In this context, Berger wrote to Himmler on September 8, 1941, concerning who might become Reich Commissar of a Nazi-occupied Switz er land. It is apparent from his letter that Nazi officials were already fighting among themselves over who would become leader of the conquered Alpine republic:
Some people see a ray of hope in Württemberg! Both the mayor of the city of Stuttgart, Dr. Strölin, and Reich Governor Murr think that they will get the post of “Reichskommissare” for Switzerland.
Based on personal knowledge, I would not appoint either of them to this post. In particular not Reich Governor Murr. He would attempt to “positively Aryanize” Switzerland, which would delay the country’s true integration for at least one generation.
I have made my position clear to SS Oberführer Dr. Behr ends, and have asked him and the VDA [Verein für das Deutschtumim Ausland, or league for Germandom Abroad] not to provide any funds for “transition organizations” unless the Reichsführer SS [Himmler] has ordered them to do so.
We should set up the leadership of these transition organizations in Berlin, not locally. All Swiss National Socialist leaders currently in Germany should gather in Berlin. This would guarantee control, ensure quality outcomes and avoid clashes of ego.23
In short, a police state for Switzerland would have been carefully structured by the SS in Berlin, with German Nazis in command and Swiss puppets to do their bidding. It is noteworthy that at the time no Swiss National Socialist had any influence at all, in stark contrast to Norway’s infamous quisling or France’s Laval. The only real contenders were Germans and outsiders—Wilhelm Murr, Gauleiter (district leader appointed by the NSDAP) of Württemberg, and Dr. Karl Strölin, Mayor of Stuttgart. This political squabble over potential spoils is evidence that plans to invade Switzerland were circulating at the highest levels of the Gestapo.
The 1941 offensive against Russia slowed as fall turned into winter, leaving intentions against Switzerland in an uncertain mode. A detailed map of Swiss troop positions dated October 31, prepared for the German Army General Staff, shows the placement of Swiss divisions and brigades at the border, in the plateau, and in the Alpine stronghold, the Réduit.24 As with previous maps, the presence of some question marks indicated that Wehrmacht intelligence did not have full information, but that its spies were systematic and diligent.
Indeed, top Nazis made clear their intentions to a member of a Swiss contingent that provided medical services in the campaign against the Soviet union. A future Federal Councillor obtained the following intelligence and recorded it in his diary:
Dr. Thönen-Zweisimmen was at the Eastern front with a group of Swiss physicians in the winter of 1941/1942 and stayed at the Führer’s headquarters for three days. Hitler himself was not there during those three days. But Göring, Himmler, Goebbels and Heydrich were present. Thönen had the opportunity to speak to all four of them. The four were in agreement that the German Wehrmacht absolutely needed to occupy Switzerland, that Switzerland should not be allowed to remain independent, and needed to be glad if, as a concession, a Swiss national would be appointed Gauleiter.25
In December 1941 the Germans were finally stopped at the gates of Moscow, then reeled before a Soviet winter counterattack. Then the blows and counterblows of renewed German offensives—seeking the ever-elusive knockout blow—set the skies aflame through the spring and summer of 1942. From his bunkers, Hitler followed the chaos on the Eastern Front with maniacal intensity. Switzerland was a detail in this struggle of titans, the subject of jokes and asides. Nonetheless Nazi intentions to take the Swiss Confederation continued. In the fall of 1942, Berlin made more plans for an attack against Switzerland. Hitler toyed with knocking down the Swiss throughout the war.26
Foreign Minister Ribbentrop directed the German legation in Switzerland to prepare a report estimating how long Swiss food and raw materials would last. The legation responded that, thanks to her foresighted economic policy, Switzerland had stored sufficient raw materials and foodstuffs to sustain its National Réduit in the Alps for approximately two years. Going on to answer the real question behind Ribbentrop’s inquiry, legation head Köcher wrote that the Swiss are a hardy mountain people who would resist fiercely. Moreover, they would never allow the Gotthard and Simplon rail tunnels to fall into a conqueror’s hands undestroyed. So, no improvement of transportation to and from Italy could be expected after an attack on Switzerland.
