Target Switzerland

by Stephen P. Halbrook

  While the Allied troops earmarked for Finland awaited new orders, Norway now became the focus of attention. The German Navy had already recommended to Hitler that he seize the Norwegian coast, if only to deny the use of its many excellent harbors to the British, who had already violated Norway’s territorial waters in search of German ships. Hitler was reluctant, but after the Allies assembled their expeditionary force and collected its naval transport, he decided there was no other choice. Aside from the advantages the Norwegian coast would offer the German Navy, a potential Allied occupation of Norway would have cut off the Reich’s supply of iron. To facilitate the operation against Norway, and to strengthen Germany’s strategic supply line to Sweden, the Nazis would also occupy Denmark.

  At the end of March, a Swiss spy with connections to Hitler’s headquarters warned Colonel Roger Masson, Swiss Intelligence Chief, that Germany would attack Denmark and Norway in April. This information was leaked to the Allied Chiefs of Staff, who discounted it.20 Despite further warnings from dissident German diplomats and military officers, and obvious German troop movements, the governments of Denmark and Norway failed to mobilize and did nothing to prepare for invasion.21

  On April 9, 1940, at 4:20 A.M. in Denmark and at 5:20 A.M. in Norway, German diplomats gave the ultimatum to these two countries that they agree to become German protectorates. They were told that they needed protection from impending Anglo-French occupation.22 From Copenhagen, a German diplomat telegraphed Foreign Minister Ribbentrop at 8:34 A.M. that Denmark acceded. However, the German diplomat in Oslo reported that Norway would defend herself.

  In Denmark, a flat land with no mountain sanctuaries, General and Commander-in-Chief W.W. Pryor recommended resistance. King Christian X and Premier Thorvald Stauning rejected his advice, just as a day earlier they had rejected the General’s plea for mobilization. The Navy could have successfully bombarded and possibly sunk passing German ships but did nothing.23 The King, backed by the government, then capitulated and prohibited any resistance. There was minor fighting, nevertheless. Thirteen Danes were killed.24

  At 2:00 P.M., Wehrmacht General Kurt Himer visited the King, who declared that he and the Danish government would work to keep order and to eliminate friction between German troops and Danes. The King’s only request was to keep his bodyguard. General Himer answered that “the Führer would doubtless permit him to retain them.” The King was relieved, and told the General what a magnificent military operation the Germans had conducted. Denmark became a model state in the Nazis’ New Order, until the tide of war changed and resistance was sparked.25

  This could not have happened in Switzerland, which had no king and no central authority to negotiate the surrender of the army or the nation. Denmark had a very small army in 1939, numbering only 6,600 men. By 1940, the number had increased to 30,000, but that figure was still hopelessly inadequate.26

  By contrast, in Norway the German invaders encountered heroic resistance. Coastal defense forces opened fire, sinking the ship that was transporting the would-be Nazi occupation authorities. Oslo and other major cities fell within a couple of days, but resistance continued and the government fled to the mountains in the north. Vidkun Quisling named himself head of the government, prompting rebellion within the populace.27

  Norway had a “king,” Haakon VII, but he was elected to his position by the people. Ironically, his brother was Christian X, King of Denmark, who had just surrendered to the Nazis. German Minister Curt Bräuer met with King Haakon to persuade him to surrender as his brother had done the day before. The King refused, as did the rest of the government. The British Royal Navy was already present in force off the coast and would inflict serious losses on German ships. Allied troops who had been readied earlier for intervention in Finland were disembarking at key points to assist in the Norwegian defense. The German minister was told that “resistance will continue as long as possible.” The three million people of Norway were instructed by a radio broadcast from the King and political leaders to fight the invaders.28

  They did so bravely. Unfortunately, unlike the Swiss, the Norwegians were not well armed, nor were they well trained in martial skills. It was reported on April 17 from Norway’s southern front between Kongsvinger and the Swedish frontier that, “owing to a complete lack of arms, ammunition, and organization, the Norwegians have not been able to put up a serious fight.”29 Indeed, following World War I, Norway had pursued disarmament and social programs rather than defense, and was perceived as an easy prey. Though she shared Switzerland’s neutrality, Norway never had the type of citizens army that the Swiss could muster.30 In 1940, her army consisted of only 13,000 soldiers.

