61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

acquired what it needed from abroad and from the Federal military workshops
and their subcontractors. During the First World War, the latter exported
components for weapons and ammunition on a large scale, but had no models
of its own. 8 For reasons of arms policy as well as foreign policy, the Swiss
government welcomed German arms manufacturers with export potential to set
up location within its borders. The sharp decline in production at state
armaments factories at the end of the First World War had caused social
problems. The Eidgenössische Militärwerkstätten were able to increase their
productivity by supplying parts to German arms exporters. At the same time,
the new manufacturers would help to balance out fluctuations in orders from
elsewhere. In its post-1918 foreign policy, the Swiss government expressed its
disapproval of too firm a line with Germany, favouring instead a system that
would ensure an equilibrium. It considered that once Germany had been
completely disarmed, the Western powers too should reduce their level of
armament. Germany should enjoy equal rights as a member of the League of
Nations and should be adequately equipped to meet an internal as well as an
external challenge from the Bolsheviks. This stand went so far as to elicit tacit
acceptance and even sympathy at Swiss Army Headquarters, the Federal Prosecutor’s
Office, and in diplomatic circles for the radical right-wing networks that
were set up and became an international movement following the abortive Kapp
putsch. It was in this milieu, to which the two organisers of the Kapp putsch
Colonel Max Bauer and Major Waldemar Pabst belonged, that the personnel
networks typical of the organisation of covert German rearmament were set up. 9
Switzerland was not the most important location. Krupp preferred Sweden with
its highly efficient heavy industry for perfecting its artillery weapons and
expanding its tank production. At first Rheinmetall manufactured its
automatic guns and light weaponry in the Netherlands whose seaports facilitated
trade with traditional markets in South America and China. The aircraft
manufacturer Fokker based in Schwerin took the bold step of sending 350
railway wagons full of material to the Netherlands, while Siemens followed suit
with its development of military communication technology.
The most important transfers to Switzerland in the wake of the rearmament
restrictions laid down by the Treaty of Versailles concerned the production of
light automatic weapons, military communication technology, military optical
lenses, and aircraft. The 20mm automatic cannon made by Becker Steelworks
in Willich near Krefeld should be mentioned first. In 1921, Emil Becker transferred
the patent for this weapon to Maschinenbau AG Seebach (Semag), a
company he owned near Zurich-Oerlikon. The Chairman of the Board, engineer
Fritz Hirt, presented this weapon to the leaders of the German army and Soviet
parties interested in Munich and Berlin in 1923. The following year Hirt
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