On November 27, 1944, there was a meeting about “Aktion S[witzerland]” at the SS Bureau des Referates Schweiz (office of the Section for Switzerland). A lieutenant colonel from the OKW, German SS Colonel Erich Spaarmann, SS Captain Hans Georg lindt (previously a Swiss attorney from Bern), 52 SS lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Hersche (who was Swiss and was later imprisoned by Swiss authorities for his activities), 53 and Benz participated in that meeting. They discussed how the political and police structure would be organized in Switzerland if there were a political upheaval or if war broke out. The plan was to set up an SS police corps of 50 to 100 men per Swiss city. The police organization would be headed by a former German consul in Lausanne (probably Daufeldt, who had been expelled) and a consul working for the German Embassy who dealt with police issues. In addition, the SS group decided to send all Swiss belonging to the Waffen SS and deployed on the Eastern Front to a special training camp in Hallein near Salzburg under the command of SS Captain Wilhelm Knapp, who was Swiss.54
In a report dated December 13, 1944, Benz observed that since 1940–41, National Socialists in Switzerland “had been put in prison, jail or security detention or had to find refuge in Germany. Those who stayed in Switzerland… were monitored so strictly by the police that it was impossible to conduct any political activity, even insignificant tasks.” Thus, Benz argued, it was necessary to start a Swiss National Socialist movement from scratch. “There would be only one way to restart this development, namely with the volunteers of the Waffen SS and the members of the SS Sturmbanner…. He thought that the best approach to develop the National Socialist movement in Switzerland further would be to put all of the Swiss National Socialists under the umbrella of the German SS, to educate them in their common view of the world and to prepare them professionally for the tasks they would assume later.”55
Once again, although Nazi Germany was nearing defeat, just three days after the above report it would launch a devastating attack against the Allies in the Ardennes, leading to the Battle of the Bulge. An alternative plan by Hitler could very well have involved an attack against Switzerland. It would have been a thoroughly German operation, the numbers of Swiss in the Waffen SS being so few; yet, those Swiss were considered essential to any operation. The Wehrmacht could launch a military attack, but persons with intimate knowledge of the country would be necessary to set up the police state that followed.
The head of the SS Main office, lieutenant General Berger, must have known about the above attack plans, for Benz reported to him every month. The postwar Swiss report thus noted that not only Berger but also the Reichsführer-SS Himmler must have known about the conspiracy against Switzerland. It was rumored that Benz was called to see Himmler in Salzburg in late fall 1944.56 Berger was one of Himmler’s closest confidants during this period.57 “Aktion S” was a real option.
This intrigue against Switzerland in the last months of the war indicates the degree to which she was still under threat of Nazi attack. Like the Allies, the Swiss never discounted the Nazi threat. The nightmare for the Swiss, who had been surrounded, isolated and menaced since 1940, ended only with Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945.
The full extent of the Nazi threat to Switzerland during World War II has never been adequately acknowledged. This study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of a subject that is not mentioned in the studies by the governmental commissions published in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the United States and Switzerland. The reality was that the Swiss citizenry, rifles in hand, stood up to the Nazis, threatening an unacceptable loss of German blood in the event of an invasion. History does not disclose what would have occurred had conditional plans been executed. But Walter Lippmann perhaps said it best when he wrote prior to the end of the war, “We must not forget, now or in the future, how faithfully the Swiss Republic has borne witness to the cause of freedom.”58
CHAPTER 11
INTRUDERS IN OUR MIDST
On February 4, 1936, just before 8:00 p.m., a young man nervously approached an apartment door in Davos and rang the bell.
David Frankfurter was a Jewish medical student from Yugoslavia. He had an infection in his bone marrow which interfered with his nervous system and had required repeated operations. David had previously studied medicine in Yugoslavia and Germany, but failed his preliminary examinations. He had come to Switzerland to complete his studies. His mother, with whom he was close, had recently died, and her death had further distanced Frankfurter from his father, a rabbi who had an authoritarian nature. Nevertheless, David’s friends thought of him as an extrovert and a merry person who enjoyed good times.
Standing outside the apartment in Davos, Frankfurter was not in a talkative mood. He was concealing a 6.35-mm automatic pistol, which he had recently purchased from a gun shop in Bern. “For me and any Nazi,” he would later tell authorities.1 Frankfurter had been practicing to use the firearm—the first he had ever owned—at the shooting range of Ostermundigen, near Bern. The pistol can still be seen today in the Bündner Polizeimuseum.
The seconds he waited at the door in Davos must have seemed like hours. Then a woman appeared. The young medical student asked to speak to her husband—Wilhelm Gustloff.
Gustloff was head of the Nazi Party organization for Germans residing in Switzerland. He had come to Davos in 1917 and worked for a private technical institute. In 1923, he joined the NSDAP and helped form a local Swiss Nazi party. He was more of a fanatic than a deep thinker, once telling his doctor, “I would murder my wife if Hitler commanded it.” Of course, loyalty to the Führer had its rewards, and Gustloff rose quickly through the ranks.
Gustloff first came to the attention of the Swiss Federal authorities in 1931 when customs officials discovered him to be circulating pro-Hitler propaganda. The Davos police decided that Gustloff’s political activity did not comprise a threat, since most resident Germans were against Hitler’s party. In 1932, NSDAP organizer Georg Strasser appointed Gustloff leader of the NSDAP Landesgruppe Switzerland. Each foreign country had a local Nazi Party for Germans abroad. Gustloff was now in charge of the Swiss Nazi Party. All local German Nazi groups and individuals in Switzerland were subordinate to him.
Hitler believed in keeping the Nazi message simple to win the greatest number of supporters. Although the Swiss government prohibited public marches in uniform, the NSDAP organized discussions in restaurants, sponsored cultural programs and showed German films. It held a big party on Hitler’s birthday.
All of these events were exclusively for Germans. Although Swiss members were originally allowed in the German Nazi Party, they were barred in 1933 with Hitler’s ascension. The few Swiss who felt compelled to express Nazi sympathies were forced to join the National Front, an organization that was particularly weak in the Canton of Graubünden, which encompasses Davos.
The Nazi Party in Switzerland was quite small. Davos had a population of around 11,000 in 1933, of which approximately 900 were Germans. Only 300 were members of the NSDAP, and of these only 20 to 30 were actual party activists. Most of the NSDAP members were terrorized into joining—often threatened with loss of their jobs if they did not sign on. Germans with money, however, were able to bribe their way out of membership. The older bourgeois Germans tended to have nothing to do with the NSDAP.
Two elected members of the legislative council in Chur—Moses Silberoth and Gaudenz Canova—cast a jaundiced eye on Gustloff’s organization. Silberoth was a Jewish attorney who had come to Davos from western Russia in 1919. Dr. Canova was the leader of the trade Unions and a member of the national Parliament. They were both natural enemies of the Nazi movement.
In 1935, Silberoth sought an investigation of National Socialism and, in particular, Gustloff’s activities. Canova reiterated Silberoth’s request in the Parliament in Bern. Canova pointed out that Gustloff was attempting to organize a state within a state in Switzerland, terrorizing German subjects and forcing them into NSDAP organizations.
“Gustloff has
no right here to condemn the socialists, the Jews, and the democrats as inferior people,” Canova implored. He denounced “Gustloff’s ideological friends in the Third Reich” for suppressing “political and ideological dissenters in a bestial manner… torturing and murdering them.” Canova and Silberoth demanded that the NSDAP Landesgruppe be dissolved and Gustloff be deported. An inquiry was made; however, the Swiss Federal Council, noting Gustloff’s relative insignificance, could not find any unlawful activities.2
Gustloff and his Nazi organization remained in Switzerland until, on the evening of February 4, 1936, David Frankfurter was admitted to Gustloff’s apartment in Davos. It was just before 8 p.m., and Gustloff was on the phone, so Frankfurter would have to sit in the study and wait.
For the young medical student, it must have been agonizing. He would later tell a psychiatrist that he felt indecisive and wanted to flee. Then he heard something that hardened his resolve. Gustloff was talking on the telephone in the nearby hallway, and Frankfurter could hear snippets of his conversation: “diesen Schweinehunden … Diesen Schweinejuden und Kommunisten.”