  After they had reduced Norwegian coastal defenses, the German invaders fought their most difficult battles against the British and French contingents sent to aid in the defense of Norway. However, the Wehrmacht, reinforced with men and supplies flown in on transport aircraft, won a series of sharp clashes. As the Germans consolidated their grip on the country, the last Allied troops were evacuated from Norway in May to help stave off the even larger disaster looming in France.

  While the poor training of the small Norwegian Army prevented serious resistance (the King had been evacuated to England where he maintained a government in exile), guerrilla war in the mountains waged by small groups with sharpshooting skills had an effect. Wehrmacht General Eduard Dietl conceded that the Norwegians “fought with excellence, although one clearly noticed their defective training. But the Norwegians were excellent marksmen, and that plays the key role in a war of this type!”31 While the Norwegian resistance never became very active, later in the war enough arms to equip 35,000 men were smuggled in on British fishing boat runs.32

  Contrasting reactions of the various neutral countries produced vastly different results. While Denmark had only 30,000 men under arms and Norway an even more meager 13,000, Switzerland could muster 650,000 militiamen within a day or two. Hundreds of thousands more Swiss had arms at home. Also, Switzerland had undertaken enormous efforts to build a network of fortifications, obstacles and mines. Denmark and Norway had done little.

  Still, the Norwegian campaign caused uneasiness in Swiss military circles. The heroic fight of the Finns against the Soviet Union, which incurred losses of 200,000 killed, had created some confidence that Swiss arms could perform at least as well against a numerically superior invader. But the Germans in Norway displayed far more military skill and flexibility than had the Russians against Finland. And Germany, not Russia, was the foreign threat the Swiss would have to confront.

  In Poland in 1939, as in nearly all the battles of the Great War, German military prowess had been demonstrated with massed armies and firepower. These were the tactics the Swiss anticipated, for which their trained marksmen and difficult terrain, backed by their mountain positions, would be an antidote. In Norway, however, for the first time in history, air transport had played a major role in an offensive, placing Nazi forces in key positions behind and among the defenses. Further, the Germans had enjoyed no numerical superiority in the initial stages of the campaign but nevertheless had won. Dietl’s mountain troops at Narvik had numbered only 4,500 against the Allies’ 25,000, until the British, French and Poles evacuated. Though uncowed, the Swiss knew that a German attack on the Swiss Alps and the Jura, employing paratroops, gliders, specially trained mountain divisions and airpower, would be formidable.

  In the following months, fearing attack, Sweden allowed the Nazis to transport troops over its soil to Norway. It would later allow the transport across its neutral territory of an entire German army division, to be used in the attack on the Soviet Union.33

  The Swiss press denounced Germany’s aggression against Denmark and Norway, leading Goebbels to rant in his diary that the Swiss “are either bought or Jewish.”34 Rumors spread that Germany was preparing to attack Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium. The Swiss military was prepared for an attack.35 Fifteen Wehrmacht divisions had returned to their positions just north of S
witzerland’s frontier, where they had been stationed before being withdrawn when Germany invaded Scandinavia.36

  On April 18, 1940, the Federal Council and General Guisan issued joint orders for the “general mobilization of the entire army for resistance.”37 Reflecting on the lessons learned from the Polish and Norwegian experiences, they also issued, in an order signed by Federal President Pilet-Golaz and General Guisan, “directions concerning the conduct of the soldiers not under arms in event of attack.”38 Intended also as a warning to foreign countries, this remarkable document was plastered on walls all over the country. The joint order began by describing how the population would be informed of an invasion:

