Swiss and the Nazis

by Stephen Halbrook

  “We had practically no machinery and no automated mower to cut the grass. We got up at 4:30 a.m. To feed our 10 to 12 cows, Mother cut grass with an old McCormick mower, after which we turned the hay by hand and loaded it on carts with iron wheels. We were unloading hay or wheat until late at night.

  “To this day we are grateful to my teacher. He was my brother’s captain and often sent him home on leave to work in the fields. We were plowing with a steer, a horse, and a cow (but only for a half-day so she would still yield milk). Two of my sisters had to help. We also had many soldiers staying with us; they would work some and we shared our food with them.

  “In the winter of 1942–43, we had to cut wood to replace coal, which was no longer available. Even in bad weather or a snowstorm we went to the forest with our axes and saws, in worn shoes because shoes were rationed, with cloth wrapped around the lower legs to keep the snow from getting into the shoes. I was not a very strong boy and sweated profusely while doing this hard work, so I caught pneumonia. We did not go to the doctor because health insurance did not exist. I ended up staying at a sanatorium for 18 months and had pneumothorax for seven years. This creeping illness in my lungs was luckily discovered in January 1944 when I was being x-rayed in recruit school. Otherwise those bugs would have gotten me.

  “We had many American planes flying over at night on their way back to Italy after bombing southern Germany. Not far from our house searchlights beamed at the airplanes, and the antiaircraft battery in Bümpliz would go into action. One night there was a violent thunderstorm. The planes had to drop their bombs to gain altitude. This caused several windows to be broken. We were often very afraid.

  “We had no money to put in the bank, but we helped our neighbors and refugees, regardless of whether they were Jewish or Christian. Our family hosted children from Holland, France, Hungary, Germany and some Swiss from abroad. Some of the children were skin and bones. We shared our bread with all of them.”

  That would have been the infamous wartime two-day-old potato bread. When we concluded the above interview, Frau Gasser-Hänni served her own homemade bread, traditional country style. One can only imagine the difference.

  Verena Rothenhäusler is a soft-spoken but determined woman who told her story with fire in her eyes. She was 12 in 1940 and lived at Rapperswil, near Aarau, between Bern and Zurich. “My father had polio, which paralyzed his right side. He could not join the army, but he could still shoot. Father bought a rifle, I think from a soldier, and kept it at home. We practiced in the garden, using a special cartridge and target set-up. I was a good shot. My three cousins had a small Flobert [ball cap] rifle. We all practiced with it. Later one cousin was trained as a grenadier.6

  “Both of my parents had lived in Germany. During World War I, my father, who was Swiss, moved from Germany to Switzerland. So I knew something about the Nazis. I went to my grandparents at Singen for Christmas and vacation. In 1934, when I was six, Father took me over the border to see a Nazi parade. He became more and more angry. ‘It will not be good for Germany,’ he said.

  “Everyone in the family was against the Nazis except for a German uncle, who said, ‘We have work again.’ That was true. Grandfather’s house in Germany was near a printing press where before Hitler long lines of unemployed had appeared every morning.

  “When I was 6 or 7, we took a taxi from the Swiss border to a train station in Germany. We had 50 grams of tea in my handbag. German border guards searched the bag and found the tea. You were forbidden to take tea or coffee to Germany. The guards took my parents out of the taxi and conducted a complete search. We never went that way again.

  “I did farm duty three weeks a year. This was in summer vacation, and I would live at the farm. Women had too much work to do. There were always cows to milk. I helped in the garden and picked cherries. You get tired of eating them quickly! The farmer’s name was Keller. Mrs. Keller and her four children were there together with one 20-year-old employee. Mr. Keller was away in the army. We gave the Keller children clothes, so they gave us extra rationing coupons. Farmers did not need all of their coupons.” Sale of coupons was prohibited, but this kind of informal mutual aid was probably widespread.

  Frau Rothenhäusler talked about the wartime bread: “The potatoes in it kept it fresher. Every day we had bread for breakfast and took a sandwich to school. We went two days a week without meat. Meat was more controlled in town but not so much in the village. Later, there were three meatless days every week.