Theo Kordt, Counselor at the Embassy, informed Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, about Ribbentrop’s inquiry and the embassy’s response. Canaris, in his report to his military superiors, emphasized Switzerland’s will to resist and its economic and geographical strengths.
These legation and Abwehr reports may well have discouraged Hitler from moving ahead with an attack. Shortly before his dismissal from the Abwehr, Canaris made his last visit to Bern, where he expressed gratification to Kordt over the success of their common efforts to prevent an attack against Switzerland, which would only have shed more German blood. Canaris would later be executed for his membership in the failed conspiracy to assassinate Hitler in 1944.
In September 1942, the Division for Foreign Armies West of the German Army’s General Staff put together a Kleine Orientierungsheft Schweiz (orientation Booklet about Switzerland). It included a brief exposition of the Swiss Army’s fighting qualities:
Under the Swiss militia system, all men fit for duty are registered at relatively low cost. This militia system maintains the martial spirit of the Swiss people and establishes an army that, for such a small country, is strong, well organized, and quickly mobilized.
Swiss soldiers love their country and are hardy and tough. They are excellent marksmen and take good care of their weapons, equipment, uniforms, horses and pack animals. In particular Swiss Germans and soldiers from the Alps are reputed to be good fighters.
However, despite intensive drills and exercises over recent years, soldiers were not trained well enough, at least at the beginning of the war.
Army leadership reflects both German and French influences. However, the lack of real-war experience and the overly bureaucratic organization of the staffs complicate most operations. Also, the Swiss tend to commit their reserves too quickly.
With that said, so far there have been no indications that both the government and the people are not determined to defend Swiss neutrality against any and all attackers.27
For their part, Swiss intelligence had a source in the German high command known as the “Wiking line” (sometimes called in English “Viking”). On March 19, 1943, the Swiss learned from this informant that the Germans, anticipating an Allied attack in Italy, were once more planning to invade Switzerland. The Swiss believed mountain troops were concentrating in Bavaria. The definitive account of this episode, which became known as the März-Alarm (March Alarm), has been set forth in a book by noted historian Pierre-Th. Braunschweig.28
There was another factor to concern the Swiss. The German general staff had been discussing a strategic retreat from Russia into a Fortress Europe, of which Switzerland could be a pillar but which would include all defensible parts of occupied Europe. The SS had orders to prepare such a Fortress and wished to incorporate Switzerland into the plan. Fortunately for the Swiss, Hitler decided against any voluntary retreat.
According to one account, when “Wiking” warned Swiss intelligence of the Germans’ “Case Switzerland,” Swiss Colonel Roger Masson naïvely asked SS General Walter Schellenberg if an attack was about to commence. (In the murky world of intelligence operatives, the most unlikely people talk to each other; none other than OSS operative Allen Dulles also had contacts with Schellenberg.29) Masson thus tipped Schellenberg off that a leak existed in Hitler’s headquarters. The element of surprise was lost for a German attack which the Swiss were now preparing to repulse. Schellenberg—probably to ingratiate himself with the hope of soliciting intelligence—later told Masson that he had persuaded the German command that an invasion was unnecessary.30
/> The existence of independent Switzerland continued to gnaw at Hitler’s mind during this period. In a May 8 diary entry, Nazi propaganda Minister Goebbels described Hitler’s address to a conference of Reichsleiters and Gauleiters, party sub-leaders. “The Fuehrer deduced that all the rubbish of small nations [Kleinstaaten–Geruempel] still existing in Europe must be liquidated as fast as possible.” Recalling Charlemagne, who was called the “Butcher of the Saxons,” Hitler asked:
Who will guarantee to the Führer that at some later time he will not be attacked as the “Butcher of the Swiss”? Austria, after all, also had to be forced into the Reich. We can be happy that it happened in such a peaceful and enthusiastic manner; but if [Austrian Chancellor] Schuschnigg had offered resistance, it would have been necessary, of course, to overcome this resistance by force.31
Meanwhile, in July 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily, and Mussolini was deposed. Hitler immediately dispatched troops to northern Italy to secure the Alpine passes. The Swiss made it clear that they would fight any invader. The German Luftwaffe Attaché in Bern reported on July 31, 1943, about a conversation he had had with lieutenant Colonel von Wattenwyl, head of the Swiss Kriegstechnische Abteilung (KTA, Technical War unit):
The development of the war in the Mediterranean region was causing growing concerns that the front might after all move closer to the southern border of Switzerland in the near future. He said that Switzerland was preparing to fight unwelcome surprises there. He also said that the high command of the Swiss army was firmly determined to defend the country’s borders against any attacker and under all circumstances.
