Swiss and the Nazis

by Stephen Halbrook

  Like Müller, Schmid also recalls Allied bombers crashlanding in the area. “One day, I was on military duty having lunch, and we heard planes,” says Schmid with a smile. “An American plane had run out of gas, and the airmen had parachuted out. I rushed to one of them and said, ‘You are in Switzerland, not Germany!’ He replied, ‘I shaved this morning to be here!’”

  Armin Camenisch, who was born in 1933, recollects: “We boys in Chur did not go to the air raid shelters, but instead often watched the fleets of American B-17 and B-24 bombers and the attacking German fighters which flew overhead.

  “Once I saw a B-17 pursued by German Me-109 fighters, which looked like a swarm of bees. I saw black smoke—the B-17 was hit. The airmen bailed out, and I ran to the crash site. Another boy was watching from a tree and jumped out just in time, as the wing of the downed plane hit the tree, and German planes machine-gunned the area.13

  “On November 16, 1944, at the town of Malix, I saw a B-24 crash. I later learned that it had originated in Italy, was hit by flak while bombing Munich, and had engine trouble. I saw the crippled plane circling alone over Chur with two engines out. I later met airman John Stevens, who said that none of the crew had ever parachuted before. They were scared, saw beautiful scenery and snow, and crash-landed. All 11 crewmen survived.

  “The Swiss Home Guard appeared with rifles. The Americans thought they were dead and cried, ‘Please don’t shoot!’ The Home Guard did not know who the Americans were, but one soldier said ‘Schweizer,’ and then the Americans knew they were in Switzerland. The only Swiss there who spoke English was a young girl. The pilot gave her his parachute, and her mother later made blouses from it! They were all reunited on a visit in 1998.

  “One plane bombed Augsburg, Germany, was hit, and crashlanded in this area. Three of a crew of 10 survived, one of whom was Norris King of Denver, whose parachute opened just as he hit a tree! He still visits here.” The plane had been hit again by Swiss antiaircraft guns. While many believe that the Swiss intentionally missed American planes—and that may have been true in some cases—it was official policy to shoot at intruding aircraft that refused orders to land. Eventually the rule was relaxed so that gunners needn’t fire on single planes but only formations of three or more—action demanded by the laws of neutrality.

  Debris from the many crashes is still scattered throughout this region of Switzerland. Camenisch and this author visited a farm where a B-17 engine had hit behind the barn. The elderly man and woman living in the house told us the story. Anything useful, particularly engines, was retrieved by the locals and used for farm work or other purposes. One scavenger retrieved a Browning machine gun from a B-24 crash site, kept it for 40 years, and gave it to one of this author’s interviewees.

  Not all the planes that crash-landed in eastern Switzerland were Allied, of course. Camenisch recalls: “A German plane with three deserters landed. I saw them come out. In Chur, there were internee camps of Polish and German soldiers. I once brought a German soldier home for a visit. My parents scolded me, exclaiming: ‘Never bring anyone in a German uniform to our home!’

  “The Germans had political party meetings at two or three hotels. There was strict control in the German community. They observed one another. People were intimidated by the Germans. The Nazis had name lists. Father often said not to talk to certain people.”

  Even while interned, the Germans were viewed by the public as dangerous. It was very different with the American internees.

  Between 1943 and 1945, 166 American planes landed or crashed in Switzerland. Allied planes came to Switzerland as a place of refuge after being damaged in battle or because of spent fuel or mechanical failure. Some 1,742 Americans, mostly airmen, would be safely interned in Switzerland during the war.14

  The circumstances, plight and exploits of the American airmen who crash-landed in Switzerland are beyond the scope of this study. The subject has been exhaustively covered elsewhere, particularly in Stephen Tanner’s Refuge from the Reich: American Airmen and Switzerland during World War II and Fredy Peter’s Jump Boys, Jump. 15

  The U.S. Airmen were interned and cared for by the Swiss according to international law. Many escaped, often with Swiss connivance, to continue the fight. Others were unable to do so. Today, many of the survivors are members of the Swiss Internees Association. There are less than 600 alive today.

