Target Switzerland

by Stephen P. Halbrook

  “Greater Germany” as typically depicted in Nazi propaganda in 1935. Most of Switzerland was to be absorbed into the Third Reich with smaller portions being swallowed up by Italy and France. (Adapted from Rings, Schweiz im Krieg, 65.)

  Quite naturally we count you Swiss as offshoots of the German nation (along with the Dutch, the Flemings, the Lorrainers, the Alsatians, the Austrians and the Bohemians). . . . Patience: one day we will group ourselves around a single banner, and whosoever shall wish to separate us, we will exterminate!64

  Sentiment in Switzerland held that “the moment that Austria succumbs to the Nazi boa constrictor, Switzerland is marked as the next victim to be strangled in the coils.”65

  In contrast with the beginning of the Great War, when many Swiss were divided along ethnic lines—French and Italian speakers leaning toward the Entente and German speakers sympathizing with the Central Powers—the Swiss were remarkably united from 1933 on in their distaste for the racist and anti-democratic bent of the Nazis. Switzerland proved that French-, German-, and Italian-speaking citizens could live together harmoniously. Almost alone among the European nations, Switzerland remained immune to what Johnson termed “the infective virus of Pan-This and Pan-That.”66 Zurich’s leading newspaper, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, admonished its readers that the National Socialist revolution in Germany demonstrated the need for “the spiritual defense of our country.”67

  At this time, the views of Nazi sympathizers could also be heard, if only from a tiny number of Swiss. Theodor Fischer, who headed the pro-German League of National Socialist Confederates, stigmatized Switzerland as a “vassal state of France under Jewish control.”68 That group called for abolition of the Swiss Parliament and cantons and a centralization of all power in the hands of the President.69

  Jean Marie Musy, Swiss Minister of Finance, warned in a May 10, 1934 speech in Geneva that “Switzerland will either remain a democracy or cease to be Switzerland! . . . The racial ideal can never be the basis of Swiss nationality!”70 Two days later, the Federal Council banned the wearing of uniforms by all political parties.71

  As Hitler’s rule continued, the Swiss became increasingly repelled not only by National Socialism’s rhetoric but by its actions. “The Night of the Long Knives,” on June 30, 1934, during which one Nazi paramilitary organization, the SS, assassinated the leadership of another, the SA, further revealed the regime’s criminality. Hitler was consolidating his personal power through murder. The democratic Swiss, always wary of German strength, particularly abhorred what the swastika had come to represent. German-speaking Swiss, perhaps because they could more easily understand exactly what the Nazis were saying, became more vehemently anti-Nazi than the French Swiss,72 and a war of words took place in Swiss and German newspapers. While the Swiss press criticized the Nazis and their domestic actions in Germany, the Nazi press attacked the Swiss, who, they claimed, were too inferior or self-absorbed to appreciate the benefits of the New Order.73

  On July 25, 1934, Austrian Nazis murdered Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, leader of the clerical-fascist government. Supplied with arms and explosives from Germany, Nazis terrorized Austria and blew up buildings.74 After the murder of Dollfuss, Italian troops moved into the northern Italian Alps near the Swiss border. Switzerland served notice that she would not tolerate violations of her neutrality.75

  On July 26, at the Fribourg marksmanship competition, Federal President Marcel Pilet-Golaz reaffirmed that Switzerland was determined to defend her frontiers and that “the capacity of defense is the first condition of our security.”76 Defense Minister Minger told the competitors:

  Events abroad have reawoken Switzerland’s old defiance and the feelings for justice and liberty have been renewed. The Swiss people will never allow themselves to be robbed of the right to freedom of expression and will never bow to a dictatorship, from whichever side it may come. In target shooting outside military service all marksmen strive towards the same aim: the promotion of our defense in the interests of all the Swiss people. . . .77

  It was reported on July 27 that the annual maneuvers of the First Division of the Swiss Army would be advanced due to the recent seizure of explosives being smuggled from Germany to Austria on Lake Constance.78

