SWITZERLAND

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4557, 8 April 1942, Page 6

SWITZERLAND

OUTPOST OF DEMOCRACY WILL SHE YIELD TO THE NAZIS? (Christian Science Monitor) GENEVA, January 16. Four and one-half million Swiss don’t want to be classed as “languageGermans,” “folk-Germans,” “KulturGermans,” “blood-Germans,” .“redeemed Germans” or “unredeemed Germans” or tagged with any other label conjured for purposes of conquest by the Nazis. As the sole surviving island of freedom amid the totalitarian deluge that has submerged the rest of Europe, Switzerland holds with steadfast determination to its independence and its democratic way of life. Although pledged to strict neutrality, Switzerland’s ultimate survival depends on an Allied victory. Otherwise the little mountain republic will be dissolved in the common denominator of Hitler’s slave order. Even now ever-increasing pressure from Berlin —efforts to coerce, frighten or suborn—seeks .to undermine Swiss economic and political life and gradually line the Swiss up for economic and ideological co-operation with the Axis. The Nazi press is constantly “hinting” that the present democratic form of government in Switzerland is incompatible with the “new Europe.” “The mere existence of a democracy on our borders is an insult,” the Nazis proclaimed on the very day German and Swiss delegates met to negotiate a trade agreement. As in other countries in former years, so now in Switzerland the poison of Nazi propaganda filters through all seemingly private and strictly commercial relations. Firms and manufacturers doing business with Germany are bludgeoned into hiring or firing their personnel. Bribery is also employed, especially,in the case of the press. THE EASY WAY Two courses are open to the Swiss. They could yield to German pressure and adapt themselves to the “new Europe” either with the honest intention of aiding in 'its realisation or with the secret thought of escaping again when'the political constellation turns in their favour. They could gradually dr quickly relinquish one point afteranother of their- traditional and -internationally guaranteed -neutrality, alter or adulterate the spiritual content of their civilisation, trade with the Germans to the fullest extent possible and thus perhaps without running any great risk continue to function in the middle of Europe as a hard-working, thrifty people famous for their cheeses and respected by their neighbours for their precision work in the - manufacture of timepieces, electrical machinery, and instruments of war. Their standard of living would continue to go down along with that of Germany and the rest of Europe, but, far from the immediate scene, of war, they would be spared the worst sufferings which, war brings. This would be the easy, way, the way .their shrewd business sense and their love of bourgeois comforts advises them to follqw. The other course would be to resist the Nazi pressure. Thiswouldmean. observing not only the letter of their neutrality, but also its spirit; absolutely to refuse any ideological concessions; to give their spiritual and intellectual leaders full freedom to defend and proclaim the ideals and character of Swiss culture, to take radical measures against foreign influence and propaganda; to cut down economic cooperation to the very minimum, or to, eliminate it entirely. -. This would increase the pace of impoverishment. It would throw thousands of skilled Swiss workers put of work. It would very likely lead to military attack and occupation by the Germans and a temporary submergence of the Swiss State, The Swiss, if they allowed this course, might fall, but they would fall with honour and with the virtual assurance of rising again stronger and more Swiss than ever.

There is no doubt that the elements of resistance in Switzerland are strong and the vast majority of Swiss wish to abide by the pledge taken amidst a great deal of patriotic speech-making on the six hundred and fiftieth anniversary of their freedom—“We want to be free as our fathers were—rather death than slavery.” The workers of Switzerland are almost 100 per cent, strongly anti-Nazi. The workers’ leaders—chief of whom are Robert Grimm and Konrad Ilg—are sincere 'in their desire to co-operate with other parties and build a strong wall of defence against Nazi aggression. Many of them would prefer to-day an open declaration of economic warfare, they would prefer to see their workers walk out of the munitions factories and build roads and plant potatoes and walk round in rags and bare feet and eat crusts rather than work for the Nazis, who threaten their free organisations and existence. Swiss Christians are solidly behind their country’s free institutions and strongly opposed to the anti-Christian paganism which threatens to engulf them with a Nazi victory. Professor Karl E£rth, of Basle, is perhaps the . A :■ \

most outspoken opponent of Hitlerism in Europe to-day, since German Christian leaders am) Christian leaders of occupied Powers have fallen under the direct control .of the Gestapo. The Swiss Army under General Guisan is using every valuable minute bought by economic “co-Uperation” to make of the Swiss Alps a fortress bristling with guns and tunnelled with passageways and to make every Swiss man and youth skilled in all the methods of modern warfare. Nevertheless, there are powerful forces inside Switzerland working against resistance. The chief danger comes not from the. out-and-out defeatists but from those prominent and highly-respected Swiss leaders who, motivated by “practical considerations,” yield an inch here and an inch there. Pursuing a sort of Swiss “realpolitik” that sidesteps fundamental issues, they hope to weather the storm and escape the fate that has overtaken so many other small European States. They ignore the fact that they are

trading Swiss liberty piecemeal for a' little temporary security. , 1 The chief phase of this “horse-trad-ing” with Hitler is economic co-opera-tion with the German war machine, which, although it is contrary to Switzerland’s long-term interests, is entirely within its rights as a. neutral Power. Through the clearing system, Switzerland has become a financial underwriter of the German war effort, piling up a credit balance of approximately one billion Swiss francs. This credit to Germany—the equiva-f lent of a loan —though it should theoretically be equalised through imports from the Reich—is actually constantly on the increase. The only possibility of its ever being repaid would be in the event of a German victory, which would also spell the end of Swiss independence. Swiss capital is therefore mortgaging l its own future and financing its own ruin. Protests against this system and demands that Swiss trade with the Reich be returned to a give-and-take basis have availed little.