychiatric consequences followed this five-week abduction, but the episode reaffirmed the “chaotic” lifestyle noted by officials in his earlier years.
Epilogue
If the Sommerfeld clan really did express the hope that Edgar was the offspring of a great lineage, they were sorely disappointed. Georg died on 30 July 1953, and his absence was likely felt deeply by Edgar who, authorities believe, was always being supported by his grandfather. Without that support, Edgar ended up destitute on the streets of Paris and Sicily. We don’t know what became of Edgar after 1972, nor of little Silvia.
Harald Tobler passed away on 12 December 1994 in Riehen at the age of 74. His surname in Find-a-Grave is Tobler-Sommerfeld, suggesting they had eventually formalized their relationship. Similarly, when Yvonne passed way in 1996 in Riehen, she was listed as Tobler-Sommerfeld. We know nothing of their later life.
And so ends the saga of the Sommerfeld clan, leaving their legacy to two granddaughters. Evelyne escaped the family’s instability by moving to Canada, where she married and raised a family. Whether Silvia was able to do the same—to carve a semblance of normality out of a childhood rooted in chaos—remains a mystery. One can only hope she found the stability that eluded her father and grandmother for so long.
Post Script
This family saga unfolded alongside Switzerland’s now-infamous Verdingkinder system, where children from “socially precarious” families were forcibly placed in farms or institutions. While Edgar and Evelyne’s placements were triggered by the family’s nomadic fraud and “moral neglect” rather than simple poverty, they were nonetheless caught in a system designed to strip away familial influence in favour of state-mandated discipline.
Sources
Swiss Archives files – available online
Swiss Newspaper Archives – available online
Ancestry – genealogical documents & photographs
Stephan H. (son of Evelyne) – personal correspondence
Header Image – generated by Gemini AI