Swiss and the Nazis

by Stephen Halbrook

  The universally known Swiss army knife has been produced by Victorinox ever since. The only other maker is Wenger of the French Jura region, which also has produced the knife since that era. Karl Elsener, Sr., born in 1922, would inherit the family business. His recollections of the war period in an interview with this author are intriguing.35 He began:

  “Victorinox was founded in 1884. The officer’s and sport knives began to be produced in 1897. The army was not buying them yet, so officers and soldiers bought them in shops, including models with the corkscrew. After the army knife began to be issued, many kept the issue knife spotless and unused for inspections, and used daily knives that were personally purchased.

  “Beginning in 1934, Father went by train to Leipzig every year to examine new machine products. He saw factories working all night. He said: ‘Hitler is dangerous—we’ll have a war!’ That year, across the street from the Victorinox factory, Father built the first air raid shelter in Switzerland. Before the war, Solingen, with 1,000 firms, was the biggest competitor for cutlery. When Hitler came, these German firms got a 15 percent export premium. The German subsidization of exports hurt our business. During the war, Victorinox made pocketknives, bayonets, and officers’ daggers for the army.

  “In 1940 I was 18 years old and had heard discussions at school and in my family about the Saarland, Austria, the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia. We feared an Anschluss because we were German-speaking. Any pro-Hitler person was called a Verräter [traitor]. I knew one such person, a Mr. Kundig, who was from the village of Brunnen. He thought Hitler would win and that we should be friends with Germany. This angered my father, and Kundig’s business was boycotted and failed.

  “Also in 1940 we heard that Nazis met at an old farm house—actually a Sennhütte [a building where cheese is made]—on the Fronalpstock mountain. At the foot of the mountain is the village of Stoos, which today is a ski resort. My father told military authorities to post soldiers there. We feared paratroopers and hoped to shoot them.

  “There was a munitions factory at Altdorf. The military had storage buildings in the mountains and magazines in Schwyz. In 1935 a German Zeppelin blimp came here. It flew just over the army magazines and was suspected to have taken pictures.” That was in the heyday of the great Zeppelins—a well-known photograph shows one, swastikas on its fins, flying over new York City—which ended with the crash of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, new Jersey, in 1936. Elsener continued:

  “Like almost all other Swiss factories, Victorinox established a Betriebswehr [factory defense] consisting of males 15 to 19 and over 50 years of age to resist a German invasion. Those aged 20 to 50 were in military service. We had rifles, especially the model 1911 long rifle, and took part enthusiastically in the defense. We saved ammunition and had enough for target practice. Older officers trained the Betriebswehr. We did exercises around the Victorinox factory. Those of us under 20 years old found it very interesting—to fight German soldiers, and not just saboteurs!

  “The border of the Réduit, the alpine fortified area, started at the two mountains out from here, the Rigi and the Rossberg. Tank obstacles and fortifications were built.

  “In 1941, instructions from Bern directed that plans be made to destroy all machines to render them unusable if the Germans invaded. The plan was to remove important pieces of the machines—parts that could be taken quickly—and to hide them in the mountains. This was part of our psychological war: Germans must know that our factories will not fall to them, and there will be few fruits of an invasion. The Swiss did not need to publicize this, for the German spies knew the Swiss would resist and would sabotage their own factories.

  “A new factory was built in 1943. Iron and cement for construction were unavailable because large amounts were being used to make bunkers for the army. However, the Waffenfabrik [arms factory] in Bern helped Victorinox get a little cement and iron because our factory was located in the Réduit. Natural stones were used instead of cement for the foundation. Stones are not as strong, and heavy machines could not be used in this building.

  “During the war, the entire Swiss population was required to grow potatoes, corn and wheat. Our company had to plant a barren piece of land with corn. Due to the poor soil, the yield was only 10 to 20 percent of a normal yield. Workers not in military service were required to help.”

  While the end of the war ended production of bayonets and army knives for the Swiss military, it opened up a new market: American GIs who were sent to Switzerland for rest and recreation bought as many knives and watches as they could afford. Ever since, the Swiss army knife has been the most prominent Swiss cultural icon in the United States—a tool for every purpose.

