Originally posted by The Devil
Can I add that I find Switzerland's 'neutrality' during WW2 somewhat inexplicable. Or am I opening a can of worms here?
Insane murderous despot next door? That's OK with us, do please carry on, Herr Hitler.
James, "neutrality" means not taking sides. It doesn't mean that you like what's happening next door. In any case, in your list of cities to visit, you included Berlin (where said murderous despot presided over the murder of around 40 million people), Budapest (a staunch ally of said despot), Rome (ditto) and Vienna (where said despot learned his anti-Semitism in the first place). How do you square your finding these places desirable with your repugnance for countries on the basis of their past behaviour? This sounds like a shallow view fuelled by bias and a desire to pick holes in a place you don't like, nicht wahr?
Switzerland has been neutral since it was thrashed at Marignano by the French in 1500 and something, and it has deteminedly stuck to this. In addition, place yourself in Switzerland's position in the 1930s and 1940s. You're a small country of 5 million entirely surrounded by nasties and dependent on them for many things. Would you strike provocative, bellicose positions? Would you come out loudly for the Allies and attack all four bigger neighbours? I know I wouldn't. So, I'm afraid I don't find it at all inexplicable. There was no doubt as to whose side Switzerland was on, but it didn't wave it like a flag. Would you?
Had Switzerland been invaded, there's is no doubt it would have fought. The reminders are still around us today - the rows of dragons teeth still march across the fields not far from the border and the old pillboxes at Allschwil near the French border are still there (costs too much to remove them). However, Switzerland was more useful to Hitler the way it was - it was harmless so he could ignore it - why waste divisions needed on the Eastern Front attacking something clearly not going anywhere?
Swiss behaviour in WW2 leaves much to be desired - the daughter of my old boss at Sandoz is a historian and she participated in the commission that recently reviewed Swiss behaviour during the war. It's often not pretty. The German subsidiaries of many of the big Swiss engineering companies (Oerlikon, Brown-Boveri) used slave labour and worked for the German war effort. Of course, if they'd refused, they simply would have been taken over and work would have continued. The banks and insurance companies also lined their pockets, refusing to pay out on accounts and policies without a death certificate (hard when your loved one went up the chimney at Auschwitz).
However, it has to be remembered that most humans when placed in extreme situations often do not behave in a high moral fashion. Remember that most French collaborated with the Nazis - much of the Resistance was Communist or strongly left-wing, because they had nothing left to lose. And many willingly participated in the persecution of the Jews, and there were French Waffen SS divisions. One of them, "Charlemagne", was among the last defenders of Berlin when the Russians arrived. (But you still go to Paris). The French still agonise over this. Remember how the British press in the 1930s moaned about the "cry-baby" Jews trying to get out of Germany when the Nazis came to power and how "we" didn't want them here. Even the Americans were unhappy about a major exodus of German Jews.
What I'm saying is that you are expecting perfect, lofty moral positions in a situation in which you've never been, and in such a situation not many of us can deliver - are you so sure that you could? Speaking for myself, I'm not. Few of us are Paul Grüningers. Grüninger was a police captain in St. Gallen in NE Switzerland who forged entry papers for Jews to get into Switzerland, backdating them to a time before entry was forbidden. Grüninger was finally caught when the Gestapo complained to the St. Gallen authorities. He was stripped of his rank and pension, served time in prison and died in poverty, but still sure that he'd done the right thing. He saved several thousand Jews. It was a pleasure to hear him posthumously exonerated by the St. Gallen court just a couple of years ago. His daughter was there and many of the Jews he saved came from Israel to be there.
I'd like to think that, when the going got really tough and the result of doing the right thing was going to be bad and probably stay that way, my moral compass would be as strong as Capt. Grüninger's. But I'm not sure that it would be. Are you so sure about yours? Would you not tend to temporise just a little? If not, you're a better man than I, and I take my hat off to you.
) - they're pretty good too. A couple of their regulars were outstanding (particularly Matti Salminen), but the big name guesting as Hans Sachs (Jose van Dam) is clearly well past his sell-by date.
