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p The world economic crisis of 1929 hit Switzerland after a delay, but it lasted there longer than in other countries. The privations it brought in its wake to the working people stimulated an increase in their political awareness and activities. The political developments in neighbouring countries worked in the same direction.

p The Swiss reactionaries who were intimately allied with international finance capital and had witnessed the emergence of fascism in Italy, the burgeoning of “national-socialism” in Germany and clerical fascism in Austria, sought a similar pattern to impose on their own country. A crop of pro-fascist organisations sprang up in Switzerland, and strong rightist trends were in evidence within the traditional bourgeois parties.

p On the other hand, the mass of the working people were gravely alarmed by the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the nazi dictatorship in Germany. Since the general strike of 1918 the Social-Democratic Party and the workers’ unions became an influential force in Switzerland. Now the onslaught of reaction and fascism threatened to nullify all their gains. The workers protested by mass anti-nazi demonstrations. For example, the protest movement against the nazi frame-up in connection with the Reichstag fire assumed in Zurich a scope unprecedented in its history. The heroic struggle of the Schutzbund members in Austria and the successful rebuff given by Communist and Socialist workers to an attempted fascist coup d’etat in February 1934 also contributed to the growth of resistance to reaction in Switzerland.

p The Swiss Communist Party was small and its members were mostly unemployed—employers usually sacked a worker who had joined the Communist Party at the earliest convenience. Nevertheless, the Communist Party commanded a definite influence in Zurich and Basel in the cantons of Neuenburg, Waadt, and Geneva.

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p The victory of the Spanish Popular Front in the elections of February 1936 demonstrated to the Swiss working people that unity of action was bringing real fruits in the struggle against fascism. News of the success of the Left Forces in Spain was enthusiastically welcomed by the workers and progressive-minded intellectuals. The Swiss democrats followed with hope the development of working people’s unity in France.

p Monopoly capitalists and the upper bourgeoisie in Switzerland we’re scared of the Popular Front and went out of their way to prevent its formation. The government which guarded the interests of the ruling class paid lip service to democracy but in deed opposed genuine democracy with every means at its disposal.

p Reports on the revolt of fascist generals against the Spanish Republic of the Popular Front aroused concern among the working people of Switzerland. It shortly transpired that it was not a shortlived revolt but a full-scale war. When it became known that the insurgents fighting the Republic were supported not only by soldiers of the Foreign Legion and colonial troops but also by German and Italian troops, aircraft and warships, a broad movement in defence of the Spanish people mounted throughout Switzerland. The worker press appealed for support of the Popular Front Government. Mass meetings of solidarity with the Spanish Republic, organised jointly by both workers’ parties, were held in all industrial areas. The Social-Democrats and the Communists agreed on unity of action, which created realistic prerequisites for the formation of a Popular Front in the country.

p Needless to say, these developments went against the grain with the ruling class. On August 11, 1936, the government confiscated an issue of the Social-Democratic magazine Arbeiter-Illustrierte featuring John Heartfield’s photographic cartoon sarcastically assailing Hitler’s intervention in Spanish affairs.

p The Socialist newspaper Tagwacht wrote in its July 30, 1936 issue: "In response to the appeal to defend their homeland, the Spanish working class had taken up arms for the Government and Republic. It is fighting so well as to displease our bourgeois press which prefers armed fascists to armed workers, a fascist state to a republic of workers and peasants. The class instinct— the class interests! Solidarity of capitalists remains as firm as ever....

p Indeed, could they watch indifferently the Soviet Union thriving and developing? In that country, too, they organised rebellions to topple the power of the workers and peasants. When these attempts failed they were followed by the foreign intervention, then by a boycott, a campaign of slander, threats and abuse... . Spain is evidently in for the same thorny path.”

p On August 14, 1936, even before the agreement on non- intervention in Spanish affairs came into force, the Federal 288

A group of Swiss volunteers in Paris while on their way to Spain. Autumn, 1936
Government issued a decree forbidding sales and transit of any arms, munitions and military equipment to Spain, as well as to any other country for trans-shipment there. The decree of August 26, 1936, “On Maintenance of Swiss Neutrality" provided for up to 6 months’ detention and a fine of up to 10,000 francs "for persons leaving Switzerland with the intention to take part in military operations in Spain or making attempts with this intention in mind, persons supporting or assisting from Switzerland in whatever way military operations in Spain and particularly those raising funds for goals far from charitable, as well as persons calling for or instigating opposition to this decree.”