  Arthur Bill, who would become a colonel in the Swiss air Force, went to Germany in 1935. “I knew a German in college who proposed that we bike through Holland and then Germany. At the Dutch–German border, I put the Swiss flag on my bike. I did not know that the Frontist Party (Swiss Nazis) used a similar flag, a white cross with red background, albeit triangular instead of square. We stayed at a youth hostel where other Swiss stayed. They demanded, ‘Why are you with Nazis?’ I did not understand.36 Then my German companion told me that I would have difficulties in Germany unless I gave the ‘Heil’ salute! I refused. In Germany, I saw signs with the names of villages and underneath, “Dieses Dorf ist Judenfrei” (This village is free of Jews). I then knew that Switzerland must resist German influence. This was a warning to Switzerland well before Kristallnacht [the night of Broken Glass] in 1938.”

  When the war came in 1939, recalls Bill, “there were not enough pilots. General Guisan wrote a letter to the infantry and artillery: do you have young officers who want to be pilots? Hundreds said yes. Only 200 were accepted for consideration, of which 24 were selected. I was one.

  “In pilot school in 1940, we had 26 young lieutenants, one of whom was pro-German. He told us that ‘if the Germans come, I will work with them.’ We told him our consensus: ‘If they come, you will be the first to be shot!’ His career ended.” This pilot was weeded out none too soon, for Swiss fighters shot down several Luftwaffe planes intruding on Swiss air space during the French campaign that year. Colonel Bill recalls, “Radio was ineffective, so Swiss planes were not used at night. At night, antiaircraft batteries shot at intruding planes.” after allied bombers began forays over Swiss air space en route to Germany, the axis protested that the Swiss were not protecting their supposed neutrality by shooting them down. While the Swiss pointed out that axis flak was also remiss, it was suspected that the Swiss intentionally did not hit allied bombers. A joke emerged that an allied bomber radioed to Swiss antiaircraft gunners, “You are shooting too low!” The Swiss responded, “We know!” Colonel Bill points out that this “is not factual, for there was no real radio communication with planes.” The oft-repeated joke was one more expression of Swiss support for an allied victory.

  Regarding damaged American bombers seeking refuge that were intercepted by Swiss fighters, Bill recalls, “The warning order to land, based on a diplomatic understanding, consisted of Swiss planes on each side of the intruding aircraft waving or swiveling left and right. Two more fighters followed the intruder from behind to shoot it down if it did not obey.

  “U.S. Flyers were confused about the Swiss air Force because we flew the Messerschmitt. I had a friend who was shot down in a dogfight with a Mustang. I myself had dogfights with Mustangs.” For instance, on September 10, 1944, Bill’s C-36 Grenzüberwachungs Patrouille was involved in a 15-minute dogfight over the Jura mountains with an attacking Mustang fighter.

  “I decided when flying away that I must resolve not just to participate in defense but also in reconstruction. When I got back I read the appeal by the Zurich philosopher Walter Robert Cortis in the august issue of Du entitled “Ein Dorf für die leidenden Kinder” [a village for the suffering children]. The plan was realized in 1946 with the founding of the Pestalozzi Children’s Village in Trogen. Dedicated to war orphans, it educated children agai
nst war. I became a housefather for Polish, French, and German children. I served 26 years as the director of the village.”

  Dr. Florian E. Davatz is an attorney living in Ticino, Switzerland’s Italian-speaking canton. He recalls: “during World War II, some people in Ticino sympathized with fascism, but on the whole fascists were hated because Mussolini thought that the Italian part of Switzerland ought to be a part of Italy. I did some military service at the Magadino air base as a temporary instructor of Morse telegraphy, navigation and military geography in pilot training schools. We were warned that there were Nazi spies in Ascona, were told to keep our mouths shut and were ordered to remove our unit numbers from our epaulets. The Germans had bought quite a bit of real estate in the Ticino resort areas, and a joke circulated that the Swiss were about to close down all their military establishments in Ticino ‘because the Germans did not like to have foreign troops in their country.’37

  “A schoolmate of mine, the son of my Latin teacher (dr. Virgilio Gilardoni, author of Art Treasures in Ticino), was tossed out of a university in Italy because he had punched a fascist in the face who said that the Swiss were a nation of hotel keepers. An Italian family who owned one of the best cafés in Locarno was said to be a bunch of fascists, and at the end of the war, some local people smashed all the chairs and tables of the outdoor café. The owner’s wife, a stately matron, was known as ‘Petacci,’ the name of Mussolini’s last paramour.

