Switzerland and its Past: An Uncomfortable Relationship

Abstract

This lecture was originally delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, on November 10, 2008. It addresses Switzerland’s asylum policies during the Second World War, as well as its relations with Apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. The author argues that Switzerland must accept responsibility for its past faults in order to grow into the humanitarian nation that it professes to be. Roger de Weck was born in Fribourg in 1953. He is currently chairman of the Board of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges and Warsaw. He worked as the Paris correspondent for various Swiss newspapers before becoming editor-in-chief for the Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger and German weekly paper Die Zeit. He still works for German, French and Swiss newspapers as a columnist. He regularly appears on television and anchors the discussion program Sternstunde for the German TV channel 3Sat. He is a member of the Board of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen.