I.1. Introduction psychologique et historiographique

Abstract

European countries who participated in WWII remember the conflict as a trauma born out of defeat, collaboration, and genocide. In Switzerland, however, the war is seen as an extraordinary success in the fact of extreme circumstances. The country’s neutrality and army play a central role in this interpretation. These two factors inspired the Swiss to present a united front against the Nazi aggressors, a threat that the country decided to confront using a long-term approach. Writers, journalists, and film makers were the first to question this version of events after 1968, especially with respect to Switzerland’s economic cooperation with Nazi Germany. It was only much later, in the 1990s, and under international pressure that the Swiss were forced to consider that their country might have been complicit in the genocide. Recent research, including that of the Bergier Commission, led to the conclusion that sovereignty and neutrality, even in the face of a genocidal regime, carried darker consequences for the Swiss than their humanitarian mission would imply.