Two official Swiss entities produced films: the civilian Schweizer Filmwochenschau or Ciné Journal Suisse (Swiss Weekly News) and the military Armeefilmdienst (Army Film Service). The films of both entities were shown to the populace throughout the entire country. Both sought to present facts, to give hope, and to engender a spirit of resistance. They would engage in a lively David and Goliath battle with the mighty German propaganda ministry.
Paul Ladame, the first Swiss Wochenschau director, recorded his experiences in A Camera Against Hitler (Une caméra contre Hitler). 14 When talkies began in Europe in 1929, Ladame acted in several movies and learned screenwriting, casting and directing. He earned a diploma in Berlin at the famed Reimannschule. When he returned in 1936 to cover the Olympic Games, his school had been closed and its Jewish professors expelled. He even found he was being watched by the SS.
Mobilized into the Swiss Army when World War II erupted, Ladame’s prewar experience would lead to his appointment as Wochenschau director. “I was in my gray army uniform at 3,000 meters guarding a pass when I was called and offered the task of being director of the newsreel. I signed the contract the day the Germans captured Paris,” he explained.15 “My civilian job was to counteract, and if possible to neutralize, the shrewd German propaganda. In theory my job was simple: the Nazis fomented fear and hopelessness with their films. Their army appeared so strong, young, well armed and well trained that any resistance seemed doomed. My job was to instill hope, courage and confidence.”16
With only Ladame, two cameramen and a secretary, they began by producing short documentary films. The budget was low and the equipment minimal. Only three meters of raw film could be used for each meter projected in the cinemas. There were national security restrictions as well. Films could not be made abroad, in military areas, or in refugee camps. The first edition of the Swiss Wochenschau was shown in Bern on August 1, 1940, Swiss National Day, to members of Parliament, the press, and dignitaries. A great success, it included five subjects: passage over the border into Switzerland by units of the defeated French army, including Polish and African soldiers; daily life of these internees in a camp in central Switzerland; 1,600 volunteers sorting out thousands of letters at the prisoner-of-war agency run by the International Committee of the red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva; a speech by ICRC President Max Huber; and a spectacular explosion of landmines in Valais in the south of Switzerland.17
The Wochenschau was shown in all cinemas of the country in German, French and Italian languages. The typical episode had three to five subjects including, besides news, sporting events and various types of documentaries. At the beginning, the newsreel had a duration of three minutes, but was later extended to six minutes. All cinemas in Switzerland were obliged to show the films.
The numbers varied, but about 40 copies of each edition were produced, 30 in German, eight in French, and two in Italian. With a few exceptions, the film negative was the same for all three versions. The number of copies for each version would vary depending on the number of movie theaters that played the films in the first week. It was up to the cinema associations and the film distribution association to come up with the distribution scheme. The Wochenschau organization had no part in those decisions. There were never enough copies for all Swiss movie theaters to show the most recent film upon its release. Each number went through a chain of cinemas, with the rental fee declining from the first to the tenth week of presentation.18
As the Swiss newsreels effectively countered the German ones, viewers cheered the former and booed the latter. While it was not required by law to show the German films, viewers were used to German movies and were naturally curious about what the Germans were saying about the war. Still, there was concern that Nazi propaganda not overwhelm the Swiss newsreels. Funding shortages led in March 1941 to a meeting of concerned citizens with the theme “Wir kämpfen gegen die deutsche Propaganda wie mit einer Korkpistole gegen Panzerwagen” (We’re fighting with a cork pistol against the tanks of German propaganda).19 The assembly passed a resolution to the Federal Council requesting more funding, which was soon supplied. Ladame served as head of the newsreel, making 200 films until 1944, when he was replaced by Hans Laemmel (who remained head until 1961).20 While it is unclear why the change took place, it was not unusual in Switzerland for a French-speaking Swiss to serve in an office and then be replaced by a German-speaking Swiss, or vice versa.