p The decree also proclaimed that all money collected for such purposes was liable to confiscation and any meeting in support of one of the belligerent parties in Spain required permission from canton authorities, and might be banned by the Federal Government whenever necessary. Even money remittance to Spain was forbidden.

p In defiance of strong protests from the progressive public these decrees, which under the guise of neutrality infringed the sovereign rights of the Spanish Republic with which Switzerland maintained normal treaty relations and which put the Republic’s lawful government on a par with the insurgents out to dislodge it, continued in force until the end of the Spanish war.

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p But, despite obstacles and threats from the authorities meetings of solidarity with the Spanish people continued throughout the country, and money, clothes, woollens, foodstuffs, soap, medicines and other goods were collected among the people. Old clothes were washed, mended, and woollen sweaters, jackets, scarves, socks and gloves were made by women in knitting circles. Under Federal legislation collection of donations was allowed only for assistance to civilians and hospitals. Among the organisations active in this field were the IRA branches, the Geneva Committee of Aid to the Spanish People, the Basel Aid Organisation, the Organisation for Assistance to Spanish Children, etc. It is hard to overestimate the contributions from these organisations and their local workers’ branches. They continued to operate after the defeat of the Spanish Republic and even after the outbreak of the Second World War, assisting Spanish refugees and servicemen of the Republican Army interned in French camps.

p The Committee of Aid to the Spanish People sent to the Spanish Republic four lorries to carry food supplies to the population and evacuate children from bombed out towns. In October 1936, a fully equipped ambulance, as well as clothes, linen, dressing and surgical instruments worth 15,000 francs were sent from Geneva to Spain.

p On November 17, 1936, the Basel Aid Organisation shipped to Spain eight large containers with clothes, 500 tins of egg powder and several boxes with warm clothes for women and children. The Zurich women workers’ circle who met weekly, sent to Spain on December 5, 1936 three large containers with clothes and woollens worth 15,700 francs. Small workers’ groups of assistance to Spain were set up in Lausanne, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Vevey, Chur, Davos, Biel, Winterthur, Schaffhausen, Grenchen, Arbon, Oerlikon.

p Since the Red Cross on the pretext of neutrality soon stopped its relief supplies to Republican Spain, the public set up the Swiss Sanitary Centre which sent two medical teams to Spain. The Centre shipped medicines and dressing to Spain every week. After February 1939, these supplies were sent to a refugee hospital in Perpignan, France. Two Swiss physicians commissioned by the Centre worked there.

p The Swiss working people’s solidarity with the Spanish Republic was not limited to meetings and material assistance.

p In defiance of all injunctions Swiss anti-fascists supplied money and foodstuffs to thousands of volunteers from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia who arrived in Switzerland illegally on their way to Spain and helped them get over the Alps to France. These actions demonstrated the great force of proletarian internationalism.

p Yet the most brilliant manifestation of solidarity was the participation of Swiss volunteers in the antifascist war waged by the Spanish people. The first Swiss citizens to come to defend the 290

A group of Swiss volunteers from Lausanne
Spanish Popular Front against the insurgent generals were men and women gymnasts who had arrived in Barcelona for the People’s Olimpiad in July 1936, shortly before the beginning of hostilities. The girl gymnast Kathe Hempel of Schaffhausen served as a medical nurse with a People’s Militia unit suppressing the revolt. Other athletes joined the People’s Militia company named after Gastone Sozzi which included Italian anti-fascists and Swiss citizens of the Tessin canton. Jointly with the Libertad Column of Catalonia they took part in the fighting for Madrid. Antonio Canonica of Tessin was second in command in the company. Several Swiss citizens joined the company named after Ernst Thaelmann which was among the first units of the People’s Militia to fight at the Aragon Front.

p It was not easy to get to Spain from Switzerland. This was experienced by 13 Zurich anti-fascists who were arrested in Basel on suspicion of an intent to join the Spanish People’s Militia. They refused to answer questions by interrogating officers and went on hunger strike in protest against their illegal detention. Eight days later they were released on signing a pledge to comply with the law of August 14. This, however, did not deter the courageous anti-fascists from going to Spain.