  “There was a time in May 1940 when we thought the Nazis would come. I was on duty during the night at Payerne near Lake Neuchâtel. Someone said he heard shots in the direction of the lake. Indeed, you could hear some ‘boom boom.’ When someone went across the airfield where a fighter squadron was stationed, he found out that the ‘boom boom’ came from crews playing soccer on the tarmac.” The grim prospect of a possible attack must have given rise to countless false alarms.

  “The Nazis did not come, but during those days some saboteurs were caught with weapons and explosives and who were supposed to cause damage among the squadrons stationed in various areas.” Indeed, after the Swiss shot down several Luftwaffe fighters in 1940, Hermann Goering sent nine agents—seven Germans and two Swiss—to blow up two airbases and a munitions plant. The Swiss apprehended the terrorists, explosives in hand.38 Davatz continues:

  “I learned how to open the valves of the subterranean gasoline tanks and was ready to ignite the fuel if need be. I was armed with my Luger pistol, a Walther PP pistol, a dagger stuck in my boot, and a rifle. On another night patrol near the Payerne cemetery with one of our student pilots, we heard a ‘whoosh’ in the shrubbery, but when we approached the ‘threat’ we found that it was just a dog on its own ‘night patrol’. Great relief for all concerned!

  “There were fifth columnists, Swiss who sold the Nazis military secrets. Several were executed. The minister who officiated at my first wedding had to be present at the executions, and he told me it was a terrible experience. The traitors were shot by riflemen from their own units.

  “During those days, we air observers called ourselves ‘Saint Bernard dogs’ and our motto was ‘ach was!?’ [So what?]. Our pilots, whom we called ‘chauffeurs’ or ‘heaters,’ called us, the backseat drivers, ‘maggot sacks,’ ‘club feet,’ or ‘lead rolls.’ When a pilot of a two-seater had to fly without an observer, some pretty heavy lead rolls were fastened on the outside of the rear seat to balance the bird.

  “In the early stages of the war, officers were equipped with swords which we also had to take along when flying. Although later we were issued daggers, I managed to hang on to my 40-inch sword. These swords had a way of slipping back in the fuselage, and to retrieve them was quite an operation.”

  The foregoing descriptions present intimate views of the wartime lives of individual Swiss who resisted the fifth column and prepared to meet a Nazi invasion. These accounts, based on oral interviews and unpublished written statements or letters, add another dimension to previous accounts of Switzer land’s behavior during World War II. The voices of the wartime generation—the great Swiss generation which successfully resisted Nazism—should not be forgotten.

  CHAPTER 5

  BLITZKRIEG 1940

  On April 9, 1940, Hitler, claiming “provocations,” ordered his Wehrmacht to attack two strategically important neutral states—Denmark and Norway.

  Denmark was key to German control of the Baltic and the choking off of shipments of supplies to Russia. Directly on the German border (like Switzerland), Denmark is flat and exposed to both naval and air bombardment. With no natural terrain defenses, no place to hide and little hope against onrushing German panzers, Denmark surrendered rather than risk substantial losses and the destruction of its cities. Unarmed neutrality was no help.

