Swiss and the Nazis Read online

  The Cornichon actors also stood their ground and continued performances, although they had good reason to fear the Germans.21 like many other Swiss citizens, their names were on Nazi blacklists. Actress Trudi Schoop’s entire life history, including her family tree and the details of her acting career, was written up in Berlin. Lenz, who had worked at the Dessau Theater in Germany, was told by a man returning from Dessau that the new theater director was a Nazi who had been promoted to Gauleiter. When talk turned to Switzerland he had said: “So, you are from Zurich? Isn’t that where Lenz is! The pig! Tell him, when we get there, we will hang him!” But Lenz was waiting for them, not only with his satire but with his rifle: as a member of the military’s local Defense.

  The Cornichon also showed no mercy to Swiss politicians who were perceived as weak toward the Axis. In 1940, Swiss Federal President Pilet-Golaz acceded to a demand for a meeting with a small group of Swiss who supported collaboration with Germany. Although the meeting might have well been a Machiavellian ploy to “play dumb” and allow dangerous elements to let off steam, pilet-Golaz was roundly attacked. In one Cornichon skit, “Frischi Weggli” (Fresh Buns), an actor steps in front of the curtain and exclaims, “Me sött de Pilet goh-lah!” This wordplay used “goh-lah” (Swiss dialect for “to get rid of”) which sounded like “Golaz” to cry “Pilet-Golaz must go!” 22

  A performance in May 1942 drove the Nazis to distraction. Two actors are standing in front of the curtain. One of them is selling the Nazi newspaper, Signal. The other, a passerby, notices that a picture is printed on the paper. He shouts “Is that him?” meaning Adolf Hitler. “Yes, that is him”—“I want to cut out this picture and frame it!”—“What, do you want to hang it on the wall at home?”—“I do not know yet—either I will hang it or put it on the wall [for execution].”23 The audience roared, but in most of Europe at that time jokes about killing Hitler would have gotten the humorist hung or put up against the wall to be shot.

  German Ambassador Freiherr von Bibra discussed the slanders with the German Consul General Voigt, and a memorandum of their conversation was sent to Swiss authorities. The German officials stated:

  von Bibra: I have heard that there is an unbelievably filthy hole in Zurich at the Cornichon. People there are insulting the Führer in the most impudent and impertinent manner….

  Voigt: Yes, I have heard about that too.

  von Bibra: Couldn’t you send someone to listen to this? Our agent from the Reich Ministry who has seen it thought that this was entirely undignified and shameless!

  Voigt: At any rate, these people are Jews.

  von Bibra: That is what I thought! The agent compared this to the measures of censorship that the Swiss allow. They say verbatim: “to the gallows with the man, he should hang or be put against a wall and executed.” It is clear that this kind of speech is directed against Adolf Hitler. That is what they allow themselves in a so-called neutral country!

  The Swiss Federal Attorney, playing the usual game, sent a note to the Zurich police with the remark: “please monitor one performance and send detailed report. Urgent!”

  German Consul General Voigt reported to German Ambassador von Bibra on May 16, 1942, that their concerns had been raised with the head of the Zurich Cantonal police, named Briner.24 But Briner took no action, saying the cabaret program would last only a week. Voigt found the Swiss explanation unacceptable, pointing out that the same program was running in Basel and Bern, where the cabaret had been recently expanded. He added:

  We have complained repeatedly that Cabaret Cornichon continues to present inflammatory material. The Italians have also protested. But our complaints have had no effect, as the current program shows. Half the program is filled with disparaging remarks about Germany, while Germany’s enemies are barely mentioned and, if they are, are seldom criticized. Compared to the treatment of the Allies, the remarks targeted at Germany are outrageous outbursts of hatred and hostility. They are never softened by humor or even a trace of good will. The Führer is not expressly mentioned, but the references to him are perfectly clear.