p These first volunteers were followed by many others. According to police evidence divulged by Judge Pfenninger at a trial of Swiss Communist volunteers in March 1938, 369 Swiss citizens 291 had left the country before the end of 1937 to join the International Brigades of the Spanish Republican Army. Of this number 119 were from the Zurich canton, the rest from Geneva, Basel, Bern and Tessin.

p Of course, not all of the volunteers who went to Spain were known to the police. It could not keep under surveillance volunteers who left the country legally for France and Britain on the pretext of continuing their education or finding a job, as well as Swiss nationals living abroad. The exact number of Swiss volunteers in the Spanish Republican Army is not known but, according to indirect evidence, it might have been about 700. Among them were workers, handicraftsmen, students and intellectuals. Many of those who came from Switzerland were unemployed. The latter fact was repeatedly emphasised in verdicts of Swiss military tribunals who tried to persuade the public that the volunteers were motivated by material interest. In fact, they were tried for their political convictions. A typical example of judicial arguments was a statement by the very same judge Pfenninger who substantiated his demand for severe punishment of a volunteer in these words: "When handing down a verdict it should be borne in mind that the defendant is a person of thoroughly Marxist convictions....”

p According to evidence published by National Councillor Marino Bodenmann in Freiheit on September 10, 1937, one of every three Swiss volunteers in Spain was a member of the Communist Party or the Communist Youth League, roughly 70 were members of the Social-Democratic Party or the Socialist Youth League. Most of the volunteers had no party affiliation. Many of them had come from places where Communist organisations were non-existent. Bodenmann happened to meet with members of Catholic organisations among volunteers in Spain. All the Swiss who fought on the side of the Spanish Republic had one trait in common: they were staunch anti-fascists.

p Swiss volunteers had not a separate national unit within International Brigades. In accordance with the common language principle accepted in formation of units of the brigades, most of German-speaking Swiss joined battalions of the llth International Brigade; French-speaking Swiss, the 14th Brigade; Tessin citizens, the Garibaldi Battalion. Swiss citizens of all language groups were particularly eager to join the Chapayev Battalion under Otto Brunner of Zurich. About 80 Swiss citizens served with it at different times. A certain number of Swiss nationals living abroad served with the 15th Brigade.

p Since Swiss volunteers had, as a rule, good military training they served with all arms and services as snipers, artillerymen, motorcyclists, lorry drivers, and medical orderlies. One Swiss was a pilot, one a tankman, and one, a military band master. Swiss citizens were also to be found among guerrillas operating behind 292

A group of Swiss volunteers from the llth International Brigade
the fascist lines. Many Swiss distinguished themselves in battle and were promoted to the ranks of noncoms, officers and commissars. Two were battalion commanders: Otto Brunner and Max Doppler, a native of Baden (Argau), who was in command of the Hans Beimler Battalion.

p Many Swiss citizens were killed in action in Spain. Even an incomplete casualty list contains 76 names; in fact, many more were killed at the front. Among the war dead is Battalion Commander Max Doppler. The missing list contains 51 names, including the political commissar of a unit of the Thaelmann Battalion, Ernst Bickel, a student from Zurich. Twelve Swiss volunteers were taken prisoner by the fascists. Some of those who had survived in the POW camps came back to their homeland in 1939, others returned many years later.

p At a time when Swiss anti-fascists were fighting heroically for freedom and democracy on Spanish soil, the Federal Government, the capitalist monopolies and all official Switzerland clearly sympathised with and helped the Spanish fascists. For example, the former counsellor of the Embassy of the Spanish Republic in Bern, Bernabe de Toca, a follower of Franco, held a reception to mark “Spanish National Day" on May 2, 1937 without any opposition from Swiss authorities. De Toca was received as a 293 representative of a foreign power by a councillor (minister) of the Federal Government. De Toca enjoyed the privilege of ciphered cable communication; the flag of monarchist Spain was hoisted over his residence. This meant a de facto recognition of the insurgents by the Swiss authorities.

p Small wonder, therefore, that this gentleman was impudent enough to distribute to Spaniards living in Switzerland draft cards for induction into military service “in the national territory".