Laemmel wrote the following account in response to this author’s request for information.21 His reflections illustrate Switzerland’s respect for its multilingual tradition even under the most threatening of wartime circumstances:
As a soldier, I was dispatched to the division “Army and Home” (the military’s morale-boosting agency) for a while and wrote articles about the work of the Army Film Service. I did not become editor-in-chief of the newsreel until 1944. I considered our Wochenschau a means to just show Switzerland in its diversity on the screens of our domestic movie theaters. I always preferred to emphasize that the Wochenschau supplemented the Swiss part of the movie programs at the time, not that it fought against the German and Italian weekly reviews. It was sufficient to show the living presence of our country. As editor I always tried to avoid making the Wochenschau sound like the “voice of Bern” or a weapon. That was important because many movie theater owners and a large part of the Swiss-French population believed that Bern had created the Swiss Wochenschau as a means for official indoctrination, a tool for the centralistic shaping of public opinion.
The distrust of French Switzerland for any kind of overbearing centralism came from the long-standing concern of western Switzerland about its French language and culture. The Frenchs-peaking cantons traditionally felt threatened by the more numerous German-speaking cantons. Many felt that a weekly show set up and funded by Bern could be an attempt to force centralization on movie theater owners and their customers. Paul Ladame, whose native language was French, was well aware of this distrust. However, he knew German-speaking Switzerland well and did not share the concerns of his compatriots in the west. As a Swiss patriot, he realized the danger emanating from Hitler’s Germany more clearly and earlier than many of his compatriots in western Switzerland, where the threat was less direct and tangible. As a result, he emphasized the importance of the Swiss Wochenschau as a means for all of Switzerland to fight the Nazi influence.
In the German-speaking and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland, most of the owners of movie theaters welcomed the Swiss newsreels, and their associations made subscriptions to it mandatory. For German-speaking Switzerland, the Nazi danger was right across the border, while for many Swiss in the western part it was at first still far away. Then, even when the Germans were standing at the western border of Switzerland too, many French-speaking Swiss thought that the pact between [Vichy] French Marshall Pétain and Hitler reduced the danger.
Italian-speaking Switzerland experienced the threats and irredenta [Fascist claims to territory] coming from Mussolini’s Italy. From the beginning, the Ticinesi and the Italian-speaking people in Graubünden were determined to resist Italy. 22
THE ARMY FILM SERVICE
Beginning in the late summer of 1940, the Armeefilmdienst (AFD, or Army Film Service), a component of Heer und Haus (Army and Home), decided to go beyond the army and take its message directly to the people. They started preparing materials for civilian moviegoers and also for pupils of elementary and secondary schools.23 The carefully produced AFD documentaries, like domestic and foreign weekly reviews, were shown as previews at some but not all movie theaters. They were not part of the Wochenschau. 24 Rather, they contained military themes, complementing the predominantly civilian themes of the Wochenschau.
The acting head of the Abteilung Presse und Funkspruch (Department of Press and radio), Herr Fueter, had pointed out to the Chief of the General Staff as early as April 1940 that German newsreels sought to create the impression that resistance to superior German power was senseless. Since Switzerland was neutral, it coul
d not prohibit German films, but something had to be done to counter the German propaganda, especially in the military area.
Colonel Oscar Frey wrote to the Adjutant General in May 1941 that Swiss films must confront the German film initiatives directly and as quickly as possible. “Example: The German newsreel shows a tank attack. Answer: Swiss Ik. [Infanteriekanone—infantry antitank cannon] exercises, going into position, shooting. Final picture: a shot-through tank armor.” When viewers left movie theaters, they would be making comments such as “Did you know that we also have flamethrowers? The medical service and avalanche-dog service take care of our soldiers.”25
Such short films of no more than five minutes—“answers” to the German newsreels—began to appear, sometimes at two-week intervals, and were shown in all cinemas in Switzerland. Longer films were also made, such as the 40-minute “Schulung zum Nahkampf” (Training in Close Combat).26 Swiss military attachés in foreign countries, particularly in the Axis, made the Swiss films available as part of the strategy emphasizing the high potential casualties of a German invasion.
