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CO 18 D 75-1954
Baron Anton Codelli III was born in Naples,
Italy, on 22 March 1875, where his family was at
a spa retreat. His father's relatives had moved
from Gorizia to Ljubljana in the early 18th cen-
tury, while his mother was of German nobility.
MULTITALENTED
ADVENTURER
Anton grew up in Ljubljana and Vienna, where
he graduated in mechanical engineering in
1898. He briefly served in the Austrian war navy,
sailing as far as China and Japan. He was dis-
charged from the navy due to health problems
and dedicated himself to mechanical and elec-
Codelli, approx. 1930. Ilustrirani Slovenec.
trical engineering.
In 1911 he started working for Telefunken in
the German colony of Togo in West Africa. At
the start of the First World War he was captured
by the French and sent, along with his wife, first
to Porto Novo in Benin and subsequently to Al-
As a mechanical and electri-
cal engineer, Codelli was cap-
tivated by technological in-
novations and developed into
a multifaceted inventor with
many patent applications at
home and abroad. He was also a
sailor, adventurer, and even the
first Slovenian film producer.
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giers. In mid-1916 they were relocated to France.
His mother used international aristocratic con-
nections to arrange for him to be exchanged for
captured French engineers. They arrived in We-
ggis, Switzerland, where they remained until
their return to Ljubljana in August 1920.
In 1945 threats by the Communist author-
ities led him to retreat to Porto Ronco, a town
near Ascona in Switzerland, where he died on 26
April 1954.