p The Councillor of the Federal Government, Motta, even without waiting for the end of the war in Spain, granted Franco official recognition already on February 13, 1939, simultaneously breaking off diplomatic relations with the government of the Spanish Republic. Incidentally, when these relations were still maintained they were by no means as friendly as relations with the " government" of the rebel General Franco. For example, documents on the air raid over Guernica sent by catholic priests through the Spanish Embassy were confiscated by Federal authorities in contravention of diplomatic immunity, privacy of correspondence and neutrality. A similar anti-Republican stand was taken up by the owners of a condensed milk factory who agreed to sell the Spanish Republic 10,000 cans of milk for children only at a surcharge of 225 per cent.

p Meanwhile, trains loaded with military supplies for Franco were departing one by one from the Basel terminal; according to incomplete data, 37 fascist volunteers from Switzerland fought on the side of the Falange and none of them was brought to trial.

p Characteristically, the reactionary division commander de Dissbach visited the rebel General Franco on Motta’s personal recommendation, whereas the Communist member of the National Council Bodenmann was refused an exit visa for a visit to Popular Front Spain.

p The hostile attitude to the Spanish Republic was accompanied by baiting and persecution of Swiss Communists. Their apartments and offices of communist organisations were searched on a mass scale, and Marxist publications were seized. The government used every means at its disposal to thwart the movement of solidarity with the Spanish people and to intimidate its members. Reprisals were directed above all against the Communist Party.

p A draft of Federal legislation on the maintenance of public law and order and security submitted to the December session of the Federal Council in 1936 envisaged imprisonment of Swiss citizens for what it called "Communist intrigues”, for strikes and appeals to down tools, and forbade criticism of high-ranking army officers. The government was empowered to close down opposition newspapers for a term of up to one year, as well as to ban, "whenever necessary”, the Communist Party and other opposition organisations. In contravention of the Constitution, the 294

The Chapayev Battalion on the march
Federal Council demanded that this legislation become effective immediately.

p But this obvious encroachment upon legality went against the grain even with bourgeois deputies, so the government’s demand was rejected. Reaction decided to act in a roundabout way, through the cantons. The death from a heart attack of one Spanish fascist at a meeting in La Chaux-de-Fonds was used as a pretext for fomenting anti-communist hysteria. In the cantons of Geneva and Neuenburg decisions to ban the cantonal organisations of the Communist Party were taken in February 1937 and approved in a cantonal plebiscite in Neuenburg on April 26, 1937 and in Geneva on June 14.

p The attempt to ban the Communist Party throughout Switzerland failed, but Communists were expelled from a number of institutions and a ban was imposed on the activities of the Society of Friends of the Soviet Union, the International Red Aid and other proletarian organisations.

p In the Waadt canton, the authorities banned the celebration of May Day in 1937 and refused permission for a public statement to the Secretary of the Swiss Communist Party and even to the extremely moderate French socialist reformist Leon Jouhaux. At the same time, permission to speak was granted to the French fascist Doriot, the Belgian fascist Degrelle, the fascist professor Guido Bartoletto of Rome and the high-ranking nazi official Sauckel.

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p The authorities attempted to use trials of “recruiters” of volunteers for the Spanish Republican Army as a pretext for banning the Communist Party. Already in December 1936, _a number of searches were carried out in Zurich in an attempt to disclose the links of local Communists with Republican Spain. The police were haunted by the spectre of a “Central Recruiting Organisation”. The first large trial of “recruiting officers" was held in a division court martial in April 1937. Among the defendants were Otto Brunner, who was in Spain at the time, Andreas Weder of Schaffhausen, Henri Triib of Geneva and others. Indictments compiled with the aid of false witnesses, whose evidence was willingly accepted by the court, were enough to sentence the defendants to up to 10 months in gaol and to five years of disfranchisement. The defence lawyer, Dr Maag, proved that not the slightest evidence of the existence of a communist “recruiting organisation" was available. As a result, the trial furnished no pretext for banning the Communist Party.

p In March 1938, the authorities staged another large trial of Communists. The defendants were three Communist Party secretaries and seven other functionaries. Despite the preliminary detention of the defendants for many months and the frame-up charges shrewdly devised by the prosecution the latter failed to prove the existence of a central organisation for the recruitment of volunteers to Spain and no grounds were again found for banning the Communist Party.

