Switzerland during the world wars
During World War I and World War II, Switzerland maintained armed neutrality and was not invaded by its neighbors, in part because of its heavily mountainous terrain. Switzerland built up its defence capabilities during this period to guard against an attack from neighbouring Germany, which never occurred. It served as a protecting power for the belligerents of both sides, with a special role in helping prisoners of war. The belligerent states made Switzerland a scene for diplomacy, espionage, and commerce, as well as a safe haven for 300,000 refugees.
World War I
Switzerland maintained a state of armed neutrality during the First World War. However, with two of the Central Powers and two of the Entente Powers all sharing borders and populations with Switzerland, neutrality proved difficult. Under the Schlieffen Plan, the German General Staff had been open to the possibility of trying to outflank the French fortifications by marching through Switzerland in violation of its neutrality, although the plan's eventual executor Helmuth von Moltke the Younger selected Belgium instead due to Switzerland's mountainous topography and the disorganized state of the Belgian Armed Forces. From December 1914 until the spring of 1918, Swiss troops were deployed in the Jura along the French border over concern that the trench war might spill into Switzerland. Of lesser concern was the Italian border, but troops were also stationed in the Unterengadin region of Graubünden.While the German-speaking majority in Switzerland generally favored the Central Powers, the French- and, later, Italian-speaking populations sided with the Triple Entente, which would cause internal conflict in 1918. However, the country managed to keep out of the war, although it was blockaded by the Allies and therefore suffered some difficulties. Nevertheless, because Switzerland was centrally located, neutral, and generally undamaged, the war allowed the growth of the Swiss banking industry. For the same reasons, Switzerland became a haven for foreign refugees and revolutionaries.
Following the organization of the army in 1907 and military expansion in 1911, the Swiss Army consisted of about 250,000 men with an additional 200,000 in supporting roles. Both European alliance-systems took the size of the Swiss military into account in the years prior to 1914, especially in the Schlieffen Plan.
Following the declarations of war in late July 1914, on 1 August 1914, Switzerland mobilized its army; by 7 August the newly appointed general Ulrich Wille had about 220,000 men under his command. By 11 August Wille had deployed much of the army along the Jura border with France, with smaller units deployed along the eastern and southern borders. This remained unchanged until May 1915 when Italy entered the war on the Entente side, at which point troops were deployed to the Unterengadin valley, Val Müstair and along the southern border.
File:Ballonpionier der Schweizer Armee.jpg|thumb|upright|Replica of a balloon observer of the Swiss Army in World War I
Once it became clear that the Allies and the Central Powers would respect Swiss neutrality, the number of troops deployed began to drop. After September 1914, some soldiers were released to return to their farms and to vital industries. By November 1916 the Swiss had only 38,000 men in the army. This number increased during the winter of 1916–17 to over 100,000 as a result of a proposed French attack that would have crossed Switzerland. When this attack failed to occur the army began to shrink again. Because of widespread workers' strikes, at the end of the war the Swiss army had shrunk to only 12,500 men.
During the war, belligerents crossed the Swiss borders about 1,000 times, with some of these incidents occurring around the Dreisprachen Piz, near the Stelvio Pass. Switzerland had an outpost and a hotel on the peak. During the war, fierce battles were fought in the ice and snow of the area, with gunfire coming on to Swiss territory. The three nations made an agreement not to fire over Swiss territory, which jutted out between Austria and Italy. Instead they could fire down the pass, as Swiss territory was around the peak. In one incident, a Swiss soldier was killed at his outpost on Dreisprachen Piz by Italian gunfire.
During the fighting, Switzerland became a haven for many politicians, artists, pacifists, and thinkers. Bern, Zürich, and Geneva became centers of debate and discussion. In Zürich two very different anti-war groups, the Bolsheviks and the Dadaists, would bring lasting changes to the world.
The Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, centered around Vladimir Lenin. Following the outbreak of the war, Lenin was stunned when the large Social Democratic parties of Europe supported their various respective countries' war efforts. Lenin, believing that the peasants and workers of the proletariat were fighting for their class enemies, adopted the stance that what he described as an "imperialist war" ought to be turned into a civil war between the classes. He left Austria for neutral Switzerland in 1914 following the outbreak of the war and remained active in Switzerland until 1917. Following the 1917 February Revolution in Russia and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, he left Switzerland on a sealed train to Petrograd, where he would shortly lead the 1917 October Revolution in Russia.
While the Dada art movement was also an anti-war organization, Dadaists used art to oppose all wars. The founders of the movement had left Germany and Romania to escape the destruction of the war. At the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich they put on performances expressing their disgust with the war and with the interests that inspired it. By some accounts Dada coalesced on 6 October 1916 at the cabaret. The artists used abstraction to fight against the social, political, and cultural ideas of that time that they believed had caused the war. Dadaists viewed abstraction as the result of a lack of planning and of logical thought-processes. When World War I ended in 1918, most of the Zürich Dadaists returned to their home countries, and some began Dada activities in other cities.
In 1917 Switzerland's neutrality came into question when the Grimm–Hoffmann Affair erupted. Robert Grimm, a Swiss socialist politician, travelled to Russia as an activist to negotiate a separate peace between Russia and Germany, in order to end the war on the Eastern Front in the interests of socialism and pacifism. Misrepresenting himself as a diplomat and an actual representative of the Swiss government, he made progress but had to admit to fraud and return home when the Allies found out about the proposed peace deal. The Allies were placated by the resignation of Arthur Hoffmann, the Swiss Federal Councillor who had supported Grimm but had not consulted his colleagues on the initiative.
Switzerland hosts out-of-action POWs from the Entente and Central Powers
During the war Switzerland accepted 68,000 British, French and German wounded prisoners of war for recovery in mountain resorts. To be transferred, the wounded had to have a disability that would negate their further military service or have been interned over 18 months with deteriorating mental health. The wounded were transferred from prisoner of war camps unable to cope with the number of wounded and sat out the war in Switzerland. The transfer was agreed between the warring powers and organised by the Red Cross.Swiss independence during the interwar period
One potential result of World War I was an expansion of Switzerland itself during the interwar period. In a referendum held in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg on 11 May 1920, over 80% of those voting supported a proposal that the state join the Swiss Confederation. However, this was stopped by the opposition of the Austrian Government, the Allies, Swiss liberals, the Swiss-Italians and the Swiss-French.However, the Principality of Liechtenstein managed to exclude itself from Austria in 1918 and signed a monetary and customs union with Switzerland that effectively guaranteed its independence. In 1920, Switzerland joined the League of Nations.
In 1934 the Swiss Banking Act was passed. This allowed for anonymous numbered bank accounts, in part to allow Germans to hide or protect their assets from seizure by the newly established Third Reich.
In 1936 Wilhelm Gustloff was assassinated at Davos; he was the head of the Nazi Party's "Auslands-Organisation" in Switzerland. The Swiss government refused to extradite the alleged assassin David Frankfurter to Germany. Frankfurter was sentenced to 18 years in prison but was pardoned in 1945.
As European tension grew in the 1930s, the Swiss began to rethink their political and military situation. The Social Democratic party abandoned their revolutionary and anti-military stances, and soon the country began to rearm for war. BGB Federal Councillor Rudolf Minger, predicting war would come in 1939, led the rebuilding of the Swiss Army. Starting in 1936, he secured a larger defence budget and started a war bond system. The army was restructured into smaller, better equipped divisions and boot camp for conscripts was extended to 3 months of instruction. In 1937 a war economy cell was established. Households were encouraged to keep a two-month supply of food and basic necessities. In 1938 Foreign Minister Giuseppe Motta withdrew Switzerland from the League of Nations, returning the country to its traditional form of neutrality.
Actions were also taken to prove Switzerland's independent national identity and unique culture from the surrounding Fascist powers. This policy was known as Geistige Landesverteidigung, or "spiritual national defence". In 1937, the government opened the Museum of Federal Charters. Increased use of Swiss German coincided with a national referendum that made Romansh a national language in 1938, a move designed to counter Benito Mussolini's attempts to incite Italian nationalism in the southern Grisons and Ticino cantons. In December of that year in a government address, Catholic-Conservative Councillor Philipp Etter urged a defence of Swiss culture. Geistige Landesverteidigung subsequently exploded, being featured on stamps, in children's books, and through official publications.