Compiled by Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde, SLAF [retd]
The land locked country that maintained ‘nuetrality’ inspite of being surrounded by the Axis powers and Axis annexed / occupied territotries during the war
Introduction
During the war, under the pan-Germanist Neuordnung doctrine**, detailed plans were drawn up by the German military command to invade Switzerland (and Liechtenstein); Operation Tannenbaum, on two occasions, one in 1940 and the other in 1944. Switzerland during WWII (1)
German plans for the invasion, occupation, and/or annexation of Switzerland & Liechtenstein, dated 1940 and March 1944
In August 1939, sensing Hitler’s intention to go to war in Europe, the Parliament quickly selected the 61-year-old career soldier General Henri Guisan to be General (commander in chief) of the Swiss Armed Forces. He was given the directive to safeguard the independence of the country and to maintain the integrity of Swiss territory.
PIX ….. Guisan sworn in as general before the Federal Assembly, in the chamber of the National Council at the Federal Palace, in Bern, 30 August 1939
Introduction
During the war, under the pan-Germanist Neuordnung doctrine*, detailed plans were drawn up by the German military command to invade Switzerland (and Liechtenstein); Operation Tannenbaum, on two occasions, one in 1940 and the other in 1944.
* A group of concepts for a political and social system that the regime of Nazi Germany wanted to impose on the areas of Europe that it conquered and occupied.
German plans for the invasion, occupation, and/or annexation of Switzerland & Liechtenstein, dated 1940 and March 1944
In August 1939, sensing Hitler’s intention to go to war in Europe, the Parliament quickly selected the 61-year-old career soldier General Henri Guisan to be General (commander in chief) of the Swiss Armed Forces. He was given the directive to safeguard the independence of the country and to maintain the integrity of Swiss territory.
Guisan
Henri Guisan being sworn in as general before the Federal Assembly, in the chamber of the National Council at the Federal Palace, in Bern, 30 August 1939
During the war
At the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, Switzerland immediately began to mobilize to face a possible Axis invasion. The transition into wartime was smooth and the country was fully mobilized in only three days. Then the General of the Armed Forces, Guisan went about preparing the Swiss military and population for resistance against a possible invasion by Nazi Germany.
Guisan inspecting troops in Brunnen, a town in Schwyz canton (L) and Guisan during a visit to Liestal, capital of Swiss Basel-Landschaft canton
Despite the public and political attitudes in Switzerland, some higher-ranking officers within the Swiss Army were pro-Nazi sympathies notably two Colonels who led the Schweizerischer Vaterländischer Verband, a right wing political organisation.
In 1940, the National Movement of Switzerland, a Swiss political party was formed as a Nazi umbrella-group comprising Nazi sympathies (which never had more than 4,000 members out of a population of 4.2 million people, less than 0.1%) to effect a unification with Germany But this effort failed, largely as a result of Switzerland’s sense of national identity and tradition of democracy and civil liberties.
In the same year July, Guisan used Rütli, delivered a historic address to the entire Swiss Officer Corps assembled on the Rütli, a mountain meadow in the Uri canton, now remembered as the “Rütlirapport”, a location charged with symbolism in Swiss Romantic nationalism by virtue of being identified as the site of the legendary Rütli Oath.
The Rütli meadow
General Guisan said,
“I decided to reunite you in this historic place, the symbolic ground of our independence, to explain the urgency of the situation, and to speak of you as a soldier to soldiers. We are at a turning point of our history. The survival of Switzerland is at stake…”
He made it very clear that Switzerland would resist any Nazi invasion. If they ran out of bullets they were to resort to the bayonet. He said that Switzerland would defend itself against any invader and would never surrender. Guisan became a symbol of resistance to Nazism that was widespread amongst the Swiss public. At a time when military commanders remained distant, he rejected formalities and maintained contact with civilians and soldiers.
Then anticipating a German invasion at any time, Switzerland went about building a powerful defense. Swiss military strategy was changed from one of static defence at the borders to a strategy of attrition and withdrawal to strong, well-stockpiled positions high in the Alps known as the National Redoubt. This controversial strategy was essentially one of deterrence. The idea was to render the cost of invading too high. During an invasion, the Swiss Army would cede control of the economic heartland and population centres but retain control of crucial rail links and passes in the National Redoubt.
