Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk and Money

by Diccon Bewes

Two wartime army leaders, as befits a militaristic nation obsessed with self-defence: Henri Guisan (Second World War) and Jürg Jenatsch (Thirty Years’ War). Two who were born abroad, mirroring the 25 per cent of the population who are not Swiss: Albert Einstein and Jean Calvin. Two men of words, just as Switzerland itself is a grand talking shop: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Henry Dunant, though he at least acted on his words.6 Two pioneers, fitting for a nation of innovators: Albert Hoffman (the LSD man7) and Alfred Escher, who founded Credit Suisse and funded the early railways. And the last two? They are perhaps the most intriguing of all. No sign of William Tell, or General Dufour, or even such Swiss notables as Le Corbusier, Carl Jung or Max Frisch. No, the last two are both women. And both fictional. I’m not quite sure what it says about the role of women in Swiss history that the two most famous examples never actually existed, but Heidi and Helvetia both make the list.