The relationship between the Army Film Service and civilian film organizations was set out in a September 1941 directive. The primary focus of the Army Film Service was to make films for actual military instruction, both to strengthen trust in the army and educate the civilian population. This entailed cooperation with Wochenschau production and distribution units in order to widen exposure to the civilian population.27 The Wochenschau could also make films with military themes that would be shown in the framework of its normal program. The Wochenschau indeed treated military subjects, and its first 30 editions all included segments on some aspect of national defense.
The Armeefilmdienst was operated by Army and Home. It always remained separate from the civilian Wochenschau. However, a movie theater could show the films of both. Sometimes a projectionist would glue the two together for convenience, and that could have left the impression that one was part of the other. At any rate, the army films were, first and foremost, meant to be viewed by the troops for training in tactics and specific weapons.28
A number of the editions of the Wochenschau and Armeefilmdienst productions have been reproduced in whole or part on videotape. The videotapes do not always identify and distinguish the source of specific footage, but it can be assumed generally that the Wochenschau produced the civilian themes and the Armeefilmdienst produced the military themes (particularly those of longer length).
According to one source, most of the Wochenschau films were sold after the war to a comb factory. The celluloid was considered more valuable than the historic content. Hans Laemmel, the Wochenschau editor-in-chief, maintains that the Swiss film archives in Lausanne kept a copy of each edition in German, French, and Italian. However, because those reels contained acetate and nitrate, there was a danger they would deteriorate and pose a risk of spontaneous combustion. As a result, they were copied over onto videotape and deposited with the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern.29
Following are descriptions of some of the newsreels, once so avidly viewed by the wartime generation of Swiss, but unseen in public since the fall of the Third Reich.
Mobilization
The Swiss military was formally mobilized on September 1, 1939, the day of Hitler’s attack on Poland. The Wochenschau edition flashes to the mobilization poster seen on walls throughout the country and then to a church bell ringing in a village. With the beautiful Alps as background, a farmer and his wife or daughter in traditional attire rush down the hillside. Grabbing one of four rifles on a rack, his helmet, and a bayonet, the man hurries in uniform from his house to the village.30 This scene, which with individual variations was part of the memory of every Swiss family, exudes hope, duty, love of family and homeland.
Then the film is all business. Soldiers rush to a road; weapons covers are pulled off; anti-tank obstacles are positioned; mines are laid and carefully covered with sod; cannon are moved into prepared emplacements; barbed wire is spread. There is a cut to the supreme commander, General Henri Guisan, being sworn in before Parliament. A further mobilization is announced; with intensive, backbreaking labor, soldiers move logs and stones to build additional fortifications.
There is footage of the period of the so-called Phony War, the winter of 1939–40 between Germany’s conquest of Poland and her spring offensives against the West. England and France had declared war on Germany over Poland, but aside from naval actions there were only feints and gestures on both sides. It was, however, a time of preparation for war. In the films of this period, Swiss winter soldiers trot on horseback through the snow. When spring comes, they practice gymnastics, jump over barbed wire and obstacles, do bayonet drills and work through mock assaults on tanks and trenches.31
With the massive blitzkrieg against Western Europe in May 1940, the newsreel has to compress many events into just a few minutes of film. The Wochenschau depicts German fighter planes, General Guisan speaking, Swiss maneuvers with live ammunition, soldiers racing up steep hills, pistol competitions, swimming races, horse obstacle courses and practice with heavy artillery. Then come scenes of demoralized French soldiers entering Switzerland, laying down their arms and being interned. A map shows Switzerland in white surrounded by Axis black—as if in a contrast between good and evil.32 Music and other sound effects enhance the visual message and voiceovers are used at dramatic points.