  With combat activity at the border or in neighboring countries, there will be ordered the “war-mobilization in event of attack.” The proclamation will be communicated through poster, radio, courier, town crier, storm bells, and the dropping of leaflets from airplanes.39

  The joint order prescribed the action to take against surprise attack and fifth column subversion:

  All soldiers and those with them are to attack with ruthlessness parachutists, airborne infantry and saboteurs. Where no officers and noncommissioned officers are present, each soldier acts under exertion of all powers of his own initiative.40

  The distinctive Swiss command for the individual soldier to act on his own initiative is an ancient and deeply rooted Swiss resistance tradition which evidenced unique confidence in the ordinary man.41 Under no condition, the order continued, would any surrender be forthcoming, and any pretense of a surrender must be ignored:

  If by radio, leaflets or other media any information is transmitted doubting the will of the Federal Council or of the Army High Command to resist an attacker, this information must be regarded as lies of enemy propaganda. Our country will resist aggression with all means in its power and to the bitter end.42

  This astonishing order was broadcast by radio and published in the international press.43 The New York Times entitled its report “Swiss Alert for Invasion by Hoax,” and included the subtitle “People Told to Ignore Rumors Questioning Government’s Will to Resist.”44 Noting that under the order “the entire nation would be mobilized in event of an invasion,” the report continued that mobilization upon the announcement of an invasion would be “instantaneous for all men with weapons in their home who are not already in service.”45

  In Switzerland, there would be no surrender. Every man had orders to fight to the death. And every man was trained with and possessed a rifle. This was the only radically democratic system of national defense in Europe. The Nazis were well aware that invasion meant fighting on every inch of ground (much of which was vertical) in every city and village, in every pasture and mountainside.

  Over fifty years later, former Swiss machine-gunner Willi Gautschi remembered the order as natural and ordinary. Any officers present would take charge, but, if not, soldiers would use their own initiative. They kept 48 cartridges at home and had six more loaded in the rifle when on duty. The rifles in the home were visible and easy to operate, and Swiss women would not have hesitated to use them in event of an invasion if the man was not present. While women’s auxiliaries were not armed, many women would have fought in the event of an invasion.46

  The German minister in Bern, Otto Köcher, reported to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin that the April 18 order “for mobilization in case of a surprise attack . . . is addressed not only to the soldiers, but to the entire population.” He indicated that the Swiss were “deeply shocked by Germany’s military operations in Denmark and Norway,” that “the Norwegian Major Quisling has become a symbol here of internal corruption and treason” and that “spies and traitors have been suspected everywhere in this country.” The Swiss press, he added, was advocating replacement of the Hague Convention on land warfare with “a Swiss national statute on land warfare, which would legally oppose total war with total defense, in which the civilian population would be obliged to take part.” In the citizens army, the German minister noted, junior officers had organized themselves so that if, “in an invasion, a commanding officer showed signs of giving way before overwhelming enemy forces, these officers have mutually pledged themselves to shoot such a commander on the spot.”47

  The German minister was privy to good intelligence, although much of it could be found by reading the strongest pro-defense newspapers, such as that of the quasi-official SSV shooting federation. Warning of a fifth column and quoting from the no-surrender order, the SSV envisioned a true people’s war with universal participation:

  In every Swiss house is a rifle, and every village, even the small villages, has a shooting association. . . . Our marksmen know how to shoot. . . . They want to defend their homes. They have the necessary weapons, if they can get the ammunition. Give our shooters who are in the country the opportunity to defend the nation.48

  Fearing a paratroop attack, the SSV requested the distribution of more ammunition and the creation of local defense (Ortswehr) units in all communities, composed of old men, young boys and women.49 Having learned of the Nazi tactics in Denmark and Norway, the SSV also demanded that any Nazis in the Swiss officer corps be eliminated and replaced by those with a pure Swiss spirit, and that, for total resistance, “the weapon of the civilian must also be loaded.” As for traitors in the army, as was seen in Norway, “in our country, we must know where the first shots are to be fired”—that is, at any Swiss traitors.50

  General Guisan became the symbol of the Widerstandsgeist, the resistance spirit.51 He enjoyed this status because he embodied the determination to resist to the last drop of blood.