  The American airmen who were officers were interned at the Palace Hotel in Davos. This author stayed at this elegant establishment, now renamed the Hotel Europe, in 2000. Given the size of the German colony in Davos, the German embassy in Switzerland protested that Americans should not be interned there. The Swiss government paid no attention.

  An American had only to step out of the Palace Hotel, turn right down Promenade Street, and cross the street to the German Consulate (today, a building advertises Schmuck—gold—jewelry on the first floor). This author paced a mere 120 steps between the two buildings, a proximity which could only lead to a certain humorous mischief from the young American servicemen.

  July 4, 1944—American Independence Day—was the occasion for the first attack on the German Consulate. A young American internee named Ralph Jackson obtained chemicals from a pharmacy to construct rockets and fuses. Jackson and his American friends aimed the fireworks at the German Consulate and fired. The humorless Germans protested to the Swiss commander, who warned the troublemakers to refrain from future pranks.16 The rebuke by the Swiss commander had no effect. On a Sunday morning a month later, some young internees apparently went to work removing the Nazi emblem—a statue of a large eagle with the swastika in its claws—which hung over the entrance to the German Consulate. The work party then left the scene carrying the emblem.

  The Germans lodged an official protest in Bern demanding severe penalties for the “criminals” who mocked their Third Reich. The American officers were put under “house arrest”—in their hotel—pending re turn of the property.

  The American commander, Captain Lawrence McGuire, assured the police that such theft would not recur. The Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs ignored the German demand that the Americans be relocated out of Davos. It later turned out that some Swiss boys had aided and abetted the Americans in this symbolic attack on the German Consulate.

  For the Americans, when war could no longer be waged with bombs, it was waged with pranks. For the Swiss, it meant participating in the antics—but also preparing for the ever-greater possibility of war. This included a straightforward military buildup as well as clandestine preparations against the fifth column—which entailed, among other things, making lists of subversives to arrest or possibly to execute in the event of a Nazi invasion.

  Police Sergeant Major Christian Rostetter was stationed at Davos from 1938 through 1945. Back then, the town had only three policemen. They investigated Nazi activities in Davos and observed Nazi meetings. The police tried to cultivate informants who would report on Nazi plans. Rostetter kept many documents from that period, thinking that they might be of public interest one day. He passed away in 1978, but his cache of wartime records throws an interesting light on those years.17

  There is a “List of Suspicious Foreigners in the Davos Area” compiled by Swiss police on April 5, 1940 (just before Germany attacked Denmark and Norway) and again on May 15, 1940 (just after Germany attacked France). It includes 85 persons, including names, birth dates, nationality (mostly German), addresses, occupations, and in almost all cases the entry “Nazi.” A few of the Nazis worked for the German Consulate or the Gestapo, while others worked in the private sector. A very small number are listed as “Fascist” or “Communist.”18

  Throughout the war, the Davos police watched every move of the German colony. Police files include a collection of invitations from the German Consulate to German residents for various events including, as just one example, the invitation to view “the great German film ‘Über alles in der Welt’ and a weekly newsreel” on May 26, 1942. All of these invitations ended with the obl
igatory “Heil Hitler!”19

  The Film Section of the Swiss Division of Press directed local police to investigate subversive films anywhere in the country. One such directive to Rostetter is dated June 4, 1943, and warns about four films that were to be shown in the movie theatre Vox. He was instructed that only German and Italian nationals were to be admitted. The police unit was also tasked to report the size of attendance, the identities of any Swiss citizens who were present, and the name and nationality of the film operator.20

  Lists of subversives were drawn up with an explicitly ominous intention. Swiss patriots in the Davos area originated their own secret Local Defense organizations by 1937, three years before the Swiss military created the Confederation-wide Ortswehr, in which 120,000 armed volunteers served in more than 2,800 communities. These local organizations made lists so that Nazi sympathizers could be rounded up and imprisoned or executed in the event of a German onslaught. Dr. Peter Bollier, a local historian in Davos, writes:

