Should the world blame the Swiss?

Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 6, 1997 | by David Wagner

Did formal neutrality mean the Swiss had no preference as to the outcome of the war? Raymond Bar, scion of a Zurich banking family and an executive of Bank Julius Bar, told the American visitors the following story, which he says illustrates the real function of Swiss neutrality during World War II:

Three Allied bombers took off from England to bomb industrial sites in northern Italy As they entered Swiss airspace, the Swiss radioed up to them: "You're in Swiss airspace."

"We know," was the reply.

"If you don't leave Swiss airspace, we'll have to commence shooting."

Said the pilots: "We know."

So the Swiss shoot -- and miss by miles.

"You completely missed! " said the pilots.

The Swiss replied: "We know!"

Bar was speaking to Insight and the other visiting Americans in a banquet room in one of Zurich's old guild halls. The guilds ran Zurich from the Renaissance into the 19th century. Though no longer of much commercial or political importance, they still maintain their ancient halls, which often double as museums or restaurants. In this case, the visitors from the United States were in the Zunfthaus zum Meisen, literally the "guildhall at the sign of the mouse," this being the traditional hall of the wine merchant's guild.

The historical significance of that particular guild hall was renewed in 1945 by Winston Churchill. The war over, he gave a speech in the square in front of it, said speech containing the exhortation "Europe, arise!" A year earlier, while the war was still on, Churchill remarked: "Of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right to distinction.... She has been a democratic state, standing for freedom in self-defense among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side."

The Swiss -- or at any rate, the Swiss elites -- are far more concerned with their suddenly bad image in the United States than most Americans are, and are full of both self-defense and self-accusation. It was not that easy to find out, on the other hand, the perspective of the ordinary folk of Switzerland -- the farmers and villagers, the ones who did not go to the national technical university and do not work in the banking or insurance industries. Under the Swiss constitution, what they think matters.

Switzerland has that well-educated, globally-oriented elite, but there are a lot of people left behind in the mountain villages -- people like the beloved grandfather in Johanna Spyri's classic novel Heidi. But in Switzerland, unlike most countries, the constitution gives the electorate the right to overturn acts of the parliament, and the right to call a referendum on just about anything, so to a large extent Heidi's grandfather gets to tell the elites what to do.

The Swiss-American Foundation's guest speakers were, of course, mostly from the elites, and they were frustrated by the obduracy of ordinary folks. Jeno Stahelin, Permanent Observer of Switzerland to the United Nations, told of trying to persuade the folks to vote yes on a referendum on U.N. membership. "They demand that we give them information"' he noted, "but when we do, they complain that we're trying to manipulate them." In recent years Heidi's grandfather has turned thumbs down on Swiss membership in the U.N. and in the European Union. People in Zurich have a fit; people in the villages have a beer.