61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

over the next few years. Only a few archives were found to be in a condition
conducive to research. Whereas in some major companies an archive on
company history was maintained by professional staff, other archives were in
such a state of neglect that they had to be dusted and tidied up first before we
could begin with our research. Often, those responsible had no idea what was
still available. Here is an example: in 1989, the Swiss Bank Corporation
(Schweizerischer Bankverein, SBV) sold the Basler Handelsbank, acquired in 1945,
when it became insolvent as a result of substantial commitments in Germany
and Eastern Europe, to an institute in Luxembourg. The historical archive
remained in a cellar of the Swiss Bank Corporation, without the bank being
aware of this. In addition, the key to the room concerned had been lost. It was
only when access was gained to these premises as part of the ICE’s fact-finding
exercise that managers found out that they had holdings in their archives that
no longer rightfully belonged to them.
Other problems related to the fact that the scope of the privileged access was
restricted to archives in Switzerland while many major companies were internationally
oriented to a considerable extent as early as in the 1930s. Whereas
documentation from branch offices can often be inspected at a company’s head
office, foreign subsidiaries usually maintain their own archives. This meant
access problems for the ICE which could only be solved by finding an agreement
with the companies concerned. In this way, algroup, Lonza, and Nestlé opened
to us the archives in their German plants.
Archival work is very difficult in cases where no catalogues or index lists exist.
If these are lacking or incomplete, only the knowledge of the archivists can be
of any help. For this reason, the ICE operated on the basis that the «key» to the
archive lay in the information necessary to find one’s way about in the chaos or
wealth of the source material and pursue a rational research strategy. It was
precisely in this key area that difficulties persisted until the conclusion of
research activities. For example, problems arose from the doubly asymmetric
state of information, particularly in the banking sector. In this case, the research
commissioned by the ICEP considerably improved our state of knowledge of the
available archive holdings. The auditors (Arthur Andersen, Coopers & Lybrand,
Deloitte & Touche, KPMG and Price Waterhouse), who were searching for
«dormant accounts» in bank archives, worked with the History Teams and Task
Forces of the banks concerned, who in turn created new, database-assisted
finding aids. Whereas in some cases the ICE had to work with old archive lists
and material summaries specially compiled for it which were often very comprehensive,
but unsatisfactory in terms of answering questions, the banks would
have new search tools to provide it with a much better overview of the available
documents. Individual banks – without the ICE’s knowledge – corresponded on
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