  The Swiss General Staff announced on April 23 that many Swiss were receiving requests from abroad for various maps and photographs of the country. It forbade compliance and warned of whisper campaigns organized to promote Nazi propaganda, the purpose of which was to divide the Swiss people and encourage defeatism. Rumors were circulated that many Swiss army officers admired the Reich and would assist the Germans in event of an invasion; these stories were spread by Germans under the direction of the German Legation in Bern, which had a staff of over 200, and by fifth columnists.52

  The Nazis organized a propaganda campaign attacking the Swiss as being pro-Allies and characterizing the Swiss press as a tool of the Jews. Swiss Intelligence Chief Roger Masson worried that the anti- Nazism of the Swiss press would in itself provoke a German invasion.53 Colonel Rudolf Fueter, head of the military’s press and radio section, countered that the press must defend democracy and independent thought, and that it was “the duty of our press to reject the domestic and foreign policies of the National Socialists clearly and forcefully.”54

  In anticipation of a German offensive against France through Switzerland, General Guisan entered into secret defensive plans with the French. Compromising neutrality was extremely risky, because the Nazis could use the fact as a pretext to attack. The Swiss, however, saw such planning as consistent with neutrality. In fact, Defense Minister Minger had previously encouraged Guisan to discuss mutual defense with French military leaders.55 These prewar understandings now developed into full-scale plans in which, only if requested by the Swiss, French troops would enter Switzerland and assist in fighting the Germans.56

  Neutrality ends when a country is attacked, but defense preparations must precede that contingency. Thus, it did not violate the common international understanding of neutrality for Switzerland to make plans for French assistance in the event of a German invasion. A similar agreement need not have been made with Germany, because no French invasion was anticipated.

  In April, a Swiss military mission visited the Maginot Line and returned depressed about the lack of preparations of the French, the only major power left on the continent not allied, or otherwise cooperating, with Germany. Once the Germans attacked the French and won, the invasion of Switzerland seemed inevitable.57

  In the stillness before the storm, a writer for the British Fortnightly observed the centuries-old democratic Lands
gemeinde assemblies taking place in the Swiss countryside. She visited “the assembly of sworded freemen” in Trogen, Appenzell canton, and the citizens’ meeting in Glarus canton. “All pledged themselves afresh to protect their liberty and their laws to the death,” she wrote.58 While German troops seemed poised for invasion, “it was evident that the people of Appenzell and Glarus were indulging in quiet defiance of military despotism.”59

  On May 10, 1940, the German offensive against France was launched in the north, the Germans choosing to disregard the military option of flanking the Maginot Line through Switzerland. On countless occasions, Hitler had promised to respect the rights of the neutral countries. Belgium and the Netherlands had nevertheless been warned of the coming invasion by German Major-General Hans Oster, an anti- Hitler plotter. The Belgians mobilized while the Dutch, who had not taken part in the Great War, still trusted that their neutrality would be respected.60 On May 10, Ribbentrop in Berlin summoned diplomats of Belgium and the Netherlands and informed them that German troops would be moving in to safeguard those countries from an Anglo-French attack. He demanded a guarantee that no resistance would follow. The same message was delivered in Brussels and at The Hague.61 At dawn that same day, attacks were launched against those countries and also against France.

  Though Switzerland escaped becoming the invasion route to France, her territory nevertheless remained under threat. Before daybreak on May 10, Swiss anti-aircraft guns drove away a German bomber that had flown over Basel. A squadron of twenty Luftwaffe planes roared over that city to engage French fighters over the region of Delémont in the west as Swiss anti-aircraft guns blazed away. Twenty-seven bombs were dropped by the Luftwaffe on northern Switzerland, damaging a railway.62