  Walter Lesch explained the Cornichon’s position in a letter dated July 21, 1942, to the Federal political police.25 He denied knowledge of the joke about “hanging” Hitler, saying it was a spontaneous improvisation made by an actor on a day he was not present. Lesch asserted that another scene featuring Swiss dialect had been misunderstood to mock nasal-sounding German officers. “To the sentence ‘certainly not him’ in response to the question who will be the winner of this war, we would like to point out that the text shows clearly that the sentence can mean either Churchill or Hitler.” And, he added, not every short man who wears a mustache is the Führer. Such twinkling denials by Lesch were as much game-playing as were the original performances.

  In this period the Cabaret Cornichon in Zurich began a series of “Fireside Chats” inspired by Roosevelt’s radio broadcasts. Stricter censorship took its toll, shifting performances toward domestic topics like rationing and air raid blackouts, but the Germans still objected.26 Invariably, the spirit of resistance crept into these programs, too. “Cheap Jacob” featured suspenders and the crossbow, “the symbol for our ability to put up a fight, the symbol for our freedom, the symbol for our country.”27 The Cornichon evoked William Tell with a contemporary twist, amidst the ever acid, outrageous humor of the cabaret.

  Despite censorship and reminders from the Swiss authorities, the Cornichon would not stop targeting current political events, although hot topics were given a slight cover. In November 1942, “Green is the Color of Hope” implied that Hitler would lose the war in Russia.28 It was indirect, but the more subtle the innuendos, the more the audience laughed. And truth followed humor: in December an entire German army was encircled at Stalingrad.

  In September 1943, the German envoy shot off a new series of complaints against the performance of “Salem Aleikum,” which was char acterized by “mockery of the Third Reich.”29 In one segment, as he described:

  A fakir entered the stage, his arm frantically raised in the German greeting. He said that he had sworn to keep his arm stretched out for one thousand years so that, if he could keep his pledge, he would become the most famous fakir. When someone told him that he was not the only fakir of this kind, he became discouraged and dropped his arm. He complained bitterly that he had given 10 years of his life for nothing.

  The Swiss ridiculed both the Hitler salute and the fantasy of the “thousand year Reich.” Ironically but typically, the German envoy ended the above letter with the obligatory “Heil!” In any event, the envoy also included the following further grievance:

  This act was followed by a factious diatribe against Swiss censors. The act featured a Swiss as a target dummy in a shooting gallery. The dummy was blindfolded and gagged, and his ears were covered. After sharp verbal attacks against Swiss censors by the actress playing a shooting gallery attendant, the attendant fired at the dummy several times, shooting off his blindfold, the gag on his mouth, and the covers over his ears.

  Thus, while the Germans were annoyed at the ineffectual nature of censorship in Switzerland, they considered it outrageous to suggest that the Swiss people would liberate themselves from any censorship at all. Such a policy would have meant no bounds on open Swiss attacks on the Nazis and their Axis partners.

  These antics continued through the end of the war and beyond. The Cabaret Cornichon helped to buoy morale within Switzerland and thereby may have contributed indirectly to dissuading an attack. Humor and the ability to wage ideological war against one of the most aggressive and powerful states in history were the characteristics of the Cornichon. Men and women armed with satire may well have been as effective as military preparedness in the grand strategy of resistance. The caricatures of Nebelspalter and the antics of the Cabaret Cornichon were unique in Switzerland, and in fact not replicated elsewhere in central europe. Everywhere else one would face execution for expressing disrespect for the Nazis.

  CHAPTER 3
>
  COUNTERATTACK OF THE NEWSREELS1

  “National Defense and the Ortswehren [Local Forces]” is the title that flashes across the screen in movie theaters in Switzerland in August 1943. A dramatic voiceover intones: “May 1940: Attack on Belgium and Holland; breakthrough of Panzer forces far into the hinterland. Paratroopers, saboteurs, evacuation of the civil population…. Call of the General for the formation of the Ortswehren.”2 Three long years have passed since Western Europe collapsed and the Swiss republic has been surrounded by German Nazi and Italian Fascist forces. Under General Henri Guisan’s leadership, all of Switzerland—down to each local village—is armed and ready to resist invasion.