  “We had many alarms from German and American airplanes. At night there was blackout, requiring that we keep the shutters closed. The blackout was very strict in the beginning. Later, many times I was in bed and the night guard saw that I had a light on, but he did not bother me.

  “We heard the radio news every day at 12:30 during our mid-day break from school. On Friday night after the news, there would be a political report from Prof. Jean Rudolf von Salis. These were broadcasts on radio Switzerland which could be heard in Germany.” Germans caught listening to foreign radio broadcasts were subject to severe penalties, because hearing outside perspectives would have only encouraged doubts about the Nazi regime. German broadcasts heard by the Swiss, by contrast, could be terrifying. Verena Rothenhäusler remembers:

  “I heard German radio, including Hitler speeches. I get freezing cold when I remember it! Those speeches made us afraid.

  “Father was in the Ortswehr and the Luftschutz (Air Defense), and protected the factory. He had supplies of cotton and a spinning mill. Had the Germans come, he would have set fire to his factory.

  “One did not talk about details [of defense]. Posters admonished against talking too much. There were Germans and even Nazis in Switzer land. At school in Aarau, there was a German girl. I once saw her on the street on a Saturday afternoon shopping, and she was wearing the uniform of the Bund Deutscher Mädel [League of German Girls], which meant that she was an active Nazi. She tried to communicate with me (my grandparents were still in Germany). Did she perhaps want to know about the factory? Later, her family had to leave Switzerland.” This last statement was uttered with a sigh of relief, but the following came with a cringe:

  “I first heard about concentration camps in 1944. A visiting aunt told us about terrible things in the East, including awful camps for Jews. My uncle was editor of a protestant paper and got secret information from the protestant church in Germany.”

  The Women’s Auxiliary Service, known as the FHD (Frauenhilfsdienst), was a popular organization formed to assist the Swiss Armed Forces.7 Their activities, which ran the gamut from nursing to watching for aircraft, included services traditionally provided by women as well as activities meant to free the men for armed service. An FHD recruiting poster read: “Schweizer Frauen meldet Euch zum FHD. Jede FHD Macht Einen Soldaten für die Front Frei” (Swiss women, join the FHD. Every FHD enlistment frees a soldier for the front).

  In a 1999 interview, FHD member Esther Terrier recalled: “I was in Girl Scouts. My family was patriotic. My father and brother were called up in the general mobilization of 1939. I was 18 in December and joined the FHD Army Hospital administration. Everyone thought that the FHD represented solidarity and showed you had a positive attitude. We learned to march and wore Scout uniforms. Those who were not Scouts before the war wore aprons. Those who were 20 or older wore the Swiss arm band and had a service book.”8 The armband identified them as members of the Armed Forces, and the service book recorded their military training and service.

  “There was also an organization consisting of nuns from hospitals and cloisters. Nuns who were nurses were incorporated into the Army.

  “In March 1940, I was drafted into a unit as secretary for the director of the Military Health Service. We were in a central facility for all of Switzerland located in Luzern.

  “After Hitler attacked Belgium, Holland and France, the Swiss could observe the Germans over the border. On the highways we saw people fleeing Zurich and Basel. It was very emotional. Switzerland
remobilized and we were sworn in as FHD members.

  “We cared for French and polish military internees. I selected those who qualified as being sick—many were not sick but were faking to get comfortable quarters. They were taken by rail to an internee center in Lausanne.

  “I was later sent back to Luzern and worked in administration until 1942. I was training to be a nurse and finished as the war ended, becoming an assistant to a surgeon.”

  Like male soldiers, FHD members wore IDs called “death tags”—Americans preferred to lighten the topic by calling them dog tags. The tag of one FHD veteran, which this author examined, reads: “Alice Renold-Asper, 22.12.19 [birth date] Prot[estant], Dättwil AG [address], D [Dienst or service], Chef [commander].” The tag is oval shaped and can be broken in the middle. Half stays with the dead body; the other goes to the family.9

  Frau Renold-Asper, whose neck the tag had once adorned, recalled some prewar events: “A Jewish lady who was a family friend invited me to Berlin in 1937. We sat on yellow benches for Jews and spoke in French so we would not be understood. Her family frequently came to Baden and owned a factory. She later escaped from Germany with her family and sailed on the Simon Bolivar, the last ship full of Jews leaving Holland. It went to England.

