Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

The Swiss did more than act as money-launderer and conduit for German payments, in itself a substantial contribution to Hitler’s war. In 1941–42 60 percent of Switzerland’s munitions industry, 50 percent of its optical industry and 40 percent of its engineering output was producing for Germany, remunerated in gold. The Bührle-Oerlikon small arms firm was still selling rapid-fire guns to the Wehrmacht in April 1945. All told, the German Reichsbank deposited the gold equivalent of 1,638,000,000 Swiss francs in Switzerland during the Second World War. And it was Swiss authorities before the outbreak of the conflict who asked that German passports indicate whether their holders were Jewish, the better to restrict unwanted arrivals. The Swiss authorities, in their defence, had good reason to keep the Nazis friendly. Although the Wehrmacht high command postponed its June 1940 plans for an invasion of Switzerland, it never abandoned them; the experience of Belgium and the Netherlands