  The self-confidence of Germans in Davos grew with each new victory of Hitler’s armies. The surrounding Swiss population was at first merely aggravated by the National Socialist activists, but increasingly came to perceive them as a real threat. The main question for the Swiss was whether to adopt a policy of defeatism or resistance. Fortunately, Davos had a local military commander who served with prudence and determination. Major Christian Jost personified the Swiss people’s will to resist. Before the Anschluss of Austria with Germany was completed, Jost had already established a secret organization. The organization—“Assured Mobilization” (Sicherstellung der Mobilmachung)—operated independently of the military and civilian authorities. In the event of an emergency, the organization would seek to prevent sabotage and fifth columnists from taking subversive actions. At the beginning of the war, there were about 40 persons who were plainly committed to Jost’s mandate. From these beginnings, the organization was reinforced by actual Local Security (Ortswache).21

  In an interview in Davos in 2000, Bollier explained that he had obtained much of his information from Major Jost’s Chief of Staff. He stated: “After the war began, the organized Germans were very aggressive. The Swiss police and military tried to ferret out espionage agents but found only about 10 percent of them. The army had a number of troops in the Davos area. Under the militia system, each soldier knew where to go if a rapid mobilization was required. Local commanders were able to make their own plans in the event of an invasion.22

  “Major Jost, the military commander from Davos Dorf, the smaller sister village of Davos Platz, had perhaps 2,000 people under his command. The authorities in Bern did not know the local Nazis. Jost organized a small special troop in case of invasion which would have eliminated dangerous Germans and Swiss. While the Cantonal Police were to imprison Nazi agents, Major Jost was prepared to shoot them.”

  Through Bollier, this author sought an interview with Jost’s Chief of Staff. However, Bollier replied, “He refuses to be interviewed based on the French saying, ‘Serve and then go away.’ In 1945–46, he burned the papers with the names of the Nazis to be shot. I cannot give you his name as he wishes to remain anonymous.”

  Bollier went on to note that “the list of people to eliminate was burned because, once the war was over, it was time to start a new beginning. All members of the NSDAP and other Nazi organizations were expelled from Switzerland.”

  Indeed, once the war ended, the Swiss were finally able to purge their country of dangerous Germans. Davos police prepared a blacklist dated July 12, 1945, of 100 undesirable foreigners to deport.23 The blacklist includes the reason for deportation, usually “Nazi fanatic and National Socialist Party member” (Nazifanatiker & Partigenosse). Others are listed as SS member, SA leader, Gestapo agent, spy, or a person who had made remarks against Switzerland. There is even a Nazi Party member targeted because he had received a “decoration from Hitler for the operation in Greece.” All were considered subversives.

  After the war, the fifth column dissolved. The Swiss soldiers came out of the mountains. The American pilots went home to their families. The internment tents were folded up, and the blacklists were destroyed. Davos became quiet again. And so it remains.

  CHAPTER 12

  AMERICA’S WINDOW ON THE REICH:

  Allen Dulles in Bern

  As the only country in central Europe which was neither Axis nor Axis-occupied, Switzerland was a hotbed of espionage. Neutral Switzerland hosted the embassies of all the combatants, so there were literally hundreds of agents of all stripes. Allied operatives, at times in cahoots with Swiss intelligence, gathered information from German sources and radioed it to Britain or Russia.1 The Nazis spied on the Swiss,2 and the Swiss had informants reaching even into Hitler’s headquarters.3 The British not only spied but managed to run sophisticated smuggling rings to supply diamond dies, jewel-bearings, chronographs and other intricate Swiss products needed for RAF fighters and bombers.4

  The United States remained officially neutral until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Thereafter the American intelligence network was organized as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.5 The OSS dispatched Allen Dulles to Bern, posing under the innocuous cover of special assistant to the American Minister to Switzerland, Leland Harrison. He reached the city in November 1942 on the last train through Vichy France before its occupation by German forces. Dulles set up his spy shop in an apartment building at 23 Herrengasse in Bern’s old city, a quiet, inconspicuous location which to this day visitors stroll by without knowing its history.

