Swiss and the Nazis

by Stephen Halbrook

  Such were the experiences of one Swiss soldier. While the varieties of experiences were endless, their common thread was the determination to resist the threat, which remained for the duration of the war.

  In July 1934, Bruno Capol attended Boy Scout summer camp in the Grisons. “The Swiss Scout uniform consisted of a brown shirt and black Manchester shorts. As members of a Scout Troop of Lucerne, we wore black scarves. We did not know yet that the uniform of the German Hitler Youth was identical to our uniform. On a hike, when we took a rest along the road from Zizers to Chur, a German car with opened canopy arrived and stopped. The five passengers got out, made the Hitler salute, and enthusiastically called out ‘Heil Hitler!’ Shocked, we picked up pieces of dirt and bombarded the Germans.24

  “In 1938, a Nazi office with a Hitler Youth section opened in Lucerne. It leaked out that a German student who attended our school was a member. During a school sports event he was pummeled by his classmates.”

  On September 1, 1939, when Hitler launched World War II, Switzerland mobilized not just her militia army but also her Boy Scouts. Capol recalls: “In Lucerne, the 16- to 19-year-old Scouts entered the auxiliary services. The school was closed. To our Scout uniform we added a red armband with the Swiss cross and were sworn in! on our bikes day and night, we provided runner services, delivering orders for requisition of food and motor vehicles. At railway stations and crossroads, my Scout group removed all signs which gave any geographic information, such as the name of a village or town.”

  Capol entered military service and by 1942 was a second lieutenant in the air force, the youngest officer in the Swiss military. “In the evening we used to sit around the radio and listen to war news of the German Wehrmacht and the allied forces. Still today I hear the noise of the German marching boots on gravel and the sound of their soldiers’ songs, ‘denn wir fahren,—denn wir fahren,—denn wir fahren gegen Engelland!’ [then we march against England] or their favorite, ‘Lili Marlene.’ I remember a German soldiers’ song which ended with the refrain ‘und die Schweiz, das Stachelschwein, nehmen wir am Heimweg ein!’ [and Switzerland, the porcupine, we’ll conquer her on our way home!]. The Nazis called Switzerland a porcupine because our borders were protected all around with heavy barbed wire obstacles.” actually, that term went back to medieval times, describing the appearance of concentrated bodies of Swiss foot soldiers with pikes protruding in the air, an impregnable barrier to knights on horseback.

  The Swiss porcupine awaited a Nazi attack. As Capol adds: “It was never an option to win, but to sell our skin dear. We knew our territory, we were farmers and knew every tree.” This determination is further illustrated in the following account.

  Combat Engineer von Schroeder of Radio Signal Company 1 penned a dramatic recollection of taking the oath of allegiance at the time of the Swiss mobilization when Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939.25 “Late in the afternoon we marched out of the boarding school where we had assembled in our steel helmets and with fixed bayonets. We walked up the hill to a place above the town where we were to be sworn in together with members of a French-speaking telegraph company.

  “The Swiss flag was blowing in the evening breeze. We were lined up in ranks looking over the land, our homeland. In the distance we saw the Freiburg mountains, and behind them the Alps. A few clouds were in the sky, and everything around us was very peaceful.

  “The radio signal companies at the time were half-battalion size and were mixed units with men of all ages and from almost all Swiss cantons. We were standing there as a symbol of the Swiss army: young drafted soldiers, experienced Landwehr soldiers, gray-haired Landsturm soldiers who had participated in the last border occupation (veterans of the World War I mobilization).” The Swiss militia army was divided into these three classes based on age. Von Schroeder continued:

  “Besides our French-speaking comrades from Vaud, neuchâtel and Geneva, we had men from Zurich, Basel, Berne, Schaffhausen, Ticino, St. Gall, the Grisons and many others. All had joined the army here to protect our beautiful, common homeland in a crisis, and we were not separated either by age or by language.

  “The captain read the articles of war in German and French. A representative of the Freiburg government took our oath: ‘We officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers swear to be loyal to the Swiss Confederation, to give our life and limb for the defense of our Fatherland and its Constitution; never to desert the flag; to follow the military laws faithfully; to follow the orders of our superiors exactly and timely; to uphold discipline and to do everything required to preserve the honor and freedom of our Fatherland.’ We were holding our rifles and steel helmets in the left hand while we raised our right hand for the oath. ‘I swear’ went over the meadow like a whisper of the wind. Then the whole ceremony was repeated in French. We went back to our quarters. The ceremony made a great impression on me which made my heart beat with renewed and perpetual love for Switzerland.”

  Heinz Häsler, who would later become the Chief of the General Staff of the Swiss army, has a vivid memory of the mobilization of September 1, 1939. “That day my father was working with a few other men from the village to construct new barriers to channel mountain torrents into a gorge below the Schynige Platte. Shortly before noon a railroad worker called down to them that things were starting to happen. This information was not a great surprise. We had all been in fear that this would happen sooner or later. In those days the daily talk even in the most remote mountain valleys was about the political situation in Europe and the inflammatory speeches coming from the north.26

  “My father returned home around 4 p.m. My mother had already readied his uniform, backpack, and other gear, and with tears in her eyes was now gathering underwear and putting a large piece of mountain cheese into a bag. My grandmother was crying, but I was a school-age boy and felt defiance, pride and admiration. From the conversations of the adults I had learned what a dangerous man the ‘Führer’ in far-away Germany was and how much damage he could inflict with his armies if nobody stopped him. Grandfather had even said that he would shoot him if he ever saw him. So I had formed a view of the world in a simple childish way. Now this monster was going to be fought.

  “And then father was in uniform. He was a private first class with the field artillery. I had known that for a long time because he often talked about the service. The gold-threaded, green-black cord on his coat was the highest honor for a marksman, and the small yellow chevron in metal on his red arm sleeves was the insignia of a judge. He had explained all of this to me.

  “I followed Father to his room where he took the carbine and a package of ammunition from the closet. We always kept rifle ammunition in the house (and still do). Father opened the package and took out six cartridges which he inserted into the weapon. ‘Everything will be all right,’ he said when he left with his carbine. The goodbyes were simple and serious.

  “Down on the street Father waited for two neighbors. More men came from side streets in uniform, with backpacks and rifles. They disappeared into the woods and into uncertainty.”

  Resistance to a Nazi invasion and potential occupation was a topic of constant discussion among the Swiss armed forces. Ambassador Heinz Langenbacher remembers it well. “as young air force lieutenants, we often discussed—sometimes all night—what we would have to do if the Germans attacked and invaded Switzerland. We agreed that we would not flee abroad, but go underground to organize a resistance movement. Our models were the Finns whose fight for independence we admired and the French Maquis of whose successful operations against the Germans we kept getting breathless reports from across the border.”27 While the Réduit in the Alps offered the most favorable terrain to engage the Wehrmacht, resistance would take place throughout the entire country. Langenbacher continues:

  “We discussed how we would form resistance cells in the mountains, set up resistance groups at universities, conduct covert operations with farmers, and obtain weapons caches from army supplies. We also agreed that
we would have to do everything possible to convince our fellow citizens that flight would weaken the spirit of the people. We had learned in particular from the French that mothers and daughters were playing an important role in the resistance movement. We therefore agreed that the women would have to be integrated into our movement from the beginning.

  “There was also agreement among us that it would be of great importance for the future of our country to fight to the last, to die honorably. We were convinced that each country is only worth as much as that country is willing to fight for its ideals.”

  Langenbacher wrote these lines in his diary on December 11, 1942: “It is difficult to resist a nagging depression. Each time I think I am dropping into a black hole, one thought keeps me above the water: the knowledge that, if we were attacked, hundreds of our politicians and journalists, who show such an admirable courage every day, would be slaughtered by the Nazis and tens of thousands of young men deported to Germany for hard labor and our houses plundered, and our women raped and we, the diplomats, thrown into concentration camps. These pictures always give me a new courage to resist.”28

  Hans Hug served in the Swiss army from 1942 to 1945. “I was stationed most of the time in an area stretching from Schaffhausen to Stein am Rhein. Time was spent in building fortifications, getting acquainted with flamethrowers, shaped charges, and anti-tank weapons, and watching the activities on the German side of the Rhein from observation towers.29

  “The Swiss soldier, myself included, had no illusions about the longterm outcome of a battle with the German armies. However, it was felt that we could put up a good fight with hit-and-run tactics and hold out several months until our food and ammunition were depleted. We also knew that Hitler and Mussolini were eager to get hold of the north–south railway connections, specifically the Gotthard and the Simplon tunnel complexes. Both tunnels were double track and were served by very powerful electric locomotives. The tunnel under the Brenner Pass into Italy was single track and employed steam locomotives, which limited the movements of heavy freight trains.

  “Consequently, the Swiss army Command expected that an attack on either or both tunnels would be launched by a combination of parachute troops and/or glider formations. Hence, when mobilized, we stood guard and slept near the tracks in haystacks ready to set off the charges which would destroy the tunnels and bridges. It was cold, miserable and no fun. No army barracks here with bunk beds! After two weeks, we were moved out and another detachment took over.”

  In recent years, Switzerland has been criticized because some refugees were housed in rustic work camps. Hug compared those camps with the living conditions of the Swiss military: In addition, “Refugees in Switzer land in labor camps planted potatoes and vegetables, as all Swiss, young and old, were required to do. These camps were made up of standard army barracks and provided blankets, a stove and cold running water. For us, when returning from several weeks of field duty, this was an unheard of luxury!”

  American airmen who found refuge in Switzerland after bombing missions in southern Germany left lasting impressions on the Swiss who encountered them. In 1944, Hug witnessed the crash landing of a B-24 between Diessenhofen and Schaffhausen. “We were most impressed with the youth of the crews. An aircraft commander I interviewed was 23 years of age and his crew of seven or eight was even younger! Most impressive was their equipment. Fleece-lined jackets with sewn-in first-aid kits! and the airplanes: What marvels they were! Here we met young airmen from the other side of the Atlantic who sought refuge in Switzerland.”

  While numerous damaged American aircraft came down in Switzer land, a unique incident occurred in spring 1944 when a futuristic Luftwaffe nightfighter got lost and landed by mistake at Dübendorf near Zurich. “Hitler threatened to send a commando outfit to destroy the plane. The Swiss military managed to delay this effort for a day and had dr. Ackeret—a professor of aerodynamics at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich—go over the plane to inspect and photograph it in detail. The next day, in the presence of the German ambassador to Switzerland, the plane was burned and destroyed by the Swiss military. The rumor had it that all photos ended up in Allen Dulles’ hands in Bern.” Dulles headed the Bern operations of the office of Strategic Services (oSS), the intelligence agency of the United States.

  The Swiss already had a deep-seated attachment to American culture. As Hug relates: “What music did we listen to? The best the BBC had to offer on the long-wave band: Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, etc.”

  Henry Guggenbühl was a senior sergeant on General Guisan’s personal staff. He recalls: “I was concerned with the mentality of the German army. German soldiers were well informed about conditions in Switzer land. In 1946, I had business in Germany and interviewed ex-Wehrmacht members, who told me that they were afraid to attack Switzerland primarily because every Swiss had a rifle at home and shot well; there would have been a Heckenschütze (sniper) behind every bush. Further, it was difficult to send spies into the villages, since Ortswehr members knew their towns and every face in them. Finally, fortresses such as the Swiss had could not be seen in all of Europe; there were said to be 2,000 fortresses in Switzerland.”30

  These personal observations tell tales not found in the history books. Guggenbühl offers one more: “Two blind people were in my unit. Their hearing was more sensitive, so they listened for aircraft.” The Swiss never knew if the Luftwaffe would initiate a blitzkrieg against their country, and every person could play a role in defending the Confederation.

  The Reverend Peter Vogelsanger was a Protestant minister in Schaffhausen, which is on the border with Germany. He was once asked to conduct a funeral for a German man whom he did not know. When he entered the chapel, there stood a man in Nazi Party uniform, and a gigantic swastika flag was spread on the coffin. Rev. Vogelsanger declared, “as long as this anti-Christian flag is displayed here, I will hold no Christian burial!” angry gazes and a deadly tension filled the air. Vogelsanger stood firm until the man at the head of the coffin withdrew the Nazi flag. Later, there were furious, threatening protests from the German colony, and the German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung denounced the Swiss minister.31

  As a known critic of national Socialism, Rev. Vogelsanger was a natural enemy of the pro-Nazi national Front. He taught at a school and clashed with another teacher named Carl Meyer. Meyer, who had Nazi sympathies, was fired from his job and blamed Vogelsanger for his dismissal.32 Vogelsanger had reason to believe that he was put on the list of Swiss to be liquidated when the Nazis invaded.

  Rev. Vogelsanger, like all other Swiss men, served in the militia army. The minister was armed, trained, and ready to join in resistance to any Nazi invasion. Ironically, his saddest sermon during the war was delivered at the funeral of the scores of Swiss who died in the accidental American bombing of Schaffhausen in 1944.

  Paul Rothenhäusler was in grammar school when the war came. “I had the choice of working on a farm or joining the Fliegerbeobachtungsdienst (aircraft observation Service), which watched for foreign airplanes. I chose the latter, and spent six months in mountain hotels. We worked in teams of two. One would stand and watch the sky and the other would sit with paper and a phone. There would be three hours of watching followed by six hours of leave.33

  “In 1940 I biked from Zurich to Geneva, where I stayed as a Red Cross worker. I read letters from prisoners of war on both sides and made summaries.” a primary mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Switzerland, was to facilitate communication between prisoners of war and their families. Letters from POWs had to be sanitized to remove facts of potential military use while leaving information of personal significance to families. Rothenhäusler remarked as follows on the Swiss military training he experienced:

  “In 1943 I went to recruit school for infantry training, Prussian style. In the morning, we did gymnastic exercises, maneuvers, marching and walking. Our shoes with nail cleats were the best in the world. We did shooting at a range of 300 meters using
the a (bullseye) and B (silhouette) targets. If you did not do your obligatory shooting or if you did not score enough points, you did two days of additional training. I had to do it once. The others there were anarchists and leftists.” Such persons, Rothenhäusler opined, were averse to military duty.

  “I became a journalist and published an article in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland’s leading newspaper, in early 1944. I wrote on the French Resistance literature, especially new books published in the French part of Switzerland. My articles were not censored. I was in contact with august Lindt and other members of the Swiss Resistance.” Lindt was a leading Swiss journalist who advocated the most extreme measures to resist an invasion.

  “In 1944 I served in the Jura, where we trained and awaited an attack from the Sauschwaben [German pigs]. In April 1945 I guarded Russian civilians. They were laborers who had escaped into Switzerland from German factories. I knew some of the Russians, and invited one for a drink. He filled my beer glass with potato schnapps! I got drunk. One Russian took my rifle and another helped me to bed.” Who was guarding whom?

  The Swiss army knife was as ubiquitous then as now. In 1890, Karl Elsener, owner of the Victorinox knife factory in the Canton of Schwyz, founded the association of Swiss Master Cutlers to promote cooperation between producers to supply knives for the Swiss army. At that time, the army knives were purchased from Solingen, the center of the German cutlery industry. The first Swiss-made knives for the Swiss army were delivered in 1891. The soldier’s knife included a blade, punch, tin opener and screwdriver. The officer’s knife, patented in 1897, also included an eraser blade (used to scrape ink from paper) and, most important of all, a corkscrew.34