61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

were also discussed by the press and debated in parliamentary committees.
However, during the negotiating phase from May 1940 onwards, the press
published only official communiqués. Once it had been signed, the press
welcomed the agreement, with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung seeing it as an organic
development of German-Swiss economic relations. The Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich
and the Vaterland in Lucerne praised the more elastic clearing loans; only the
Social Democratic Tagwacht in Bern saw fit to criticise, but its criticism was
concerned less with the fact that Switzerland had given way to German pressure
than the Federal Council’s having made an unilateral decision in favour of the
«Swiss business world». 35 For reasons relating to the securing of supplies and
jobs, all the organs of the press saw predominantly positive results issuing from
the agreement of July 1941. The Social Democratic press – usually adopting an
anti-fascist position – emphasised in particular the job-creation aspect resulting
from large orders on credit.
In summer 1941, the public was initially unaware of the extent of the clearing
loan which had been agreed in favour of Germany and the Swiss export industry.
The members of the parliamentary finance delegation were informed by
Minister of Economic Affairs Walther Stampfli that the clearing loan had been
raised to 850 million francs, but it was important to the Federal Council that
the actual amount of the clearing loan was not made public, partly out of
consideration for the Allies. There were, however, rumours of amounts
around 900 million francs, in response to which the Director of the Trade
Division (Handelsabteilung), Jean Hotz, felt compelled to go before the parliamentary
press and justify the agreement. Press censorship and an inadequate
information policy amongst the authorities ensured that Swiss foreign trade
policy was not discussed in more detail. 36
In autumn 1941, rumours about the new clearing agreement in the press
resulted in a rare but lively debate in the National Council on the occasion of
the approval of the semi-annual foreign trade report of the Federal Council.
Social Democrat National Councillor Hans Oprecht demanded information
from the Federal Council about the clearing advances and multilateral clearing.
«Won’t this ordering of our foreign trade mean that Switzerland is economically
bound into the ‹new Europe› against our will, and in such a way that
our absolute and integral neutrality appears to be at risk? [...] We fear that
we are on a slipery slope, sliding more and more.» 37
National Councillor Walter Muschg (National Ring of Independents –
Landesring der Unabhängigen, LdU) took up the argument and openly expressed
his unease with regard to the Federal Council’s German-leaning economic policy:
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