He stated that this was a firm decision and did not doubt that the entire population would defend the country, even against the Americans from whom an attack was most feared or against the British. In his opinion, the population has an unbending will to defend the freedom and independence of the country.
We have also heard that some Swiss army members are of the opinion today that the moment might come where it might be appropriate to ask certain forces of the German army to provide help. We must, however, emphasize that such statements are merely private opinions at this point.32
Swiss determination to “defend the country’s borders against any attacker” applied above all to Germany. The explanation that the Swiss would defend their country “also” against the Americans was almost certainly an attempt to shore up the Swiss posture of neutrality. It was highly unlikely that Switzerland would be invaded by anyone but Germany.
The above included a report by the Foreign office/Military Intelligence (Amt Ausland/Abwehr) stating the following: “Reliable liaison agent on June 25. Switzerland has entered into a secret agreement. In case of a German attack, England would immediately land and put at disposition 2,000 planes in Switzerland.” The German Embassy in Buenos Aires reported that the U.S. Government made continued grants of navigation certificates to Swiss ships traveling there dependent on Switzerland granting “the right to march through the country in case of an invasion of Italy.” The next entry in the intelligence log: “Alleged preparations in Switzerland for a general mobilization in August. On July 4 the Irish Envoy in Bern reported to Dublin that he had learned that Swiss authorities were preparing for a general mobilization in August.” on July 23, a German liaison agent reported:
Learned today from two independent and reliable sources that Anglo-American acts of sabotage by paratroops on the southern shore of Lake Geneva and the Italian shore of Lake Maggiore and Lake Lugano in the vicinity of the Swiss border are about to take place. Goal: to destroy power plants, transportation hubs, key structures. Paratroops will enter Swiss territory after finishing their tasks. My own opinion: take report seriously.
It was an intelligence shadow game—rumors and counter-rumors, the planting of disinformation for specific ends. For instance, the same German intelligence report noted the following—almost certainly duplicitous—discussion with Swiss intelligence:
[Swiss Colonel] Masson spoke openly to me about the Allies’ plan to march through Switzerland. He said that two factors could save us from such a transit: 1. Should the Allies succeed in invading France, which he doubted, they would have no need to move through Switzerland. 2. Our never-ending watchfulness. He was talking, no doubt, less of the Swiss army’s watchfulness than that of the Swiss counterespionage. He said that he had proof that the Allied plan to march through Switzerland was of recent vintage and that Allied espionage rings would have to develop its basis.
By such crafted communications, Masson was actually trying to persuade the Germans not to invade Switzerland. But German intelligence mistrusted the Swiss and saw through these machinations. The following German report depicted Swiss intentions as utterly conniving:
Reliable liaison agent of the Münster division reported on September 10 that in mid-August the Anglo-American side held negotiations with General Guisan about a potential Allied strike through Switzerland. It would involve an invasion through the southern Alpine passes—St. Gotthard, Maloja, and Bernina—and would follow on a successful landing in upper Italy on the Mediterranean coast between San Remo and Spezia. The Swiss army, it was agreed, would pretend to fight in the first hours to avoid giving Germany a reason for a counter-invasion into Switz er land. That would allow the Allies to get control of all of the Alpine passes. The Anglo-Americans were hoping that a rapid advance through Switzerland would decide the war. That would be preferable to a long-lasting conflict in the Alps between Ortler and Trento. As for Switzerland, the Allied passage would not create any new danger since Germany was already too weak to undertake a precautionary invasion of Switzerland or attempt an occupation of its Alpine passes.