Plan of the defence lines of the National Redoubt
But Switzerland was never attacked and it was able to remain independent and ‘neutral’ through a combination of military deterrence, economic concessions to Germany and good fortune as larger events during the war which shifted sights of the German military command away from Switzerland. However Skirmishes between German and Swiss troops took place on the northern border of Switzerland throughout the war.
In 1941, Franz Burri, the leading Nazi propagandist for Switzerland, sent a letter to Heinrich Himmler in which he discussed the importance of a Nazi coup for Switzerland. Burri said he and his colleagues were “ready for action at any time” and had a paramilitary of 1,800 men prepared for deployment in all German-speaking Swiss cantons.
However Switzerland became a base for espionage for both sides in the conflict and often mediated communications between the Axis and Allied powers by serving as a protecting power for both sides, with a special role in helping prisoners of war. The belligerent states made it the scene for diplomacy, espionage, and commerce, as well as being a safe haven for 300,000 refugees.
In 1942, the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was established in Bern which marked the creation of the first US intelligence service in Western Europe. During the allied invasion of Italy in Sep 1943, the OSS in Switzerland guided tactical efforts for the take-over of Salerno and the islands of Corsica and Sardinia.
Violation of Swiss airspace by the belligerents
Luftwaffe aircraft repeatedly violated Swiss airspace. During the Battle of France in 1940, German aircraft violated Swiss airspace at least 197 times. In several air incidents, the Swiss Air Force* shot down 11 Luftwaffe aircraft between 10 May and 17 June 1940, while suffering the loss of three of their own aircraft. Germany protested diplomatically on 5 June.
* The Swiss Air Force was mobilized on 28 August 1939, three days before Germany attacked Poland, with 96 fighter and 121 observation aircraft; by some accounts the country possessed only eight antiaircraft searchlights. Of the 21 units of the Swiss Air Force, only three were judged combat-ready and five were not yet equipped with aircraft. It relied on 40 single-seat interceptors for first-line air defense. This deficiency was addressed by procuring further German Bf 109 and French Morane D-3800 fighters. In 1942, the Swiss-built F+W C-36 multipurpose aircraft was introduced into service, and in 1943, Switzerland opened its own aircraft factory. Caverns were built in which to shelter aircraft and maintenance personnel from air attack. In 1942–43, an air gunnery range for training. The Surveillance Squadron was formed in 1941 and made combat-ready in 1943. A night fighter squadron was formed for evaluation purposes in 1944.
The role of the Swiss Air Force during World War II went through four distinct phases:
- September 1939 to May 1940: Air patrol, in an attempt to enforce a comprehensive no-fly ban issued by the Swiss government to the combatants, made largely ineffective by a 5–kilometer buffer along the border which Swiss fighters were forbidden to enter.
- May to June 1940: Air combat between Switzerland and Germany in which the Luftwaffe pilots tested Swiss air defenses, and were defeated.
- July 1940 to October 1943: A total ban on air operations, and a release of interned German aircraft and pilots, resulting from the encirclement of Swiss territory by the Axis, the implementation of the Réduit strategy, and recognition that the Air Force would be overwhelmed by the Germans in a sustained campaign.
- October 1943 to May 1945: Resumption of air patrols, a largely passive response, measured by the numbers of intercepts versus the numbers of violations.[14]
Preserved German Bf 109E of the Swiss Air Force (L) and EKW C-36 indigenous fighter/reconnaissance aircraft, used from 1942 to 1952, Flieger-Flab-Museum
But after the diplomatic protest, Hitler got furious when he heard that German equipment was used by the Swiss to shoot down German pilots. said that Germany would respond “in another manner”. Accordingly a second note was sent on 19 June which contained explicit threats. In response on 20 June, the Swiss government ordered its air force to stop intercepting planes violating Swiss airspace. Then Swiss fighters began instead to force intruding aircraft to land at Swiss airfields. Anti-aircraft units still operated. Later, Hermann Göring on the orders of Hitler sent saboteurs to destroy Swiss airfields but they were captured by Swiss troops before they could cause any damage.
Allied aircraft intruded on Swiss airspace throughout World War II. In total, 6,304 Allied aircraft violated Swiss airspace during the war. Some damaged Allied bombers returning from raids over Italy and Germany would intentionally violate Swiss airspace, preferring internment by the Swiss to becoming prisoners of war. Over a hundred Allied aircraft and their crews were interned in this manner.