p The authorities’ machinations at the trial were exposed in a booklet entitled “Werbezentral fur Spanien“ (The Recruiting Centre for Spain), which was confiscated on the pretext of its alleged appeal to join the Communist Party, read its press, support the International Brigades, criticise the Federal Council and its use of what was described as impermissible expressions against the leaders of a foreign government.

p In later months, arrests were continued, in the Tessin canton in particular.

p On January 6, 1937, a series of trials were started, mostly in absentia, against Swiss volunteers fighting in Spain. In this connection, a struggle was launched throughout the country for the repeal of their verdicts. This demand was put forward at all meetings on the Spanish issue.

p When in September 1938 the Spanish Government recalled foreign volunteers from the front, the question arose of their return to their homelands. The lawyer Leon Nicole made an interpellation in the National Council demanding an amnesty from the Federal Council which was declined by the Federal Councillor Baumann. This refusal caused a new upsurge of the movement for an amnesty. A Committee for Amnesty headed by Fritz Heimann, Dr Otto Wyss and Dr Karl Senn was set up. They were the first 296

Otto Brunner, commander of the Chapayev Battalion
to sign a petition for an amnesty and were followed by about 100 other signatories. They were joined by German emigres residing in Switzerland, including the wellknown anti-fascist writer Hans Marchwitza and Erich Arendt.

p The democratic press published reports of the participation of Swiss citizens in the operations of International Brigades. The popular commanding officer of the Chapayev Battalion, Otto Brunner, described in the press the courageous conduct of Swiss volunteers in the Spanish people’s anti-fascist war.

p Simultaneously, a counter-campaign was launched by the reaction. For example, the pro-fascist press agency “Mittelpresse” labelled volunteers as “mercenaries” and “criminals”. Neue Ziircher Zeitung and all other newspapers supporting Franco opposed an amnesty, which they alleged may be “detrimental to trade with Franco Spain".

p On January 2, 1939, Otto Brunner and another 63 volunteers came back to their homeland. In his statements at meetings dedicated to the Spanish people’s anti-fascist war he invariably demanded an amnesty to volunteers. In this connection, Neue Ziircher Zeitung published slanderous materials against Otto Brunner, and he was arrested on January 12, 1939.

p The Federal Council declined all proposals for an amnesty and offered all convicted volunteers to plead for mercy. Needless to say, the Union of Swiss Volunteers in the Spanish War categorically rejected this offer. On February 2, 1939, a petition for an amnesty signed by 80,000 persons was submitted to the government and was again turned down.

p This gave military tribunals a pretext for continued judicial persecution. As before, the Zurich division court martial was the most reactionary one. It continued to condemn volunteers to long terms of imprisonment and to civil disfranchisement for three 297 years. Other courts considerably reduced imprisonment terms to 2-6 months.

Otto Brunner released on bail of 5,000 francs which was collected during three days, faced trial in May 1939. He could be indicted only for taking part in the Spanish war, not for recruitment work. As a result, he was condemned to 6 months in gaol and three years’ disfranchisement. The reactionary press raked and raved over this verdict.

p The defeat of the Spanish Republic was a severe blow to the Swiss working-class movement as well. This was not only manifested in the failure of the movement for an amnesty, which proved futile despite the broad involvement of the working people, but also had a bearing on the results of the general political elections and plebiscites.

p The unity of action of the two workers’ parties was disrupted, and the involvement of the masses in the May Day celebration in 1939 was insignificant. The reaction was rearing its head everywhere.

p Today he who would seek information on the participation of Swiss volunteers in the Spanish war in books on modern history published in Switzerland would realise that they are written by reactionary falsifiers. The Spanish Republic, if mentioned in such books at all, is described as a "red bandit dictatorship" and Franco as a “hero” who established "peace, law and order" in his country. Reactionaries continue to heap abuse on defenders of the Spanish Republic, servicemen of the Republican Army and their friends.

But it is impossible to hide away the historical truth or to efface it from the people’s memory. Swiss citizens fought in the ranks of the International Brigades on Spanish soil for genuine democracy, for peace and progress, and inscribed a heroic page in the history of the Swiss people.