Under the banner of "permanent neutrality", the small country of Switzerland not only survived the two world wars, but also benefited a lot
It seems that Switzerland has been able to become a small country with a highly developed economy and a carefree politics today, thanks to its "permanent neutrality".
But the reality is that "permanent neutrality" is not the secret of a country's prosperity and strength, and this signboard is actually a mask that hides Switzerland's nature as a tiger
How to be neutral
In fact, historically, the people of Switzerland have been extremely strong. In this small land, various local forces and foreign forces are constantly fighting with each other
In August 1291, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Untwalden formed a permanent alliance, known as the "Old Tri-State League", in which they defeated the mighty Habsburg Duke Leopold at the Battle of Mogaten in 1315.
Over the next two hundred years, the Tri-Canton League gradually expanded into the League of Eight Cantons and the League of Thirteen Cantons, forming the loose old Swiss Confederation
Together, the Alpine forces began to expand wildly, with the Burgundian and Swabian Wars in the second half of the 15th century being the culmination of the expansion of the old Swiss Confederation, which extended to Milan in northern Italy
The Swiss were carried away by the great victory, but they did not know that their occupation of Milan had touched the bottom line of King Francis I of France. At the Battle of Marignano in 1515, French artillery and heavy cavalry defeated the Swiss army with a huge numerical superiority
The Swiss, who had returned home, realized that their victories over the years had been based on passion, and that as a small landlocked country, they had no real capital to compete for hegemony
From then on, the old Swiss Confederation began to retreat to its homeland, and France, which knew that Switzerland was warlike during the war, did not want to be hostile to this small country with long thorns
A year after the Battle of Marignano, they signed the Permanent Peace with France, followed by the Treaty of League in 1521, and the Intergenerational Alliance with the Swiss, on the side of their old rivals, the Habsburgs
Switzerland's neutrality is actually a concession after realizing its own limit, but whatever the purpose, the banner of "neutrality" is raised
Switzerland's first neutrality was maintained until the rise of Napoleon. Since the outbreak of the French Revolution, there has been a force in Switzerland that has been in favor of France, and its power is strong enough to stand up to the centrists
Napoleon occupied Switzerland in 1798, and in 1803 he reshaped the Swiss political order through the Decree of Conciliation and the Constitution of Mediation, making Switzerland a willing vassal of France
As a sign of loyalty, the Swiss supported the French with four regiments, and they followed Napoleon all the way to the north and south. With Big Brother leading the way, Switzerland ceased to remain neutral for several years, until Napoleon's crushing defeat on the Russian battlefield in 1812
At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when the countries liquidated France, Switzerland again assumed a victim posture and shouted neutrality, which succeeded in impressing the great powers at the conference table, and they all signed a declaration recognizing Swiss neutrality
It was only then that Switzerland's "permanent neutrality" truly gained international recognition
Neutral Bonus
With its "neutrality" label and the prestige of its frenzied expansion, Switzerland has developed smoothly in recent centuries
During the Thirty Years' War in Europe in the 17th century, all the nations, large and small, were exhausted on the battlefield, and the German-speaking states lost more than a quarter of their population.
Switzerland, on the other hand, began to develop its economy on the basis of neutrality, and it was during this period that the watch and dairy industries, which the Swiss are so proud of, developed rapidly
In his novel The Adventures of an Idiot, the German writer of that era, Grimoshausen described Switzerland as a protagonist: "This country is as foreign to me as it is in Brazil or China compared to other German-speaking regions...... I see this place as paradise. ”
Permanent neutrality is not only a talisman, but also a golden signboard.
After the Vienna Peace Conference in 1815, Switzerland became a safe haven for the financial community, and a large amount of capital flocked to it, laying the foundation for the development of Swiss banking. Since then, Switzerland has extended its neutrality to the financial sector.
Today, Swiss banks hold a quarter of the world's foreign wealth. UBS's 2023 annual report shows that the total assets of this company alone reached $1,717.246 billion, twice the GDP of Switzerland that year
Thanks to the financial and manufacturing booms brought about by permanent neutrality, Switzerland's GDP per capita will exceed $100,000 in 2033
But the benefits of permanent neutrality for Switzerland go far beyond that. Today's Geneva is known as the "diplomatic capital" of Switzerland, but many people don't even know that the true seat of the Swiss federal government is Bern rather than Geneva, and that Geneva was not part of Switzerland before the 19th century
Geneva was annexed to Switzerland at the Congress of Vienna after the French War, and the European powers, impressed by "permanent neutrality", also made Geneva, then a country in its own right, Swiss territory
Geneva is called the diplomatic capital of Switzerland because of the city's presence at the headquarters and important branches of major international organizations
World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, International Telecommunication Union, United Nations European Headquarters...... In terms of absorbing international organizations, the prestigious New York of the United States and The Hague of the Netherlands are not comparable to Geneva.