Switzerland, surrounded by Axis-controlled territory, also suffered from Allied bombings during the war; most notably from the accidental bombing of Schaffhausen by American aircraft on 1 April 1944. It was mistaken for Ludwigshafen am Rhein, a German town 284 kilometres (176 mi) away; forty people were killed and over fifty buildings destroyed, among them a group of small factories producing anti-aircraft shells, ball-bearings, and Bf 109 parts for Germany.
Swiss Army officers standing over debris after an Allied bombing in Oberstrass, Zurich, on 4 March 1945
The bombing limited much of the leniency the Swiss had shown toward Allied airspace violations. Eventually, the problem became so bad that they declared a zero-tolerance policy for violation by either Axis or Allied aircraft and authorized attacks on American aircraft. Victims of these mistaken bombings were not limited to Swiss civilians but included the often confused American aircrews, shot down by the Swiss fighters as well as several Swiss fighters shot down by American airmen.
The Swiss, although somewhat skeptical, reacted by treating these violations of their neutrality as “accidents”. The United States was warned that single aircraft would be forced down and their crews would still be allowed to seek refuge, while bomber formations in violation of airspace would be intercepted. While American politicians and diplomats tried to minimize the political damage caused by these incidents, others took a more hostile view. Some senior commanders argued that as Switzerland was “full of German sympathizers”, it deserved to be bombed.
From 1943 onwards Switzerland stopped American and British aircraft, mainly bombers, overflying Switzerland on nine occasions, six times by Swiss Air Force fighters and nine by flak. Thirty-six Allied airmen were killed.
Refugees
As a neutral state bordering Germany, Switzerland was relatively easy to reach for refugees from the Nazis. Switzerland’s refugee laws, especially with respect to Jews fleeing Germany, were strict and have caused controversy since the end of World War II. From 1933 until 1944 asylum for refugees could only be granted to those who were under personal threat owing to their political activities only; it did not include those who were under threat due to race, religion or ethnicity. On the basis of this definition, Switzerland granted asylum to only 644 people between 1933 and 1945; of these, 252 cases were admitted during the war.
All other refugees were admitted by the individual cantons and were granted different permits, including a “tolerance permit” that allowed them to live in the canton but not to work. Over the course of the war, Switzerland interned 300,000 refugees. Of these, 104,000 were foreign troops interned according to the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers outlined in the Hague Conventions. The rest were foreign civilians and were either interned or granted tolerance or residence permits by the cantonal authorities. Refugees were not allowed to hold jobs. Of the refugees, 60,000 were civilians escaping persecution by the Nazis and of these 27,000 were Jew. Switzerland also acted as a refuge for Allied prisoners of war who escaped, including those from Oflag IV-C (Colditz Castle), a prominent German Army prisoner-of-war camp for captured Allied officers
Colditz Castle as Oflag IV-C, April 1945
Switzerland’s treatment of Jewish refugees has been criticized by scholars of the Holocaust. In 1999 an international panel of historians declared that Switzerland was “guilty of acting as an accomplice to the Holocaust when it refused to accept many thousands of fleeing Jews, and instead sent them back to almost certain annihilation at the hands of the Nazis”.
Protecting Power mandates
In war time each belligerent nation relies on an independent neutral third party to protect its diplomatic interests through “mandates” as specified in international law especially the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. In World War II, Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Sweden and the United States, performed these roles for both sides. When the US entered the war in late 1941, Switzerland took over its mandates. In terms of major roles Swiss diplomats had the mandate to protect belligerents interests as following;
- Germany’s interest in Britain, the United States, Yugoslavia, Turkey, and Dutch Indonesia.
- British interest in Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Japan. It protected Vichy France’s interests in Britain, the United States, Italy, Egypt and Brazil.
- Italy’s interest in Egypt and Brazil.
- United States interest in Germany, France, Italy, Japan, China and Denmark.
- Japan’s interest in Britain, the United States, Egypt and Argentina.
The diplomats arranged travel permissions, helping tens of thousands of people to return to their home countries after being trapped in an enemy nation. Swiss diplomats also supervised closed enemy embassies. Of special importance was the protection provided to the prisoners of war*, especially the sick and wounded.
* In 1939, the Service of Intellectual Assistance to Prisoners of War (SIAP) was created by the International Bureau of Education (IBE), a Geneva-based international organization dedicated to educational matters. In collaboration with the Swiss Federal Council, who initially funded the project, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the SIAP provided over half a million books to prisoners of war during World War II, and organized educational opportunities and study groups in prison camps.