  The film begins with an urgent phone call to a Swiss military officer; he sends three youngsters in Boy Scout uniforms rushing off on their bicycles with old Model 1889 rifles on their backs. One bursts into an office where an older man is dictating to a secretary; he grabs his tattered military coat and a holstered pistol from the hat rack; the alarm spreads like wildfire.

  One young boy alerts a man at home; instantly the man and his wife run out, both in uniform; men sprint with rifles in hand; one positions himself at a window above some railroad tracks; two others take sniper positions at a bridge; still others await on high ground behind obstructions. Barricades of heavy logs are thrown up on roads; a crane-like device sets up concrete tank obstructions; women and children are warned away; a tent hospital is readied.

  An alarm signal sounds and a ready unit of Ortswehr men grab their rifles and run out, secreting themselves along a barricaded road with Molotov cocktails or other explosive devices at the ready. An enemy vehicle appears; the devices are lit and several are hurled at the vehicle; the vehicle explodes. Nightfall comes with the sound of heavy weapons fire; camouflaged Ortswehr members hide in the deepening shadows; finally larger units of the Swiss army are shown moving into position.

  The accompanying voiceover intones that total war requires total defense, commitment, and engagement. The lessons are: Don’t evacuate! remember what happened in France and Belgium. Immediate first-line defense by every Ortswehr unit is essential for Switzerland’s survival.

  The above is a typical example of the hundreds of Swiss newsreels made during World War II.3 The message of this Army Film Service (AFD) film could not have been lost on anyone: the entire Swiss population would rise up against a Nazi invasion. Films like these were crafted to give the Swiss confidence that total resistance was the only possible response to invasion. That resistance would be uncompromising and relentless, in contrast to the demoralization and collapse of the rest of Western Europe in the face of blitzkrieg attacks. This particular film was aimed at the teenage boys and older men who made up the Ortswehr, highlighting their role of harassing and delaying advancing enemy forces until the regular army could launch counterblows.

  Participation in the official and arm-banded Ortswehr served another purpose. As Federal Councilor Karl Kobelt, head of the Swiss military department, noted in a recruiting call, soldiers in uniform—though that uniform be no more than an armband—were entitled to protection under international law should they become prisoners of war.4 They could not legally be shot as guerillas or unlawful combatants if captured by an invader.

  It goes without saying that the only invader would have been the German Wehrmacht, which could not be explicitly named because of official Swiss neutrality. Based on a leak from Hitler’s own headquarters, Swiss intelligence had believed that an attack would take place in March 1943. An assault did not materialize then. However, in early July the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily began. Mussolini was soon deposed and Hitler began rushing additional troops into northern Italy.5 He didn’t want an exposed rear in Switzerland. Thus, when this newsreel was shown in August, the Swiss had every reason to anticipate a Nazi invasion. The Swiss did not want to provoke Germany, but they intended to send a clear message that any incursion would be fiercely opposed. It was common knowledge that German intelligence viewed Swiss newsreels.

  THE GERMAN WEEKLY NEWSREELS

  The Swiss newsreels were designed in part to counter those produced by the Nazis. A weapon of Josef Goebbels’ propaganda ministry, the German Wochenschau (Weekly Film) was filled with glowing accounts of the successes of the Reich.6 Produced by the Reich’s film producer Fritz Hippler, each edition of the newsreel was carefully reviewed by Goebbels and then personally approved by Hitler.7

  A typical edition, shown in May 1940, entertained viewers with Wehrmacht attacks on Holland, Belgium and France. Enemy soldiers are always shown dead or in the process of surrendering, while Wehrmacht soldiers rarely seem to get a scratch. Civilians happily greet German tanks, except that posters are put up demanding that they surrender all firearms within 24 hours or face the death penalty. Hitler promises that this great war will be the harbinger of a thousand-year Reich. A patriotic song—against a background of artillery barrages, Luftwaffe bombings, and panzer assaults—builds to a grand finale.8

  After the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the German Wochenschau shows many dead Soviets and not one dead German. Rarely, there is seen a German casualty walking with the help of a comrade, and an occasional elaborate state funeral of a high leader. No dead German bodies or caskets were ever shown, even after Stalingrad.

