61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

financial relations on the world markets benefited considerably from the intermediary
and bridging role played by neutral locations, not to mention the fact
that, in view of the battered German currency, the stable franc was a useful
medium for transactions. More problematic, especially as regards the long-term
effect, was the fact that the interests of the armaments industry were also able
to lie dormant through outsourcing to neutral countries (Krupp in Sweden,
Fokker in the Netherlands, Bührle in Switzerland), where willing helpers
encouraged the subversion of the League of Nations requirements for German
disarmament. 10 It was not without reason that two banks set up in 1920 with
majority German ownership, Bankhaus Johann Wehrli & Cie. AG in Zurich
and Eduard Greutert & Cie. in Basel, later came into serious conflict with the
Allies.
Another important aspect concerns taxation factors. Germany, burdened with
reparations payments, was unable to compete with the favourable conditions
offered by Switzerland as a place for business operations. The flight of capital
from German businesses was one effect of this situation which was much
discussed in the late 1920s and early 1930s. During the short period of
favourable economic conditions at the end of the 1920s, numerous finance and
holding companies sprang up in Switzerland for this purpose and were often also
used to procure capital. They were closely linked to the controversial
phenomenon of the «front man», where business representation was undertaken
by lawyers in many cases. A classic example of this type of establishment, which
was to become the subject of long-running political and legal conflict during
the Second World War and for a considerable period afterwards, was IG Chemie,
set up in Basel by the IG Farben Group in 1928/29 as a finance and holding
company for the German chemical giant’s international possessions. It was
endowed with massive amounts of capital, making it much bigger than any of
the Swiss stock corporations of its day. This also aroused opposition from the
outset, focusing on the potential risk to the independence of the domestic
chemical industry.
The German start-ups of the 1920s were, and occasionally still are, described as
camouflage activities. 11 This is an inappropriate use of language, and unsatisfactory
in terms of the facts, since it arises out of a retrospective attribution of
meaning which is shaped by the developments of the 1930s and the experiences
of the Second World War. IG Chemie made no secret of its close links to the
German IG Farben Group, tending instead to emphasise them in order to
enhance the market attractiveness of its shares. Yet what had been, in the late
1920s, part of a perfectly peaceful process of German integration into the world
market, took on a new role just a few years later as conditions radically changed.
With the introduction of foreign exchange controls in Germany after the major
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