The Swiss & the Nazis: How the Alpine Republic Survived in the Shadow of the Third Reich

394 Pages·2006·4.05 MB·English

by  Stephen P. Halbrook

Published by
CASEMATE

Copyright © 2006 Stephen P. Halbrook

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers. For additional information contact Casemate
Publishers, 908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083.

ISBN 1-932033-42-4

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I: A WAR OF WORDS AND NERVES
1. The Eyes of German Intelligence

2. Hanging Hitler in Satire

3. Counterattack of the Newsreels

Part II: PREPARING FOR INVASION
4. I Was a Militia Soldier Then

5. Blitzkrieg 1940

6. Switzerland Is a Porcupine

Part III: STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL: FOOD, FUEL, AND FEAR
7. The Spirit of Resistance

8. Gas Masks and Potato Bread: An Oral History

9. The “J” Stamp, the Lifeboat, and Refugees

Part IV: ESPIONAGE AND SUBVERSION
10. The Consequences of Encirclement
11. Intruders in Our Midst

12. America’s Window on the Reich: Allen Dulles in Bern

Conclusion
Source Notes

Bibliography
I
NTRODUCTION

By every strategic rationale, Switzerland should have fallen to the Nazis in
World War II. She lies directly exposed on the German border, and during the
course of the war became completely surrounded by the Axis powers. The
majority of her people are ethnically German, and her population was
outnumbered by the Axis at least thirty to one. While the Swiss Alps were
eminently defensible, the north of the country, containing most of its population
and industry, was relatively flat and easily accessible to mechanized forces. As a
landlocked nation in the heart of Europe, Switzerland was beyond the reach of
potential allies.
Further, to Adolf Hitler, political neutrality meant nothing, and national
borders were no obstacle to his Wehrmacht. Pre-war Nazi theorists drew up
maps that depicted Switzerland’s obliteration, most of it incorporated into
Germany with smaller parts designated for client states along ethnic lines. By
1940, every country surrounding Switzerland was either a member of the Axis or
under Nazi rule. The Wehrmacht finalized plans for blitzkrieg attacks against
Switzerland.
But Switzerland was not overrun. Its army hunkered down at the border and
in its Alpine fortresses, swearing to exact a high price in blood from any invader.
The Nazis constantly sought opportunities to subvert and to strike, but dissuaded
by Swiss resistance and skillful Swiss diplomacy, and with overwhelming
distractions elsewhere, the opportune time to wreak destruction never came.
The reasons for Switzerland’s survival in World War II are several, and in the
final analysis the gigantic scale of the Nazi war in Russia, which began in June
1941, holds first place. If Hitler had achieved the quick victory over the Soviet
Union that he expected, traditional Swiss courage, along with the country’s
elaborate defensive preparations, would have been overwhelmed by brute force.
Instead, as the war seesawed back and forth in the East, and later in the West, the
Swiss were left with a waiting game, their mobilizations timed against each rise
of Axis fortunes, the Swiss themselves never knowing when a Wehrmacht
onslaught would finally be launched.
Switzerland’s policy of deterrence took three major forms. The first consisted
of its unique military system, in which every able-bodied man served in the army
and was well trained in firearms. This allowed Switzerland to field a greater
percentage of its population than other countries, and far more than the other
small states that had fallen to Hitler. Second, and less well known, is the fact that
the Swiss wired their infrastructure, particularly their transportation system—
bridges, rails, and their strategically vital Alpine tunnels—informing the
Germans that it would be destroyed the minute an invasion began. Though the
cost of such destruction would have been incalculable to the country itself, the
Germans were left with no doubt that the Swiss would go to any lengths to defy
an invader, even to the point of devastating their own country.
The third primary form of deterrence was improvised during the war by
commander-in-chief of the Swiss Army Henri Guisan, after the fall of France
resulted in German panzers arrayed along the country’s exposed western border.
In 1940 Guisan decided to negate the tactics and machinery of Nazi blitzkrieg by
moving the bulk of Swiss forces to a fortified zone in the Alps called the Réduit
National (National Redoubt). Involving a massive movement of troops as well as
a colossal construction enterprise, this strategy meant that, henceforth, German
armor and airpower would be useless against Switzerland’s main forces. Instead
of a quick war using mobile tactics, the Wehrmacht would be faced with a
protracted struggle amid the Alps, with Swiss marksmen and hidden artillery
emplacements pre-targeting every narrow approach.
These measures, along with others taken by the Swiss, both spiritual and
material, succeeded in deterring Hitler in his desire to absorb the Alpine
Republic, until in the end the Nazis themselves were destroyed by more
powerful outside forces.
The result was that there was no Holocaust in Switzerland, no slave labor,
and no seizure of Swiss machinery or transit systems for unrestrained Nazi use.
The thousands of refugees who found shelter in Switzer land were never
stigmatized, much less deported to the death camps of the Reich. Switzerland
was and is a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious democracy with a tradition
of tolerance. Nazi Ger many, with its institutional racism and leadership cult,
represented everything the Swiss abhorred.
Given her geographical location at the heart of central Europe, as well as her
multilinguistic composition, Switzerland’s neutrality had been codified in
European councils as early as 1515. Once considered the foremost warriors of
Europe (and drawn upon for centuries afterward as mercenaries) the Swiss
received ratification by the international Treaty of Vienna after the Napoleonic
Wars as comprising an independent confederation that should take no part in
future European wars. Thus, Switzer land adopted political neutrality as the
primary principle of her foreign policy, through the Franco-Prussian War and
World War I, until her concept of armed neutrality was put to the ultimate test in
the 1940s, when she found herself surrounded by Axis forces. During this period
the Swiss, standing fast to their independence, were called upon to duplicate the
courage of their forebears.
In a December 1944 memo to Anthony Eden, a supremely circumspect
Winston churchill wrote: “of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right to
distinction…. She has been a democratic State, standing for freedom in self-
defense among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our
side.”1
Led by General Henri Guisan, the Swiss armed forces spent the war prepared
to resist invasion at any cost. When General Guisan died in 1960, the largest and
most magnificent wreath was sent by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was
then President of the United States. Five years earlier, Eisenhower had occasion
to review a company of Swiss troops and wrote: “Rarely in my military
experience have I had the opportunity to see a more perfectly trained unit.”2
Switzerland was the centuries-old “Sister Republic” of the United States, and her
ubiquitous military force—in which every male was armed and trained as a
marksman—enjoyed a unique reputation.
Allen Dulles, head of America’s spy network operating against Germany
from his base in Switzerland during World War II, wrote: “At the peak of its
mobilization Switzerland had 850,000 men under arms or standing in reserve, a
fifth of the total population…. That Switzerland did not have to fight was thanks
to its will to resist and its large investment of men and equipment in its own
defense. The cost to Germany of an invasion of Switzer land would certainly
have been very high.”3 German intelligence reports indicate with grim clarity
that Switzerland would not roll over and capitulate like other neutrals, and even
some of the Allies. The Swiss, as in the tradition of their famed mercenary
regiments, would fight to the death.
Today, it is easy to criticize Switzerland for remaining neutral throughout the
war. Why did the Swiss not join the Allied military campaigns against
Germany? What about Swiss commerce, including manufactured exports and
coal and food imports from Germany? Why were not all refugees at the Swiss
border admitted? By holding fast to its independence, did the Swiss
confederation somehow prolong the war?
These were the charges that suddenly emerged some fifty years after World
War II had ended and which quickly gained public currency, even though they
were based on carefully chosen anecdotes or highly selective interpretations of
the record. The charges reflected very little in-depth knowledge of the realities
of the war, the positions taken by the Allies, or the options available to
Switzerland. Most importantly, the accusations failed to take into consideration
the patriotic nature of the wartime Swiss, whose army was determined to resist
aggression.
Sparking the charges were lawsuits filed in New York in the mid-1990s
claiming that, after the war ended, Swiss banks refused to pay the dormant
accounts of Holocaust victims to survivors. The banks responded that the
deposits were paid to all persons who provided evidence of legal entitlement.
(Switzerland has never had escheat laws, which allow the government to
confiscate money in dormant accounts after a specified number of years.) After a
negative politico-media campaign and the threat of a financial boycott, but no
judicial trial of any of the claims, two large commercial Swiss banks agreed to
pay $1.25 billion.4 The Swiss National Bank, supported by an overwhelming
majority of the Swiss public, refused to take part.
The merits of these charges against banks and financiers will not be reviewed
here, but rather, the history of the Swiss people’s clear determination during
World War II to remain independent and preserve their democratic institutions.
At this writing, the wartime generation is passing, but their living memories and
their firsthand knowledge of real-life conditions in Switzerland during the war
remain invaluable. Life then was not easy and neither were the choices. The
Federal government in Bern had the difficult task of restraining the Swiss press
—in fact, the defiant nature of the entire country—so as not to provoke a Nazi
onslaught. Many civilians feared an invasion, but there were also thousands of
young men trained in marksmanship, stationed in carefully prepared positions,
who thought to themselves, “Let them come.” It is difficult to relate the
complete story of Switzerland in World War II, but reviewing the firsthand
experiences of the country’s own wartime generation, as well as German
archives that contain the Nazis’ attack plans, is essential.
This author sought to bring some balance to the historical record in English
with the publication of Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World