  In mid-November 1934, four Swiss Nazis, members of the National Socialist Confederates, stood trial in Bern for promoting racial hatred. They had circulated the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notoriously anti-Semitic document originally produced by Tsarist Russian intelligence, which the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, suing as a complainant in the action, noted was a complete fake and was subject to confiscation.79 The trial strained relations between Switzerland and Germany. The testimony at trial and the trial court’s decision confirmed the fraudulent character of the “Protocols.”80

  The largest German-speaking Nazi group in Switzerland was the National Front, which approved of Hitler’s liquidating Socialist and Communist groups but distrusted what it believed to be the Third Reich’s aggressive designs.81 To oppose Nazism, Swiss socialists and left liberals organized a “Kampfbund” (“Fighting Group”). More broadly, in response to the influence of fascist ideas throughout Europe, a public debate was proceeding about whether federal power should be curtailed. Some Swiss believed the power of the executive, the Federal Council, should be extended; others wanted more influence vested in the voters’ legislative meetings on the local level, like the centuries-old Landsgemeinden.82

  Fear of the German Nazis soon prompted increased military preparations, including enhanced fortifications at the Rhine. Now even the Socialists were voting for military appropriations.83 Also, Parliament extended the recruits’ first year of basic military education by 23 days for infantrymen and 13 days for artillerymen. In a vote on February 23, 1935, the referendum against this bill initiated by the Communist Party was rejected by a majority. Along with other political parties, many Socialists favored the extended service as a necessity to defend democracy against the Nazi threat.84 Rumors of German plans for sweeping through Switzerland near Basel to attack France south of her line of forts helped to defeat the referendum.

  Even if the primary intention of a belligerent nation was only to “pass through” Switzerland to attack its enemy, the Swiss were under no illusion that such a move would be less dangerous than an actual occupation. According to the SSV marksmen’s organization, what could have happened in the Great War served as a warning for the present: “If the Germans had come, we would not have been able to expel them from our country again. . . . Had a French invasion occurred, the Germans would have played the ‘rescuer’ of Switzerland. As a gesture of thanks they would have demanded that we become a part of the German Reich.”85 In just a few more years, Hitler would indeed “rescue” a number of small countries.

  During this period, the small countries of Europe were making sharply varied expenditures for military purposes. This table sets forth average annual military expenditures in selected countries in the years 1934–35:

  Military Expenditures, 1934-3586

  Country Expenditures

  (in millions of Swiss Francs)

  Belgium 162

  Denmark 53

  Finland 92

  The Netherlands 132

  Norway 52

  Austria 83

  Switzerland 95

  As these figures show, there would not necessarily be a direct relation between high expenditures in this period and the ability of the small neutrals to resist Nazi attack a half decade later. The figures for Denmark and Norway were the lowest, and predictably these countries would fall easily to the Nazis in 1940. But so would Belgium and the Netherlands, both of which spent more than Switzerland.

  However, comparisons of the raw expenditures do not tell the full story. Spending on defenses modeled on World War I tactics would not help much in the 1940 blitzkrieg era. Moreover, expenditures for ordinary standing armies would be inherently higher per soldier than those for the Swiss-style citizens army
because of the full-time pay to the soldiers, barracks and other costs. By contrast, because her army was primarily comprised of citizen soldiers receiving little or no pay and living at home, Switzerland’s expenditure figure is deceptively low.

  On March 16, 1935, Hitler renounced the Versailles Treaty and announced the rearming of Germany. On May 21, he gave a speech in which he promised peace; the borders of France and Poland would be considered inviolate, and Germany would never interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, much less undertake an Anschluss.87

  During this period, Germany tripled its guards along the Swiss frontier and strictly controlled travelers and goods.88 Giuseppe Motta and Johannes Baumann, members of the Federal Council, drafted additional measures to suppress Nazism in Switzerland for submission to the Federal Parliament at its upcoming June session.89 Meanwhile, Switzerland began regular air raid drills.90 Bern considered protesting to Berlin about violations of Swiss air space by Luftwaffe squadrons in training.91