  Switzerland quickly became America’s window on the Reich, the ideal location to spy on the Axis, support partisan movements in France and Italy, and communicate with the anti-Hitler underground in Germany. After the war, Dulles wrote books detailing his knowledge of German resistance and the conspiracy to kill Hitler, as well as the surrender of German forces in Italy near the end of the war, a supremely delicate undertaking which was materially assisted by Swiss intelligence.6 The recent declassification and publication in 1996 of many of Dulles’ OSS dispatches from Bern shed new light on the significant role played by Switzerland in the struggle against Nazism.7 The OSS reports in particular reveal much about Swiss involvement in the war.

  Dulles’ mission was clear: to gather any and all intelligence that would be useful to the defeat of the Axis powers. Countless informants of every kind and with every motive supplied a steady stream of fact, suspicion, rumor and lies. Dulles sought to distill fact from fiction and to report critical information to Washington, DC. Obviously, the big picture involved not Switzerland but Wehrmacht intentions, German morale and opposition, the occupied countries and psychological warfare. Thus, although the OSS dispatches do not include a comprehensive chronology of Swiss-related developments, individual dispatches on varying topics provide revealing insights into Nazi Germany’s threat to Switzerland and the latter’s resistance to that threat.

  On November 21, 1942, shortly after his arrival in Bern, Dulles wrote that the OSS was trying to persuade the Swiss to set up an air service to Lisbon—a direct flight to neutral Portugal would be most helpful for the spying and smuggling businesses—but he doubted that the Swiss felt strong enough to push through the project against German opposition. He continued:

  Even though the Swiss press is excluded from Germany except for a chosen few, the Germans definitely fear Switzerland as a free news center. A Swiss official who has just returned from Berlin says he expects further drives to try to shackle the freedom of the Swiss press. It has been openly stated by the German press that within the European Fortress all British and American representatives will be treated as “Centers of espionage, blackmail, and subversive activities within countries concerned.”8

  Despite limited censorship, the Swiss press reported news that was in great demand both in the occupied countries and in Germany. Dulles, having unusual access to a wider range of intelligence because of his Swiss van
tage point on the Reich, understood through his direct contacts that encouragement of German resistance to Hitler could end the war sooner. Perhaps President Roosevelt did not fully appreciate this opportunity.

  At the Casablanca conference in January 1943, Roosevelt announced, without prior consultation with the other Allies, that the goal of the war was to achieve the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis powers. Dulles wrote: “The Swiss were not surprised at unconditional surrender, nor did it cause any particular comment locally.” He added, “Although Goebbels may find temporary help in the slogan, it is believed that in the long run, it can be safely stressed as much as you desire since, as psychological warfare, it is absolutely sound.” Dulles, however, emphasized the importance of making clear that unconditional surrender by the Nazis did not implicate innocent Germans.9

  Dulles repeated this moderating advice over the next two years, but it went unheeded, and the Allied refusal to consider an alternate formula might have prolonged the war. By 1944 there were many Germans, including high-ranking army officers, in favor of peace with the Western Allies; however, hardly anyone favored surrender on the Eastern Front, thus allowing a tidal wave of Soviet vengeance and Communist ambition to overrun the country. The unconditional surrender policy may have prevented anti-Hitler Germans from gaining far more support than they could have otherwise.

  Fortunately, the American leadership understood the need to support resistance movements in German-occupied territories. After the Wehr macht occupied Vichy France, the Americans stepped up efforts to supply and encourage French resistance. The Swiss connection in this deadly ballet of ambush and atrocity is illustrated in a March 1943 telegram from Dulles about OSS support of the umbrella organization Forces Françaises Combattantes de La Métropole (FFCM). OSS-FFCM planning would be based in Switzerland and included: