Switzerland, National Socialist Policy and the Legacy of History

Abstract

This article addresses, on the one hand, the relationship between National Socialism’s foreign and economic policies, and on the other, Swiss models of behaviour in dealing with Nazi Germany. It also examines post-war explanations of this period in Swiss memory and historiography. The first part of the article recapitulates some aspects of National Socialist policy and economic ideology, in particular the project of a ‘Germanised’ Europe and a racial ‘Greater Germany’. Antisemitism is an important factor in this context. The second part of the article then considers three features of the Swiss state of affairs in terms of how the National Socialist ideology of Lebensraum was perceived: military matters, economic issues and attitudes towards refugees. What emerges is that the state of knowledge concerning these three features varies greatly. Furthermore, after the war, the bearers of responsibility in Switzerland found themselves confronted by the Swiss relationship to National Socialist crimes, the nature...