Author: Stephen P. Halbrook
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786751185
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366
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Book Description
Countless books have been written on the military history of World War II, however astonishingly little information has appeared about the one country that stared the Nazis down and refused to become an accomplice to the horrors of the Third Reich. This book provides an objective, year-by-year account of Switzerland's military role in World War II, including her defensive strategies, details of Nazi invasion plans, and Switzerland's moral, material and humanitarian links to the Allies. Swiss neutrality in World War II has been criticized in recent years, but the country was entirely surrounded by Axis powers and managed, as revealed here, to render considerable assistance to the Allies.
Author: Adam LeBor
Publisher: Citadel Press
ISBN: 9780806521213
Category : Banks and banking
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Hitler's Secret Bankers was the first book to disclose the extensive collaboration among Swiss banks, the Swiss government, and the Third Reich before and during World War II. Switzerland, supposedly neutral in the war, seemed a safe haven to desperate Jews who entrusted their wealth to its banks, believing that even if they died their families would inherit it. For more than fifty years, this money has provided free working capital for the banks. In addition to the dispute over dormant accounts, Swiss banks provided the Nazi war machine with foreign currency, which paid for vital war materiel such as chrome and aluminum.
Author: Jonathan Steinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521883075
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405
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Book Description
Revised and completely updated edition of Jonathan Steinberg's classic account of Switzerland's unique political and economic system. Why Switzerland? examines the complicated voting system that allows citizens to add, strike out, or vote more than once for candidates, with extremely complicated systems of proportional representation; a collective and consensual executive leadership in both state and church; and the creation of the Swiss idea of citizenship, with tolerance of differences of language and religion, and a perfectionist bureaucracy which regulates the well-ordered society. This third edition tries to test the flexibility of the Swiss way of politics in the globalized world, social media, the huge expansion of money in world circulation and the vast tsunamis of capital which threaten to swamp it. Can the complex machinery that has maintained Swiss institutions for centuries survive globalization, neo-liberalism and mass migration from poor countries to rich ones?
Author: Herbert R. Reginbogin
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3825819140
Category : Neutrality
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
This important book fills a historical gap and acts as a valuable corrective in the general treatment of Switzerland's role during the Second World War. In addressing all of the moral and historical charges laid at Switzerland's door in relation to Nazi Germany, it does not offer an apology but, far more valuably, provides a sustained, nuanced analysis of the issues at stake. Contending that Swiss neutrality during the Second World War has not only been misunderstood, but has also been unfairly stigmatized, the book's wide-ranging assessment offers a much-needed corrective to received wisdom on the subject. Commendably, it presents a comparative assessment, comparing the Swiss both to European neutrals, and to the U.S. - which, it is often forgotten, defended the posture of neutrality for the first two years of the war. The study highlights the need for careful assessment in the context of more than half a century ago. Seen in those terms, the behavior of the Swiss emerges far more nuanced, more driven by the desperate conditions of total war, and far less susceptible to present-day moralizations than in the work of many writers. This important contribution deepens our understanding of the Second World War.
Author: Bonjour Edgar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351253549
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 97
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Book Description
Up to a generation ago, the Swiss citizen lived with a feeling of security in foreign relations which we can hardly credit today. Neutrality has come to be taken so much for granted as the fundamental principle of the Federal constitution, and had been so generally recognized in Europe, that it seemed unthreatened and even inviolable. It blended with the republican and democratic ideal to form a national myth of almost religious sanctity. As the axiom of Swiss foreign policy, it had certainly suffered attack both in theory and in fact, but since such crises had always been successfully overcome, Switzerland’s faith in the inviolability of her neutrality had merely been confirmed. It was as if the country were girdled with high, protecting ramparts, behind which its people could go about their lawful occasions unmolested. It was in this period of calm in Switzerland’s foreign relations that international law assiduously sought a formula for the theory of neutrality.