Frankfurter had personally witnessed the persecution of Jews in Germany. Hearing Gustloff in the hallway casually refer to “these pig dogs… these pig Jews and Communists” was more than he could bear. It was exactly what he needed to hear to accomplish his mission. A furious rage erupted inside him. He saw visions of Hitler.
A moment later, Gustloff entered the study. Frankfurter rose, leveled the pistol and pulled the trigger. The weapon did not discharge. He stepped backward and pulled the trigger again—repeatedly. This time it fired. Three or four shots went off, mortally wounding Gustloff. Frankfurter had planned to commit suicide after the deed, but could not bring himself to do it. He instead surrendered to the Swiss police.
The 1936 assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff was a watershed event that would bring Davos to the center stage of Swiss-German relations. The Nazis viewed Frankfurter as a cold-blooded Jewish murderer. The Swiss, by contrast, saw Frankfurter as either a misguided but sympathetic youth or as a modern-day William Tell.
Dr. Paul Müller, who was born in 1913, lived much of his life in Davos and lives there still today. In our interview at his home, Dr. Müller pointed out his window to Gustloff’s apartment in an adjacent building. “Gustloff was shot there in 1936. I was a patient with a broken arm in a military hospital in St. Gallen when I heard the news. When I was a boy, Gustloff lived next door and always frightened me. But I was surprised at his murder, because he was not an important Nazi figure.
“A quiet fellow, Gustloff worked for a scientific organization. My father told me that other Germans were afraid of him.”3
We again looked through Dr. Müller’s window at the apartment where Gustloff lived, perhaps 50 meters away. “David Frankfurter rang at Gustloff’s apartment. Mrs. Gustloff let him in. Frankfurter asked to see Gustloff. When Gustloff came out, Frankfurter shot him.”
Did the Swiss think of Frankfurter as a murderer? Not according to Dr. Müller. “The Swiss people sympathized with Frankfurter. He was probably mentally disturbed. At the time, we didn’t even know of concentration camps. After the war, Americans brought photographs of the camps. This created much more sympathy for Frankfurter. He was sentenced to 18 years, but was released early.” In fact, when the war ended, he was immediately freed.
Rather than leading to the persecution of Jews, the Gustloff affair led the Swiss to clamp down on Nazi organizations within the country. Ger many was outraged. The homicide and ensuing trial dramatically escalated Nazi antipathy toward Switzerland. German officials attended Frankfurter’s trial every day. The Nazis elevated Gustloff as National Socialism’s first martyr abroad.
“Case Frankfurter/Gustloff” quickly became “Case Switzerland,” ready grist for the Nazi propaganda mill and a pretext for anti-Jewish measures. Although Gustloff was a minor figure, his stature was at once elevated for purposes of propaganda. In fact, Adolf Hitler would personally give him a funeral oration. The Germans blamed Switzerland’s anti-Nazi press and were livid that the Swiss government refused to censor the Swiss media.
German emissary von Weizsäcker immediately conferred with the Swiss secretary of state, Federal Councilor Giuseppe Motta, complaining that “the Swiss socialistic and Communist press… prepared the groundwork for the crime against Gustloff.” This characterization was bogus, in that the mainstream Swiss press was the leading critic of German National Socialism—as well as of Soviet Communism—because of their totalitarian characteristics.
Weizsäcker reprimanded Motta for not imposing censorship. Motta, however, refused to accept that the Swiss press was responsible for the deed, arguing that Frankfurter acted on his own and was not inspired by the stand taken in the past years by the press against the German regime.
Three days after the assassination, the Swiss newspaper Volksrecht accused the German envoy of interference with the internal affairs of Switzerland. That opened a press campaign to dissolve the NSDAP in Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Attorney recommended the prohibition to the Federal Council on the basis that National Socialism was a movement that suppressed basic liberties.
