61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

German soldiers deployed in Italy travelled home on leave through Switzerland
individually in civilian clothing. Official transportation, however, was limited
to the conveyance of severely injured soldiers.
Coal transport (north-south)
Coal transports accounted for the majority of the goods traffic between
Germany and Italy. The amounts varied only little, between ten and twelve
million tons per year in the period of the pre-war years until 1942; later they
decreased significantly. Coal made up 90% of north-south traffic between 1938
and 1940, and later the figure was about 75%. The other goods carried were
metals, machinery, and grains for bread-making. Whereas, in the years leading
up to the war, the majority of, but not all, coal imports came from Germany,
the Third Reich became almost the exclusive supplier during the war. A major
change in the transport system also took place: whilst prior to summer 1940,
three quarters of the deliveries reached Italy by sea, the British blockade forced
everything to be diverted by land. Switzerland took over a large proportion of
this land transport, and whilst the absolute quantities involved fell in the final
years of the war, they increased as a proportion of totals which were falling even
more rapidly. The figures in absolute terms, and as a proportion of total imports,
were:
Table 3: Coal transit, imports to Italy and transit through Switzerland, 1938–1944
Coal transit through Coal imports to Italy Percentage of Italian coal
Switzerland
in 1,000 tons
in 1,000 tons imports through Switzerland
1938 1 397 11 895 11.7
1939 1 822 11 021 16.5
1940 4 788 13 552 35.3
1941 5 835 11 435 51.0
1942 5 122 10 686 47.9
1943 3 303 6 166 53.5
1944 2 479 4 000 61.9
Source: Forster, Transit, 2001 (Publications of the ICE), p. 59, Table 3.
Up to 1943, the coal supplied to Italy, which could satisfy only 20% of the
demands with its own production, was used mainly for industry, transport and
households, but from autumn 1943 onwards, the German occupying forces
claimed almost all of the ever-shrinking supplies for themselves. The Swiss
authorities, as well as the wider public, could not fail to notice the significance
of these deliveries which over a longer period constituted more than half of all
deliveries. Every day, about 40 trains crossed the Rhine at Basel, up to 30 trains
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