To this day, Geneva remains the preferred venue for international conferences, such as the first peace summit on Ukraine, which opened on June 15, 2024, and was attended by 91 countries
These international institutions and conferences are Switzerland's most important soft power, enabling this small country to have a voice far greater than its size
Switzerland has made a lot of money under the banner of permanent neutrality, but for hundreds of years, "permanent neutrality" has been a Swiss slogan at best
When it comes to a conflict of interest, the Swiss don't mind cooperating with the big powers with bad intentions under the guise of neutrality
Accomplices of the Nazis
If a country wants to become a neutral country, it must first be recognized by the international community, and if it wants to be recognized by the international community, it must comply with the requirements of the international community for neutral countries.
At the Second Hague Conference in 1907, the participating countries signed the Convention on the Rights and Duties of Neutral States in Land and Naval Warfare
That is, the Hague Convention V of 1907 and the Hague Convention XIII of 1907, which required neutral States to "refrain from acts in favour of one of the belligerents"
The representative of Switzerland signed the two treaties when they were signed, and three years later formally acceded to them as a neutral State
In 1916, Switzerland's neutrality was reaffirmed. Regardless of whether or not Napoleon's actions in Switzerland were contrary to the position of neutrals, at least not after the 20th century, such a thing should not happen again.
During the Second World War, however, Switzerland actually resolutely abandoned their position.
At the beginning of World War II, a large part of the wealth scraped by Nazi Germany from various countries was stored in Swiss banks, in order to completely control Switzerland, Germany formulated the "Fir Plan" against Switzerland in 1940, and Mussolini of Italy also released a statement to annex the Swiss state of Dicino to Italy, but later in the process of invading France, Germany deliberately bypassed Switzerland.
Hitler did not carry out his plan because Switzerland had been violating the Convention from the beginning of the war and facilitating Germany in exchange for its own security, and this was only the beginning
Seeing that the Nazis were in the limelight, Switzerland immediately provided Germany with a loan of 150 million Swiss francs, and at the same time deliberately strengthened trade with Germany and Italy to assist the accumulation of war resources in these two fascist countries
In 1943, British intelligence discovered an astonishing phenomenon: the amount of gold sold by Germany on the market exceeded the total amount of gold at the beginning of the war in this country
After ruling out other possibilities, the only possible source of this gold was that it had been deposited in Switzerland after the Nazi regime had plundered it.
When the mass persecution of Jews began in Germany, the Swiss government cooperated in declaring that "Jews should not be considered political refugees", and many Jews who wanted to flee to Switzerland for refuge or through Switzerland were blocked from the borders
Even Jewish refugees who had obtained visas to enter Switzerland legally were deported, and in some cases even sent Jews directly to the German army
The Swiss historian Edgar Ponjou wrote in his History of Swiss Neutrality: "The summer and winter of 1942-1943 constituted the darkest chapter in the history of Swiss refugees
During World War II, the number of Jews deported from Switzerland was uncountable due to the lack of access to traditional countries of refuge. ”
Half a century after the end of World War II, Switzerland's funding of the Nazis had not yet been dug up. In the '90s, there was growing evidence that Swiss banks had helped the Nazis launder money, hide gold, and that large numbers of Jewish money had been deposited in Switzerland and then swallowed.
After the incident fermented, the World Jewish Congress filed a claim of up to $20 billion, and the exact amount of this money has not been determined
Under pressure from the United States and other countries, the Swiss government and the Swiss National Bank also had to plead guilty, and in 1997 they invested $300 million to set up a compensation fund, and in 1998 the Union Bank of Switzerland and Credit Suisse came forward to pay a compensation of $1.25 billion
Several Jewish groups believe that these reparations are only the tip of the iceberg in the property that Switzerland has embezzled, and they have found 4.1 million accounts suspected of being linked to the persecution of Jews during World War II, but until the 21st century, Switzerland has refused to disclose the details of these 4.1 million accounts, citing secrecy.