Author: Liliane Stadler
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004690662
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
After 1979, Switzerland became increasingly involved in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan as a provider of humanitarian aid and good offices. It delivered aid to the region, hosted Soviet prisoners of war and eventually mediated between the Afghan regime and the mujahideen. What is puzzling about this development is that initially, following the Soviet invasion, both government and parliament refused to become diplomatically involved in Afghanistan on account of Swiss neutrality. The present study investigates how and why this changed between 1979 and 1992. While the practical impact of Switzerland’s good offices was modest, the crisis revealed that Switzerland continued to struggle to balance the competing imperatives of permanent neutrality and international solidarity in an increasingly multilateral world.
Author: Mark Kramer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 179363193X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 645
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Book Description
The Soviet Union and Cold War Neutrality and Nonalignment in Europe examines how the neutral European countries and the Soviet Union interacted after World War II. Amid the Cold War division of Europe into Western and Eastern blocs, several long-time neutral countries abandoned neutrality and joined NATO. Other countries remained neutral but were still perceived as a threat to the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Based on extensive archival research, this volume offers state-of-the-art essays about relations between Europe’s neutral states and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and how these relations were perceived by other powers.
Author: Daniel Culler
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1612005551
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 170
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Book Description
A harrowing memoir revealing the horrors that occurred within a little-known prison camp in Switzerland, by a POW who survived it. During WWII, 1,517 members of US aircrews were forced to seek asylum in Switzerland. Most neutral countries found reason to release US airmen from internment, but Switzerland took its obligations under the Hague Convention more seriously than most. The airmen were often incarcerated in local jails, then transferred to prison camps. The worst of these camps was Wauwilermoos, where at least 161 US airmen were sent for the honorable offense of escaping. To this hellhole came Dan Culler, the author of this incredible account of suffering and survival. Prisoners slept on lice-infested straw, were malnourished, and had virtually no hygiene facilities or access to medical care. But worse, the commandant of Wauwilermoos was a diehard Swiss Nazi. He allowed the mainly criminal occupants of the camp to torture and rape Dan Culler with impunity. After many months of such treatment, starving and ravaged by disease, he was finally aided by a British officer. Betrayal dominated his cruel fate—by the American authorities, by the Swiss, and, in a last twist, in a second planned escape that turned out to be a trap. But Dan Culler’s courage and determination kept him alive. Finally making it back home, he found he had been abandoned again. Political expediency meant there was no such place as Wauwilermoos. He had never been there, so he had never been a POW and didn‘t qualify for any POW benefits or medical or mental treatment for his many physical and emotional wounds. His struggle to make his peace with his past forms the final part of the story. An introduction and notes from military historian Rob Morris provide historical background and context, including recent efforts to recognize the suffering of those incarcerated in Switzerland and afford them full POW status.
Author: Nasir Andisha
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429861443
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 97
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Book Description
This book offers a timely and concise academic and historical background to the concept and practice of neutrality, a relatively new phenomenon in foreign and security policy. It approaches two key questions: under what circumstances can permanent neutrality be applied, and what are the main ingredients of success and the causes of failure in applying permanent neutrality? By evaluating, comparing, and contrasting the two successful European case studies of Austria and Switzerland and the two challenging Asian case studies of Afghanistan and Laos, the author creates a new framework of analysis to explore the feasibility of reframing, adopting, and applying a policy of neutrality and jump start debates on the feasibility of the idea of “new neutrality”. He opens the debate by asking whether, as neutrality successfully functioned as a conflict resolution tool during the Cold War, a reframed and adopted version of neutrality could also serve the needs of the twenty-first-century world order. This is an insightful book for all scholars, students, and policymakers workingin international relations, security studies, the history of neutrality, and Afghanistan studies.
Author: Christine Trampusch
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1136815023
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
The book provides the first systematic overview of Swiss political economy in comparative perspective. It provides an analysis of major socio-economic institutions, economic actors, economic and social policies, and political institutions and their recent changes.