The Nazi press responded with its usual propaganda. On February 27, 1936, Das Schwarze Korps (the Black Corps)—the official publication of the SS—printed a front-page cartoon depicting the Swiss Federal Council as a marionette in the hands of a Jew. The Swiss figure holds a ribbon stating “Prohibition of Swiss NSDAP Organizations” and stands by a coffin labeled “Gustloff, martyred by Marxist.”4 rejection of Nazism was often depicted as Communist.
Gustloff’s deputy became the new leader of the local Nazi party in Davos. He died in December 1936 and was replaced by the German Vice Consul Böhme, who brought new power into the organization. While the Federal Council prohibited the Landesgruppe as constituted, it was allowed to continue as an adjunct of the German embassy. Its chief became Freiherr von Bibra, second in command to embassy chief Weizsäcker.
While Nazi Germany was the closest and most direct threat to Switzerland, it is worth noting that Switzerland did not recognize the Soviet Union and had no diplomatic relations with that country. Domestic Communist parties were allowed to exist, but had no influence. However, in reaction to subversive activities, the Canton of Geneva outlawed the Communist party in 1937, and the Federal Council did so in 1940.
Meanwhile, Frankfurter prepared for trial. The young medical student was now a pawn in a much larger game.
The International Federation of Leagues Against Anti-Semitism in Paris offered Frankfurter moral and material support. However, it pressed his defense to accept responsibility for the homicide. A harsh punishment would turn him into a martyr—a suffering hero who struck a blow against Nazism—in the eyes of international opinion.
The Anti-Semitism Federation indicated that it would act unilaterally if the Swiss-Jewish Federation (SIG) did not become active. However, SIG Secretary Saly Mayer wrote that it would make matters worse if action was taken inconsistent with the Swiss mentality. Moreover, he noted that the locally based SIG was more experienced in dealing with the author ities in Switzerland. The International Federation should not intervene.
Frankfurter’s family and the SIG wished to seek a verdict that Frankfurter was not guilty of murder, which would limit his exposure to longer incarceration. Moreover, the SIG did not wish to give the Nazis an excuse to blame the Swiss—and particularly the Swiss Jews—for countenancing political assassination as a rational act.
Before the trial, Dr. Johann Jörger, director of a psychiatric clinic, examined Frankfurter. Dr. Jörger found the young man to have a sensitive nervous system and “inner mental conflicts that exploded when they became untenable and unsolvable.” Although the “explosion took place in a tragic manner,” Dr. Jörger determined that Frankfurter’s deeds had been compelled by “outside events.” He was not, according to the doctor, a cold-blooded murderer.
The prosecution argued that the act was indeed premeditated
murder, although it conceded, consistent with the psychiatrist’s report, that Frankfurter acted with an unsound mind and diminished responsibility.
Frankfurter testified that Gustloff as a person was not the target. He was simply a Nazi agent, a personification of Hitler’s oppressive regime. “I like Switzerland, and Germany is trying to destroy Switzerland.”
Frankfurter’s argument that he was acting against Nazism was not a defense to the crime of murder. In fact, he calmly explained his actions and articulated how he had prepared carefully. He bought a pistol and practiced shooting in Bern. He planned to commit suicide after the murder but could not do it. So he turned himself in to the police. All of the evidence suggests that Frankfurter testified what he believed—that he killed Gustloff to strike a blow against Nazi Germany.
Although not accepted as a defense to be found in law books, this particular political homicide had special relevance in Switzerland. Many Swiss saw Frankfurter as a modern-day William Tell. Tell, better known for shooting an apple off his son’s head, also shot the tyrant Gessler through the heart—thus helping to free the country from foreign tyranny. During Frankfurter’s trial, the story of William Tell reverberated loudly throughout Switzerland.
The trial itself was a media circus. There were over 30 journalists attending. On one side of the courtroom sat the German journalists, on the other side the Swiss press.
German propaganda blamed an international Jewish conspiracy and accused Frankfurter of membership in the Communist Party. The National Socialist paper Weltdienst (World Service) wrote: “Frankfurter was only the subordinate of a Jewish Bolshevist executive, of which a member apparently sits in Bern.” The Swiss Jews were responsible, it asserted, for the “Jewish Murder Headquarters in Switzerland.”
Swiss and the Nazis Page 33