  The German regime made special Auslandwochenschauen (Foreign Weekly News) which included local topics for each country it sought to influence. In the post-war report of Heer und Haus (Army and Home), the Swiss agency whose mission was to promote military morale, Swiss Major Roland Ziegler noted about the German newsreels: “The purpose was to prove to the Swiss that the German Wehrmacht could not be stopped from crushing every enemy and that the Swiss were still under a kind of idyllic Seldwyla illusion regarding their defense readiness.” (Seldwyla is an imaginary Swiss town in a novel by 19th-century Swiss author Gottfried Keller.) The German films denigrated everything about Switzerland. Ziegler explained:

  For example, the infantry. While the newsreels intended for Germany showed infantry battles at length, they were almost completely missing on the newsreels destined for Switzerland. On the other hand, the Swiss were shown in detail what they did not have. For example, the newsreels would show the following potpourri: (i) huge bombers bombarding cities and train stations followed by the “Zibelemärit” [November onion festival] in Bern, followed by attacks by large tanks; (ii) submarines in attack mode followed by the Knabenschiessen [annual boys’ shooting match] in Zurich, followed by dive-bombers; (iii) large tanks followed by a miniature train installation built by a man in Aarau followed by pictures from the air war with numerous airplanes and paratroops. The purpose was clear: Swiss moviegoers should leave the theater with the impression that nothing could be done against the German army and all the Swiss were doing was play.9

  The dive-bombers in the German films were invariably accompanied by the shrill, piercing sound of their steep attack runs followed by devastating explosions. An intelligence report by the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) of October 29, 1940, complained that the Swiss were doctoring the German films: “The sound made by dive bombers is eliminated from Universum Film AG’s (Ufa) weekly broadcasts to tone down the action so as to avoid undermining the population’s will of resistance.”10

  The Swiss developed their own newsreels to counter these German messages. Newsreels from Britain and other Allies were also regularly shown in Switzerland. Radio broadcasts from both sides brought both the encouraging words of Winston Churchill and the constant threats of Adolf Hitler. Swiss anti-Nazi sentiment was evident in the movie theaters. In 1941, when the United States was still neutral, reporters for Fortune magazine returning from Germany via Switzerland humorously recounted why the Hitler salute was removed from the German newsreels shown in the Swiss republic:

  There are 360 movie houses in Switzerland…. The movie houses show both American and German newsreels. The Nazi reels move with a peculiar jerkiness, a result of the removal of all “Heiling” for the Swiss marke
t. The Germans are still puzzled, but found that Swiss audiences laughed uproariously at every sight of a grim-faced German shooting up his hand like a railroad signal and grunting “Heil, Hitler!” One theatre had to stop the film to restore calm after a scene in which Hitler himself had said “Heil, Hitler!” 11

  In a recent interview, Paul Ladame, the first director of the Swiss Wochenschau, confirmed the accuracy of the above account. He added that, at the time, the American newsreels were not well liked because they were not clearly against Hitler. The United States was neutral. The American position changed abruptly after Pearl Harbor. Both American and British films were smuggled into Switzerland and shown during the war.12 While the pre-war American newsreels may have been superficially neutral, a German military intelligence report in November 1940 nonetheless complained of American bias:

  The Swiss weekly newsreels of October 7 to 12 did not show any war pictures, but an American weekly newsreel, which ran at the same time, did. The pictures had all been taken by the British side and showed destroyers sold by the United States putting to sea, visits by the English king and the shelling of a convoy under attack in the vicinity of Dover.13

  THE SWISS WEEKLY NEWSREELS

  An assessment of the Swiss newsreels over a half-century after the fact is not easy. No analysis or even summary of the films has ever been published. Only portions of the original films exist on videotape, and these are accessible only to the determined researcher. This analysis of selected films seeks to contribute to this uncharted history by describing their contents and evaluating their role in the struggle to survive and the will to resist. The opportunity to communicate with the two successive heads of the Swiss weekly film service during the war, while they were still alive, adds an important dimension.