61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

declared Semag bankrupt in order to take Emil Becker and his steelworks out
of the running; he then transferred all rights concerning the automatic cannon
to the Magdeburg Werkzeugmaschinenfrabrik AG, whose managing director,
Hans Lauf, signed a formal development agreement with the German army’s
Inspectorate for Weapons and Equipment. The latter undertook to support,
with funding and materials, the further structural development of the Becker
cannon. In return Lauf had access to the improved technology resulting from
the covert German rearmament programme. 10 In 1924, in accordance with the
restrictions laid down in the Treaty of Versailles, Lauf transferred development
and production activities to his company Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon
(WO) near Zurich-Oerlikon. This company’s first managing director was Emil
Georg Bührle who held this position from 1924 to 1956. After 1918 he had
been a professional soldier for a short time and, before moving to Switzerland,
had run a subsidiary of the Magdeburg Werkzeugmaschinenfrabrik located in
the Harz Mountains in central Germany. On 29 December 1930, Georg
Thomas, Chief-of-Staff of the German Ordnance Office and later military
economist, noted with satisfaction that Bührle had achieved the objectives
agreed upon. Bührle’s closest confidant, Major Waldemar von Vethacke,
deposited duplicates of all the drawings of the latest version of the Becker
automatic cannon with the firm Fritz Werner in Marienfelde near Berlin for the
purpose of «initiating an Oerlikon-type production in an emergency
situation». 11 Like most of the other weapons used in the war by the German
army, the Becker cannon had been perfected to the stage at which Bührle
exported it in large quantities to Germany from 1940 onwards. In addition, in
1931 Bührle acquiesced in the demands of the Ordnance Office that the 20mm
automatic infantry cannon be deployable both in air defence and against tanks.
Oerlikon developed the easily transportable, universal «JLa» artillery carriage
which could be adapted for ground-to-air and ground-to-ground combat and,
with its improved S cannon, permitted attacks on ground targets as well as lowflying
aircraft (up to an altitude of around 2000 m). Oerlikon supplied this
model as a single piece of artillery (JLaS) or in pairs («twins» or «2JLaS»).
Furthermore, sometime around 1930, Oerlikon started working with the
Ministry of Aviation in Rome on fitting the 20mm cannon to the wings of
aircraft outside the arc of the propeller. 12 The wing-mounted cannon («FF»)
manufactured in collaboration with SA Armi Automatiche Scotti (Armiscotti)
in Brescia was one of the most modern weapons in the Oerlikon catalogue at the
time.
The Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft (SIG) in Neuhausen, a traditional
supplier to the Eidgenössische Militärwerkstätten in Bern, was an alternative
production unit for automatic small weapons. As a result of drastic cuts in
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