  For the Germans, Norway was strategically significant as an outpost for naval and air power. Just as important was to deny the vast territory and coastline to the British. The Germans expected that the English themselves would have few qualms about violating Norway’s neutrality. Norway also had metals and other raw materials critical to German war production. Though mountainous and more remote from the Reich, Norway paid a swift and terrible price for not having invested in its military. The armed forces put up a heroic but short-lived resistance primarily along its coastal seaports before capitulating, although—as Swiss reports noted with interest—guerilla sharpshooters continued to harass the invaders thereafter.1

  The lessons of sudden and unprovoked Nazi attacks on useful neutrals were not lost on Switzerland. The Swiss had ample reason to believe they would be next. However, the Swiss had been threatened through the centuries by powerful neighbors and remembered as well the recent hard lessons of the First World War. They had made it a national priority to maintain a military force credible enough to give pause to any potential invader. With good planning and preparation, Swiss terrain, while not uniform or ideal, was suited to a vigorous defense. The independence and discipline nurtured by Swiss culture and traditions boosted the will to fight. The Swiss considered themselves different from the other neutrals. When it came to defending their homeland, they were little affected by the defeatism that had sapped the spirit of so much of the rest of Europe. Like the English, the Swiss were realistic about the dangers, but were not intimidated. They were determined to resist as the Finns had resisted the Soviet Goliath. They knew the cost would be high and were determined to pay it rather than surrender.

  At the policy level—and certainly in the streets—there was precious little accommodation to or respect for the emerging German colossus. Anyone who even brought up the subject of a “realistic” policy toward Germany, publicly at least, came under immediate attack or was removed from authority in the military or the government. In the military sphere, the Swiss built fortifications, improved weapons systems and increased the pace of training.

  The Germans thought the Swiss reaction ludicrous, given the country’s small size, exposed border and economic dependence on the Reich. More specifically, Nazi ideologues saw this Swiss impudence as the maneuverings of Swiss and Jewish international capital. But as much as they threatened and complained, the Nazis could neither suppress Swiss reactions nor make inroads into the Swiss policy establishment. Since Switzerland was neutral, all they could do was demand that the Swiss live up to the letter of their historic political neutrality under international law. In the streets, the Swiss Nazis were never a significant force. They held rallies, issued manifestos, and spied for the Germans, but were generally ostracized, closely watched. Their efforts came to nothing.

  In mid-April 1940, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) reported that “rabble-rousing propaganda against the Reich continues” in Switzerland. The Germans claimed to see a pattern in this “hostile propaganda” and believed it was being coordinated from a single source.2 How the events of the rest of 1940 vis-à-vis Switzerland looked through the eyes of the Wehrmacht and its intelligence branches is the subject of this chapter.

  Militarily and diplomatically, t
he Swiss maintained a carefully choreographed cover of official neutrality. Federal President Marcel pilet-Golaz explained to German emissaries that the Swiss army would oppose a French invasion as vigorously as it would resist invasion by German troops.3 Such statements—and the military dispositions that in fact backed them up—were intended to convince the Germans that their southern flank was secure. The subtext was that Germany had no need to drive into Switzerland in a blocking move should it become involved in hostilities with France or England. But the Swiss knew perfectly well that the only real threat came from Germany, and despite the shadow plays, they had been preparing to resist German aggression for years. Nonetheless, defensive positions against France had to be substantial enough to convince the Germans—and their numerous spies and observers—that the Swiss flatland connection between France and Germany posed no threat.

  The underlying Swiss strategic assumptions were, however, suddenly and dramatically overturned with the unexpected collapse of France. On May 10, Germany launched concerted attacks against France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In the first days, neither the German battle plan nor the French response was clear. But anticipating a German attack, the Swiss had already entered into a secret accord with the French military. If Germany were to attack France through Switzerland, Switzerland was prepared to allow French forces to meet that German assault on Swiss soil.

  In those first anxious weeks of May the Swiss were treading on egg shells so as not to trigger a German assault on the basis of Wehrmacht misapprehension or false intelligence. They knew the German army had contingency plans for just such a move. The Swiss army was immediately mobilized, but as the OKW reported, Federal President Pilet-Golaz announced that the mobilization took place “only as a precaution for the protection of our neutrality and is not directed against anyone.” He repeated the Swiss mantra that “the Swiss army would repulse an attack from whichever side it comes.” in a war zone, neutrality is a tricky business. A more distant neutral—the United States—was also careful not to be drawn inadvertently into the conflict. It was reported that “Roosevelt wants to keep the American appearance of neutrality intact.”4