  On June 1–2, the Swiss voted against an initiative to adopt New Deal–type programs like those enacted in the United States. The measures were intended to fight the depression with governmental borrowing, spending and centralization.92 Although Switzerland, along with the rest of Europe and America, had fallen into grave economic difficulty in the 1930s, the people voted overwhelmingly against the measures, agreeing with the Federal Council that they might lead to a socialist state.93 The proposal had also been opposed as something that would transform grass-roots Swiss democracy into a parliamentary dictatorship.94

  In 1935, a member of the National Front—Robert Tobler, from Zurich—was elected to Parliament for one year. He was the only Nazi elected to Parliament for the entire period of the Third Reich.95 A country wary of the potential for a “dictatorship by a parliament” was not a fertile field for National Socialist ideals.

  United States President Franklin Roosevelt reacted to the rise of Nazism with the policy preference, expressed at the beginning of 1936, of “a well-ordered neutrality to do naught to encourage the contest.”96 The Swiss had the same policy of neutrality but, unlike the Americans, were already doing everything possible to prepare for what they perceived as the coming onslaught.

  During 1936, Defense Minister Minger continued to gain approval for major rearmament programs. Also, the Federal Council established the Federal Police to counter pro-German and Italian fifth column activity. Before that time, criminal enforcement had been a matter solely for the cantons.97 Although fifth column activity in Switzerland was surprisingly small for a country with a majority Germanic population—less, in fact, than in any other country targeted by Nazi Germany—there was still a small number of Nazi sympathizers. (Switzerland also had a small Communist Party, which followed the Soviet line.) The pro-Nazis needed to be watched closely in the event that they attempted to facilitate espionage.

  On February 4, 1936, Wilhelm Gustloff, the official leader of the German Nazi Party in Switzerland, was shot to death with a revolver by David Frankfurter, a Jewish medical student who wanted to “strike a blow at the régime of Adolf Hitler” and “avenge persecution of Jews in Germany.”98 Germany gave Gustloff a state funeral and demanded an investigation that would identify Frankfurter’s possible co-conspirators.99 The German Foreign Office found that “Switzerland is incapable of maintaining political order within her boundaries,” and a semi-official German paper blamed the deed on “the anti-German baiting by the Swiss press.”100 Hitler’s own newspaper in Berlin demanded the death penalty, but the Swiss Constitution prohibited execution for political crimes, and the canton of Grisons, in which the crime took place, had long since abolished the death penalty.101 Frankfurter was sentenced to only 18 years imprisonment. He was pardoned after the war and emigrated to Israel.

  On February 18, 1936, the Federal Council ordered the immediate suppression of all Nazi organizations in Switzerland.102 This measure had great popular support. Hitler’s organ in Berlin, the Völkischer Beobachter (People’s Observer), reacted: “The government at Berne has struck at German-Swiss relations in a most painful fashion.”103 German Nazis blamed the Swiss law on Jews and leftists.104 The German Foreign Minister lodged a formal protest, and the German embassy took over the task now banned by the Swiss: developing a network of agents.105 The Swiss Parliament sought legislation to withdraw citizenship from naturalized foreigners who failed to sever political connections in their former countries.106 The possibilities for fifth column activity in Switzerland would continue to be restricted by every legal means at the government’s disposal.

  Hitler had long been planning the reoccupation of the demilitarized Rhineland, along Germany’s border with France. This took place on March 7, 1936.107 In reaction to the remilitarization of the Rhineland, Switzerland began construction of a line of blockhouses on her northern border and readied for a surprise attack by a motorized force along the Rhine.108 Swiss leaders anticipated that the coming war would involve new methods of aggression; for instance, the SSV marksmen’s group advocated increased shooting skills so that as many paratroopers as possible could be shot and killed while still in the air.109

  Meanwhile, Americans were caught in the dilemma of whether to stay out of Europe’s troubles or recognize the unique nature of the Nazi threat. On July 9, addresses were delivered in Charlottesville, Virginia, by Brigadier General John Ross Delafield of New York and Hugo E. Prager of Zurich. General Delafield warned:

  It is fundamental in all fighting that he who strikes first wins, unless his opponent is prepared. Democracies seldom strike first. The case of dictatorships is very different. They can and do. They can plan and prepare for attack in secret, until the blow is about to be struck. The American people do not realize this distinction.110