If anyone still considers Switzerland to be a neutral country, listen to the words of Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Coty in 1995 when he apologized on behalf of the Government: "We cannot and will not deny that Switzerland was implicit in the barbarism of the Second World War that is difficult to put into words." ”
Beam-jumping clowns
In the 90s, when Switzerland's neutrality was questioned the most, the country was called an "accomplice of the Nazis" by the world's major media, but in fact Switzerland was not just an "accomplice of the Nazis"
Whoever wins and who they help is the essence of the villain disguised in Switzerland under the appearance of neutrality
At the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war, the Swiss government followed the West without thinking, criticized Russia in writing, and at the same time expressed its loyalty to the West by freezing the property of Russian citizens, joining sanctions against Russia, and closing its airspace to Russia, and Credit Suisse alone froze Russian assets worth 17.6 billion Swiss francs.
This is despite the fact that officials such as the President of the Swiss Confederation and Foreign Minister Cassis have repeatedly stated that these measures "do not mean that Switzerland has abandoned its traditional position of neutrality"
But permanent neutrality is not up to one government to have the final say. No one but themselves believes that this is a permanently neutral country
However, this Swiss speculation does not seem to have achieved the same benefits as it once was
After the sanctions against Russia smashed its own signboard, it was not only the Swiss government that lost its reputation, but also the Swiss banks that developed under the banner of permanent neutrality. Since Switzerland's renunciation of neutrality, a large number of depositors have fled, and the Swiss economy has taken a sharp turn for the worse.
According to data released by the SNB, their losses in the 2022 fiscal year amounted to 132 billion Swiss francs, or about $142.5 billion, equivalent to 18% of Swiss GDP
Credit Suisse, the century-old bank of the Swiss banking industry, has been in the forefront of sanctions against Russia in the past few years, and this crisis is not only at the forefront of sanctions against Russia
It was also revealed that customer information was leaked, and under repeated blows, the bank's book loss alone reached $7.6 billion in 2022, and tens of billions of stored value were lost every day in March 2023.
In order to quell the Credit Suisse crisis, UBS announced the acquisition of Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs, and in order to remove resistance in the acquisition process, the Swiss parliament changed the law so that the acquisition does not require shareholder consent
This time a huge hornet's nest has been stabbed, the anger on the Russian side has not subsided, and the West has begun to bombard the Swiss banking industry for violating its integrity. After the banking sector lost money in 2022, Switzerland continues to collapse in 2023
As a last resort, Switzerland announced in March 2023 that it would lift sanctions against Russia and return to a neutral policy, and soon after announced that it would refuse to accept wounded Ukrainian soldiers
However, it didn't take long for the U.S. Department of Justice to begin pressuring Switzerland, announcing an investigation into the links between two of Switzerland's largest banks and Russia
Under heavy pressure, Switzerland announced on March 29 that it would resume sanctions against Russia and aid to Ukraine, and a day later announced that it would overturn the harsh words released the day before, and then "neutrality"
In April, Russian customers received another threat from Switzerland that it would continue to freeze their assets if they continued to pay taxes in Russia
In less than a month, Switzerland has shown how flexible its "neutrality" is, and that permanent neutrality is nothing more than a rhetoric prepared for itself.
The Russia-Ukraine war is a "mirror", and in this conflict, Switzerland's "flexible use" of a policy of neutrality is not only reflected in the economic level
Since the outbreak of the conflict, Switzerland has begun to massively increase its military spending and purchase various advanced weapons from NATO countries. In order to aid Ukraine, the Swedish army retired 25 Leopard 2A4 tanks in their hands ahead of schedule, which were subsequently bought back by Germany
Although Switzerland stated in the agreement that these tanks could not be used in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, with them as a supplement, Germany could come up with more tanks to assist Ukraine, which is not fundamentally different from Switzerland's direct assistance to Ukraine.
In July 2023, Switzerland joined Austria in Europe's "Sky Shield" joint prevention and control system until 2024
More than 20 countries in the system, except for Switzerland, have all joined NATO, which in fact means that Switzerland has embarked on a thief ship that cannot be stopped
And now, it may be time for the Swiss to smash the golden sign of "permanent neutrality" themselves#Long Essay Creation Incentive Program#
Resources
Wu Xiaowei. The Transition to Swiss Neutrality after World War II: From "Limited Constraints" to "Neutral Freedom"
LIANG Zhi. U.S. policy toward neutral countries in the early postwar period
WANG Jiamiao. Was Switzerland a neutral country in World War II
LI Qingnan. A study of the formation of the Swiss neutral state
It is advisable to continue to build. The history and current state of Switzerland's neutrality policy