A photograph from the International Bureau of Education Archives showing the preparation of parcels and books for distribution to prisoners of war
Trade / Financial relationships with Nazi Germany
Switzerland’s trade was blockaded by both the Allies and by the Axis. Each side openly exerted pressure on Switzerland not to trade with the other. Economic cooperation and extension of credit to Germany varied according to the perceived likelihood of invasion, and the availability of other trading partners. Concessions reached their zenith after a crucial rail link through (unoccupied) Vichy France was severed in 1942, leaving Switzerland completely surrounded by the Axis.
Switzerland relied on trade for half of its food and essentially all of its fuel; however, the Swiss controlled vital trans-alpine rail tunnels between Germany and Italy and possessed considerable electrical generating capacity that was relatively safe from air attack. Switzerland’s most important exports during the war were precision machine tools, watches, jewel bearings (used in bomb sights), electricity, and dairy products.
Until 1936, the Swiss franc was the only remaining major freely convertible currency in the world, and both the Allies and the Germans sold large amounts of gold to the Swiss National Bank. Between 1940 and 1945, the German Reichsbank sold 1.3 billion francs (approximately 18 billion francs adjusted for inflation to 2019) worth of gold to Swiss banks in exchange for Swiss francs and other foreign currency, which were used to buy strategically important raw materials like tungsten and oil from neutral countries. Hundreds of millions of francs’ worth of this gold was monetary gold plundered from the central banks of occupied countries. A total of 581,000 francs’ worth of “Melmer” gold taken from Holocaust victims in eastern Europe was sold to Swiss banks.
Under pressure from the Allies, in December 1943 quotas were imposed on the importation and exportation of certain goods and foodstuffs and in October 1944 sales of munitions were halted. However, the transit of goods by railway between Germany, Italy and occupied France continued. North–South transit trade across Switzerland increased from 2.5 million tons before the war to nearly 6 million tons per year. No troops or “war goods” were supposed to be trans-shipped. Switzerland was concerned that Germany would cease the supply of the coal it required if it blocked coal shipments to Italy while the Allies, despite some plans to do so, took no action as they wanted to maintain good relations with Switzerland. Between 1939 and 1945 Germany exported 10,267,000 tons of coal to Switzerland. In 1943 these imports supplied 41% of Swiss energy requirements. In the same period Switzerland sold electric power to Germany equivalent to 6,077,000 tons of coal.
In the 1990s, a controversy over a class-action lawsuit brought in Brooklyn, New York, over Jewish assets in Holocaust-era bank accounts prompted the Swiss government to commission the most recent and authoritative study of Switzerland’s interaction with the Nazi regime. The final report by this independent panel of international scholars, known as the Bergier Commission, was issued in 2002 and also documented Switzerland’s role as a major hub for the sale and transfer of Nazi-looted art during the Second World War.
Conclusion
Swiss military law provided for capital punishment for treason and certain other military offenses, such as desertion in the face of the enemy. During World War II, 33 people were sentenced to death for spying for Nazi Germany, 15 of them in absentia. Seventeen of those condemned were executed before the end of the war. With the exception of one man from Liechtenstein, all of those executed were Swiss. Hundreds of others were also imprisoned for spying for Germany and acts against national security.
From the end of the war to April 1949, the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland held six trials against 102 Swiss citizens, who were charged with treason and undermining Swiss’s neutrality and independence, for collaboration*, of which 99 were convicted.
* In January 1946, the Swiss government published a report on collaboration which, in the words of Swiss historian Luc van Dongen, gave the public memory its memorial and ideology tone and also its clear conscience.
Some of those convicted were tried in absentia. According to Martin Gutmann, an US historian, author and university lecturer, the trials served as a way for the Swiss establishment to reinforce a convenient and simplistic myth over its wartime past. However, they constituted a genuine national cleansing of Nazism by targeting key ideological figures in Switzerland’s Nazi movement. Many Swiss volunteers in the Waffen-SS were tried on lesser charges, including desertion, dereliction of duty, and unauthorized border crossing.
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NOTES
** A group of concepts for a political and social system that the regime of Nazi Germany wanted to impose on the areas of Europe that it conquered and occupied.
German plans for the invasion, occupation, and/or annexation of Switzerland & Liechtenstein, dated 1940 and March
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