Career
Born in Hundwil, Switzerland, he worked in the canton Appenzell and made a living as a carpenter. Afterwards he was trained in Basel as an evangelist deacon (Krankenpfleger). In 1899 he traveled to Urfa in Turkey, where he found his own place to work.
From 1915 to 1917 Künzler became an eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide, the subject of his 1921 book In the Land of Blood and Tears.
Despite mortal danger he helped provide, when he could, for thousands of Armenian orphans and resumed his hospital enterprise in Urfa. In October 1922 he closed his hospital he worked in and moved his family to Ghazir, near Beirut, where later he opened a center for orphans.
Later he established a settlement for Armenian widows in Beirut and a lung sanatorium in Azounieh. Jakob Künzler observed in August 1915: He died in Ghazir, Lebanon.
1947 award by the University of Basel 1929: In the Land of Blood and Tears.