61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

admission of illegal «French, Spanish and Polish refugees (the remains of the
Popular Front [Volksfront])». 92 On several occasions the army urged that the
admission of refugees be kept to a minimum, in particular in autumn 1942,
September 1943, June 1944, and at the beginning of 1945. 93 On 16 July 1942,
the army High Command’s Intelligence and Security Service sent the following
message to the EJPD Police Division:
«We have noticed that for some time now the number of Jewish, Dutch
and Belgian civilian refugees, as well as that of Polish refugees living in
these countries, has been increasing in an alarming manner. All of them
leave their own country for the same reason: to avoid the work camps to
which they are being sent by the occupying powers. [...] Urgent measures
would seem to be needed to prevent whole groups of refugees from entering
our country, as has been the case recently. [...] In our opinion certain
elements should be turned back; the relevant organisations would then no
doubt hear about the measures taken, and this would put a stop to their
activities.» 94
This message, sent in July 1942, assumed that the refugees were escaping from
the prospect of «work camps» and focused on the deterrent effect of turning
them back at the border, but by autumn 1942 the situation had become far more
acute. After meeting with Rothmund, Lieutenant Colonel Jakob Müller of the
Military Police suggested to him that a combination of police and military
means should be used to cope with the difficult task of surveying Switzerland’s
borders in the vicinity of Geneva and in the Jura Mountains. By military means
he meant «strict surveillance of the borders involving a large number of troops,
plus the use of firearms, floodlights, and possibly gas. Wire entanglements to
be set up the length of the border.» Rothmund passed on this suggestion to
Federal Councillor von Steiger with a comment to the effect that he could not
take the note from «the old war-horse» seriously. «Nevertheless it includes some
good ideas for organising the policing of the borders in the future (without
gas!)». 95 The idea of using gas to turn back refugees at the border is unquestionably
shocking; it serves to illustrate, however, what sort of ideas the EJPD
had to reckon with in its dealings with the Swiss army.
It was already obvious by the end of the war that the army was overtaxed by the
tasks it was given in connection with implementing the policy on refugees, for
example, border surveillance or managing reception camps. For a long time,
however, it was not admitted that the army had at the same time exerted
enormous pressure on the civilian authorities and was therefore one of the main
elements responsible for the restrictive policy on refugees. Once the war was
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