The September 1940 episode “Krieg” (War) said it all: France has fallen, and everywhere people wonder what the next target of German aggression will be. The Swiss response is to flash back to May 10, the day Germany attacked Belgium, Holland, and France, and the Federal Council had ordered Switzerland’s second great mobilization. A farmer hangs up a large scythe, grasps his rifle, and quickly bids farewell to his family; shops close; soldiers take oaths; more building of fortifications and defenses. On mountain roads, near rivers, and in city streets, barbed wire, tank obstacles and all manner of impediments go up; air raid alarms go off as women pull down shutters; anti-aircraft guns limber up. The scene shifts to war games—explosions, blazing machine guns, firing tanks. A soldier running through a trench is suddenly knifed from behind; next General Guisan is giving a speech on national defense; the film then flashes to some children, and the announcer admonishes viewers to protect freedom and the Fatherland; patriotic music ends the episode.33 Once again the message is clear: the Swiss can and will resist attack, and the costs to Nazi Germany—which need not and cannot be mentioned—will be heavy.
Industry, Agriculture, and Shortages
Throughout the war, the Wochenschau reiterated two basic messages. First, the Swiss situation was dangerous: cut off from her normal trading partners, Switzerland lacked fuel and natural resources, and did not produce sufficient food. Shortages were inevitable. Second, the core Swiss values of persistence, hard work, and the application of technology to solve problems would make survival possible. These episodes, compared with the shrill bombast of the German Wochenschau, may appear dry today, but they were exactly what the Swiss needed to endure.
Many segments focused on specific tasks. For instance: the recycling of old tires and parts from junk cars (classic old cars by today’s standards);34 wedding guests use the electric tramway to save fuel;35 old tubes collected by school children are melted and used for soldering wire;36 brown coal is mined with chisels and picks (no machine tools are shown);37 gas is made from wood;38 zinc coins replace copper coins (pouring out of a stamping machine like water);39 reeds are harvested for the building industry;40 and fence scrapings and household scrap are collected for the metal industry.41
One rather amusing episode covers the children’s harvest of cock chafer (a large scarab beetle) for processing as pig feed. Children violently shake the branches of a tree, causing cockchafer to rain down onto a tarpaulin on the ground. They are poured into huge burlap sacks—care must be taken because they eat their way out!—and then transported to a machine, which processes huge quantities into feed. In the final
scene, pigs eagerly devour the delicious delicacy.42 The implied lesson: even children must work in the struggle for food.
One newsreel segment entitled “Cultivation War” featured the national food plan devised by Dr. F. T. Wahlen. Every man, woman, and child participated in this plan, which entailed growing potatoes and other crops on every available bit of land, no matter how small. Charts in the film show that, in 1938, 83% of agricultural land was used for livestock and only 17% for crops, but by 1942 the numbers changed to 54% and 46% respectively. In 1934, 183,000 hectares of land were under cultivation, but that number later more than doubled to 500,000. The film shows scientists in laboratories conducting futuristic-looking experiments in agriculture.43 Besides reporting news, this episode was intended to reassure the population that everything possible was being done to produce an adequate, if Spartan, food supply.
Several episodes were devoted to this unending agricultural “war,” emphasizing that Switzerland would never experience famine because of the hard work of all citizens, young and old.44 Many years later, Paul Ladame reminisced that the best of the Wochenschau were the homey films on Dr. Wahlen’s campaigns to increase production of the lowly potato.45
Sometimes relief was needed from news about the war, hardship, and shortages. One episode featured a ladies fashion show, depicting innovations of the textile industry. Beautiful models display the latest styles to a crowd of admiring women. The models then retire to lounge chairs, smoke cigarettes, laugh and chat. This must have been a kind of therapeutic window-shopping—a chance to forget the war and hope for a better future.46
Humor also played a part. The theme of another episode was the preparation of tasty meals in the midst of shortages. The episode purported to show housewives that help was on the way in the form of a scifi-looking tape recording device filled with food ideas and recipes. It was, of course, a joke to relieve the tension.47
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