Urs Schwarz - The Eye Of The Hurricane: Switzerland In World War Two

The Eye of the Hurricane: Switzerland in World War Two

Urs Schwarz

Despite the voluminous research published about World War II, there has remained a surprising gap; there is little, perhaps nothing, on the role of Switzerland. It was in the neutral Swiss oasis-where a perilous balancing act was required for survival-that a combination of determination and delicate negotiation continued to frustrate the Axis powers.

Urs Schwarz cuts through the myths surrounding this period in a narrative based largely on his experiences as both participant and observer. He was a soldier, then a journalist in war-torn Berlin, and, beginning in 1942, foreign editor of the Neue Zrcher Zeitung. These experiences, and subsequent extensive research, result here in a unique and discerning-and colorful-history.

Before World War II, Urs Schwarz studied law at the Universities of Zurich and Berlin and received the Ll.M. degree from Harvard. He founded (1951) and edited the Swiss Review of World Affairs, served as associate professor of the Graduate Institute for International Studies, Geneva, and was founding director of the International Press Institute.

The wish to set down an account of the extraordinary adventure of Switzerland, caught by the hurricane called World War II and surviving almost miraculously, without actually fighting, suddenly kindled in my mind the time when an American friend of mine (a distinguished scholar, teacher, and philosopher) remarked that in all that had been written about Europe in that period of history there was a blank spot: the small republic in the center of Europe. In the colossal body of literature dealing with the drama of the Second World War, Switzerland is mentioned, of course, but rather incidentally. Since this small country was neutral and seemingly not a protagonist in the conflict, one can understand why Clio did not bother to record events affecting it. Yet they were perhaps more dramatic in their political and psychological complexities than outright fighting in many a battle. In Switzerland, much has been written on this period, but little seems to have made an impact outside its borders.

That expression blank spot at once recalled to my mind faces of people I had known and events I had witnessed, all almost forgotten, buried under what has been happening since 1945.1 saw myself, involved as a soldier and as a journalist in those events. I recalled nights at the command post of an antiaircraft battery, when British bombers droned over our heads; days on observation posts on the border, when the noise of battle rolled closer and closer; moments in the correspondents office in Berlin, when the sirens wailed and bombs fell, or at the foreign editors desk of the Neue Zrcher Zeitung in Zurich, when German attacks seemed imminent. The blank spot came alive with faces of people I had known: General Guisan, Chief of Staff Huber, the successive presidents Pilet-Golaz, Minger, Kobelt, the army corps commanders and division commanders Wille, Bircher, Berli, the colonels Dniker, Barbey, Gonard, Masson, the famous Dr. Max Husman; on the German side, Ribbentrop, von Weizscker, Kcher, Rahn; among the Americans, Allen Dulles, Dean Acheson, and Leland Harrison, to mention only a few. They beckoned me to write the full story.

Here it is-based on my own experiences, on the wealth of writings dealing both with the whole period and with specific aspects of it, on published treatises, memoirs, documents, as far as they seemed significant, all seen through the eyes of one who was deeply involved.

I also followed Michel de Montaignes advice: He who judges surely and healthily uses freely his own experiences as well as things received from others, and he speaks freely of himself, as well as of others.

Of the authors to whom I am most indebted, I wish to mention in this place only a few: Edgar Bonjour with his monumental Geschichte der schweizerischen Neutralitt ; Bernard Barbey with his elegantly indiscreet P. C. du Gnral and Aller et retour, Hans Rudolf Kurz, author of a great number of monographs and articles on this period, among them his remarkable Die Schweiz in der Planung der kriegfhrenden Mchte; and Ren-Henri Wst, who published in 1966 his excellent Alerte en pays neutre. There are many others, whom space prevents me from mentioning, to whom I also owe a debt of gratitude.

It is my hope that some of those who have judged the policies and attitudes of the Swiss government and of the Swiss people on the basis of information available until now, and some of those who have known little about the contribution to history made by a small yet resolved nation placed by the accident of geography in the middle of the struggle, may glance at the present pages. I also would like to think that some scholar or writer, who may plan to write or speak on World War II but did not have the opportunity to live through the events as they unfolded, may find some inspiration in what I have written. I have striven to present the cold facts and at the same time let the reader feel the scorching winds of mortal danger that swept across the borders of Switzerland in those years.