  “In September 1939 I finished school and, like thousands of other women, volunteered for the FHD. There was no pay. I was placed in the Zurich State House to work in Soldiers’ Assistance. I did typing and administration, including applications from wives for financial help. A committee considered the financial situation and the children’s needs. A favorable decision would bring two Swiss francs per day in aid.

  “In May 1940,” she continued, “things were dangerous. There was panic and flight from the border. At the train station in Zurich you saw ladies with bird cages and walking sticks.”

  What were members of the FHD instructed to do if the Germans invaded? Alice explained: “I learned how to use a pistol. Our order was to stay in place and keep working unless we received new directives. Some lost their nerve and needed psychological counseling by clergy. We were attached to troops, so we would also have become prisoners of war if the Germans came and captured them. We knew we were not to cooperate. We were prepared for the worst.

  “In August a professional gymnast who had trained in Finland designed a 13-day physical training course for the FHD. Our instruction also included how to behave correctly, keep written records, and use the telephone. After we were examined and entered the program, we got our armband and service book. Then we were put in a service group, which included pigeon courier service and air defense. At another time I was the secretary of a commandant for a recruiting and training school.

  “Nuns did military service, including marching! It was a funny sight. But they did not get military uniforms and received no training with weapons.

  “The FHD served in refugee camps. Hundreds of Italian women and children would arrive at the same time. Once, instead of the expected 160 women and children, 160 partisans arrived.” The Italian partisans were no doubt escaping from the Nazi occupation forces in northern Italy. Countless such occurrences are now lost to history. They are only personal memories.

  The oldest daughter in a family which had been devastated by the Depression, Alice Schelbert, was another FHD recruit. She was fifteen when the war erupted and remembers: “Each family was obligated to cultivate a plot of land to grow vegetables, potatoes, and Indian corn. I hated working in the fields and gardens, but luckily my younger sister enjoyed such tasks. So I did the household chores, mending clothes and undoing the runs in stockings with a special hair-thin hook.10

  “In the Linth plain not too far from the village, we cut peat. Old and young were brought there by tractor or truck to labor in the bog for hours. It was quite strenuous work, but we earned a few cents that would buy bread. Peat bricks for heating were cheaper than coal, which was scarce.”

  Alice eventually joined the Women’s Auxiliary Service. “I was assigned to antiaircraft defense as part of the medical service. A lazaret, a pro visional hospital and air raid shelters had been established in basements of community centers and churches. We conducted obligatory courses in first aid. I was also called up to do a month of basic military training in Vevey, a beautiful town in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.”

  The training was no vacation. “We had to climb walls and trees and take care of those designated as wounded and even make temporary bandages from grain stalks. We had to haul in our food and drink in heavy containers and had to march, often singing.” She remembers “The Gas Mask Song,” which the German-speaking Swiss sang in their own dialect below. The refrain went:

  Maskedienscht, dä tuät allne imponiere, Gasmask duty is everyone’s duty,

  stundelang muäsch der Glich griff träniere! On and off—again and again and again!

  Of the main stanzas, Schelbert remembers these lines:

  Passet uuf, ihr Soldate, gänd schön acht, Attention, soldiers, take care,

  Luäget guet, dass dä Schluuch es Achti macht; That your hose makes an eight,

  Ja keis Siebni söll es si, keis Nüni darf es gä, Not a seven, not a nine…

  Müänd d’Sach numä rächt i d’Finger nä! Do it right or you’re done for.