Both the Anglo-Americans and General Guisan are said to be of the opinion that the Reich will not be capable of holding Italy, and that a swift move of the Allies through Switzerland would decide the war faster.33
An Allied incursion through Switzerland in 1943 may or may not have decided the war faster, but Switzerland was genuinely neutral, and General Guisan would not have agreed to an invasion of his country by any belligerent. As with Guisan’s 1940 agreement that French troops could enter Switzerland in the event of a German invasion, it is conceivable that Guisan may have agreed that Allied forces could enter the country in the event of a German invasion. No known Allied documents from the 1943 period, however, suggest such an agreement. Moreover, Switzer land’s centuries-old policy was to protect her inhabitants by staying out of war, not to become a battleground. By entering the war, the Swiss would have risked national suicide, would have exposed Jewish citizens and refugees to the holocaust and would have compromised humanitarian activities, including Red Cross assistance to POWs. Among the Allies, only the Soviet union recommended an invasion of Switzerland, and only because Stalin detested the democratic republic. The Nazis were also still formulating invasion plans.
German military authorities were exasperated that the Swiss refused to allow the Wehrmacht to transport war booty and to evacuate forces from Italy through Switzerland.34 As the situation in Italy turned more chaotic and the responsibility for defending Italy passed to the German army, the Italian supply routes became more critical. It was necessary for Germany to secure those chokepoints. Throughout 1943, the increasing scale of the war in the Mediterranean contributed to the crisis in north–south transport, particularly at the Gotthard and Simplon passes through the Alps.
The German general staff feared a collapse of their position in Italy, suddenly bringing the war to the Alps. It is likely that several Swiss invasion plans were formulated during this period. The only surviving plan was authored in late 1943 by SS General Hermann Böhme, who had be come chief of the Austrian military intelligence service after the Anschluss and was knowledgeable about Switzerland. His draft plan was entitled “thoughts concerning Swiss defenses in the event of a German armed intervention.” The details of his plan, provided in this author’s Target Switzerland, will only be summarized here. 35
Böhme was
aware that Switzerland was posturing her military forces to demonstrate strength against the German threat. Instead of adapting to the new military-political situation in Europe, Switzerland had been driven by her internal politics into a peculiar defensive posture. “The visible consequence is the Réduit (Alpine fortress): fight, instead of putting herself entirely into the concerns of the new Europe.” having refused to join the crusade against Russia, Switzerland found herself completely surrounded by the Reich’s seizure of Vichy France. Böhme pinpointed the following grievances:
1. Swiss defense measures taken against Allied flights over Swiss territory are insufficient considering Swiss defenses.
2. The bulk of news whether broadcast or in the press is anti-German….
3. The granting of asylum to so-called refugees and the presence of large numbers of Allied intelligence services seriously damage German-Swiss relationships.
4. The numerous connections of Swiss capital with foreign countries are increasingly organized in the interests of Allied, not German, interests. German victory in Europe would have disastrous financial consequences for Swiss financial interests.
5. Members of Swiss military who appeared German-friendly always claim to be strictly neutral and have turned against us.
The Allied invasion and the fall of Mussolini led to exclusive German army control in northern Italy, tightening the noose around Switzerland. Switzerland was once more threatened, even as the war seemed to be turning against the Germans on all fronts. Still, the Swiss continued their refusal to revise their defense posture to accommodate increasingly shrill German demands.
Swiss and the Nazis Page 31