[4] Between 1928 and 1930, Lindt worked in banks in Paris and London,[5] something he later said himself he was not at all suited, making numerous embarrassing mistakes and costing his employers dearly.
[6] During Lindt's time in Paris, he met two Russian émigrés, André Galitzine and Boris Kaufman, and produced and financed their first film, an early social documentary short called Les Halles centralle (c.
[7] Kaufman went on to become a cinematographer who shot for Jean Vigo (L'Atalante) and helped introduce a neo-realistic style into American films, including On the Waterfront and 12 Angry Men.
[11] In 1940, following the fall of much of Europe, including France and the Netherlands, an ambiguous radio address by Swiss Federal President Marcel Pilet-Golaz was taken by many as signalling a potential weakening of the government and army's resolve in the face of what appeared to be an imminent Nazi invasion.
[14] However, whilst arranging a follow-up meeting, news of the Offiziersverschwörung [de] and its intentions accidentally got out, and several members were arrested and imprisoned, initially suspected of being part of a defeatist organization and for high treason.
Lindt, who had escaped arrest, made a direct appeal on the group's behalf to politician Hans Oprecht [de] and through him to General Guisan, the commander of the Swiss army.
In an extraordinary final move, members of the group were given direct unfettered access to General Guisan, in spite of repeated calls for their dismissal from the Federal President Pilet-Golaz.
[16] From 1941 to the end of the war, Lindt was head of the Civil Reconnaissance Service in the Heer und Haus [de] division of the Swiss Army Command.
He took part in organizing the Swiss donation for the benefit of shattered Europe and went to a devastated Berlin as a delegate for the International Red Cross (ICRC) to set up the committee's activities in the Soviet occupation zone.
In 1956 he was appointed as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the second person to hold the office after Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, and served until 1960.
In his time as High Commissioner, Lindt and his office faced several international refugee crises, including large scale exoduses caused by the Hungarian Uprising in the first few months in his post and the ongoing Algerian War.
These emerged alongside the High Commission's principal objective of resettling the 70,000 displaced people still living in 200 refugee camps across Europe following the war.
In 1957 the General Assembly formally gave the UNHCR and Lindt a wider and more flexible role to address existing 'old' refugee problems but also 'new' current ones, and no longer just in Europe but worldwide.
The international satisfaction at the UNHCR and Lindt's pragmatic approach to the Hungarian crisis led to an outbreak of goodwill which was built upon with the declaration of 1959–1960 as United Nations World Refugee Year.
Consequently, it received more recognition and support from governments such as the United States and Soviet Union for the role it could play in providing solutions across the globe.
[25] In 1968 Lindt was seconded by the Swiss government to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) following their request for him to act as their commissioner-general during the Nigerian-Biafra Civil War.
Initially deemed a great success including delivering nightly flights of relief supplies, ultimately there was culture clash between Lindt and the agency.