  The war did not put an end to the events of everyday life. Alice well remembers a special Saturday in 1940. “My mother was pregnant, about to give birth to her eleventh child. She asked me to come home early, as she thought the child would be born before noon. When I asked permission from my supervisor, he wanted to know the reason. ‘Because my mother is expecting a child!’ I answered. ‘From whom,’ he inquired. ‘From my father, of course!’ He was dumbfounded and at once gave me permission. At that time many refugee children were arriving in Switzerland, and he assumed that my mother was expecting one of them…. Unfortunately I did not make it home in time. When I arrived, the midwife put my new little brother into my arms. Later, when he grew bigger, I took him to the swimming pool. He was unusually thin, and someone there asked: ‘Is he a refugee child?’ Tuberculosis was still quite common, and you had to have a check-up every year. When I took my brother to the physician, he removed layer after layer of clothing from the boy and finally sighed: ‘By God, little fellow, is there anything left of you?!’

  “After some time, I chose to serve in the central air alarm station. There were three of us, one at a table with an ear set to receive orders and, on order, to trigger the air raid alarm; another was to keep the logs; the third rested, since we switched jobs every two hours. The office was small, in a cellar, and with only a tiny window near the ceiling. Normally it was dead quiet, but every so often someone making the rounds would knock at the window and receive our answer: ‘All in order!’ Sometimes we would sing softly, but mostly the atmosphere was tense with unspoken questions: ‘Will there be an air raid alarm again? Will they bomb again somewhere? What if they hit us? What if they should bomb the dam in the Wäggital (which would then mean dangerous flooding all the way to Zurich)? Do we still remember all the things we need to do in case things get really bad? Did everyone remember to darken their windows so that the pilots recognize Swiss territory as a dark area?’ Nevertheless Schaffhausen was bombed; paralyzed with horror, I triggered the air raid alarm. We three remained totally quiet even after the alarm was over.”

  The issue of bombing dams and causing floods is intriguing. The Swiss military itself planned to flood the Linth plain in the event of a German attack, which would have made the eastern invasion route into Switzerland impassable. The known German invasion plans do not mention bombing dams, perhaps for that very reason.

  Many women not in the FHD served in occupations related to defense. The following account illustrates some of the ways women were used by Swiss intelligence to reduce the spread of Nazi propaganda and intimidation:

  Madame Denise Lecoultre was a young woman in 1939 when she be gan employment with the Station-des-amplificateurs, Telephon-Central, a division of the
post, Telephone and Telegraph (PTT), on the rue du Mont-Blanc in Geneva. “My office was on the top floor, behind the row of gigantic statues, the ethnic representatives of the various continents of the world, the grandiose symbols of ‘international communications.’11

  “On the night the Germans attacked the French Maginot Line, I was on duty. We knew that if ‘the Line’ resisted the German thrust, Hitler’s armies would choose to pass via Basel and invade Switzerland. Some inhabitants of Basel and the adjoining Cantons had begun their exodus and were telephoning their families and friends who were expecting them. As the interurban network was not yet automatic, the lines were overloaded. We chatted with the callers awaiting a connection to keep them patient. What a memorable night of anguish and terror! Early in the morning, we were amazed and saddened when we learned that our friendly neighbor France had been occupied.

  “The Telephone Exchange had been supplied by the Army with officers charged with the supervision and censorship of suspect communications. This was partly carried out at the amplification station through monitoring telephone lines suspected of re-transmitting the messages, speeches and propaganda of the totalitarian countries. I was one of the small team entrusted with the interruption of these unwelcome utterances.

  “My very humble role was part of a ‘censorship’ organized by the military. In the Telephone Exchange of Geneva, we saw officers in uniform discreetly passing through the large telephone center. They had a hidden office where they probably listened to foreign conversations and decoded messages.

  “We were three ‘girls’ in this station, and I was the youngest at 20 years old. Broadcast radio programs were difficult to receive in Switzer land, not only because of the mountains but also because the belligerents jammed radio programs with ‘parasites.’ As a result many radio programs in Switzerland were transmitted via cable. We called this ‘Telédiffusion.’ With a special subscription, Swiss people could receive speeches, news and very good concerts with no ‘parasites.’ The ‘deletions’ were part of our neutrality and were strictly observed: no Nazi or Fascist speakers were allowed, and we could delete propaganda simply by pressing keys.