  Prager responded that Switzerland “realized the distinction only too well,”111 noting that neither the Alps, “a great ally in the past,” nor the traditional, “almost sacred” neutrality of his country could any longer be relied upon under conditions of modern warfare and the prevailing state of mind in Europe. “What counts,” he said, “is the certainty that a possible aggressor will encounter real obstinate resistance.”112

  President Roosevelt, in remarks on August 14, urged that “we shun political commitment which might entangle us in foreign wars; we avoid connection with the League of Nations.”113 While the United States and Switzerland were co-neutrals, the critical difference was that the former was large and an ocean away from Germany; the latter was small and bordered Hitler’s dictatorship.

  Swiss Federal President Albert Meyer urged the public to purchase subscriptions to a national defense fund, noting that the country’s neutrality and independence were more endangered now than in the Great War.114 He added: “Our militia is the flower of our people, but armaments are necessary for our defense. As an example, Ethiopia speaks eloquently.”115 Italy had attacked and conquered poorly armed Ethiopia in 1935 to begin an occupation that would last until 1941. Mussolini’s Fascist regime in the south, in addition to Nazi Germany to the north, threatened the Swiss democracy. In response to Meyer’s call, the national defense fund was oversubscribed by more than 40 percent!

  Switzerland’s preparations for war were analyzed by The Literary Digest in early 1937. Seeking to avoid being overrun like Belgium in 1914, the “‘Isle of Peace’ . . . is fortifying her frontiers to the tune of war rumbles,” the article began.116 When the inevitable war comes, “whoever moves the opening gambit will find Switzerland no easy checkmate.” A Swiss general staff member was quoted, giving a frank analysis:

  When war comes, we will be unable to mobilize our entire Army. The Germans will probably destroy our strategic railroad centers, Aarau and Olten, within forty-eight hours. Hence, for our border defense, we shall have to rely strongly on the native population, and we are therefore preparing them for just such an emergency. It is utterly impossible for us to defend the city of Basel, because it is right under the guns of the new German fortress Isteiner Klotz. Our entire s
trategic problem boils down to this: Can we hold the line for ten days? After that, the French will have moved up and closed the gap.117

  Ironically, it would be the French who were defeated easily while the Swiss held out the entire war.

  In March 1937 it was reported that Geneva would soon test its air raid defenses. The same newspapers which a few days before had printed Hitler’s promise to respect Swiss neutrality were now filled with advertisements for items needed for the house and car during war.118 A new Swiss law required that all buildings and autos be prepared by April 1 for a blackout, that roofs be made safer against incendiary bombs, including the removal of combustible materials from attics, and that cellars be readied with living and emergency supplies. The League of Nations palace and the world headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (known as the ICRC) in Geneva were included in the preparations.119

  An analysis of Europe’s neutrals in the Christian Science Monitor in April noted:

  The more one gazes at contemporary Europe, with its diplomatic rivalries, embattled nationalisms, oppressed minorities, class struggles and militant dictatorships, the more one is constrained to render homage to the success of Swiss ideals. Here is a staunchly united land comprising not merely 22 self-governing units but also inhabited by a population of diverse racial origins, speaking four distinct languages and professing two traditionally antagonistic faiths.120

  A Zeppelin airship flew over Swiss troops during maneuvers near Schaffhausen on the Rhine on April 28, 1937. The Swiss considered it an intentional provocation by the Germans.121

  On June 13, the canton of Geneva voted to outlaw the Communist Party and authorized the government to outlaw other parties affiliated with foreign organizations.122 Such laws would be applied to Nazis as well. A minister in Bern was quoted in August as stating: “The Germans are already treating Switzerland as if she were conquered territory. Switzerland is to come within the Nazi Gleichschaltung [forcing into line]. This is the Nazi aim, and by devious methods the Nazis are trying to familiarize the Swiss with the idea.”123 By then, there were allegedly some 500 Gestapo agents in Switzerland conducting espionage to obtain Swiss military secrets and spying on German refugees.