61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

also in more recent legal proceedings involving extradited refugees. Apologetic
vindications abound, but have consistently failed to be addressed to those who
helped, let alone the murdered victims and survivors of Nazi persecution. Lest
we forget – survivors of the Holocaust, remembered by the Jewish people as the
Shoah, and their survivors, are still among us – in Switzerland too.
The economic and financial dimension
Switzerland’s above-average standard of living is traditionally attributed to the
country’s international relations. Thus significant branches of Swiss industry had
more customers abroad than at home, and a whole range of multinational enterprises
sited their head office in Switzerland. Because of this close interaction with
foreign markets, the events of the 1930s – the world-wide crisis, the general
tendency toward exchange controls, protectionism and the bilateralisation of
trade relations – had a great influence on the way the Swiss business community
and the authorities thought and conducted themselves. It is therefore not
surprising that Germany, which at that time was already Switzerland’s most
important trading and investment partner, became an even more attractive
market as a result of its economic upturn. In the eyes of many Swiss decisionmakers,
political considerations served to confirm the positive perception of this
phenomenon. Initially, after 1933, the Nazi regime appeared to have created a
new stability, and reservations about the «socialist» part of the Party programme
faded into the background as it became clear that private property rights would
be preserved – provided that they were not those of «undesirable persons».
Accordingly, many Swiss firms actively endeavoured to expand their
commercial links with Germany. Insurance companies were on the lookout for
new business and expanded their branch offices. The German subsidiaries of
enterprises such as AIAG (Aluminium-Industrie AG) or Maggi raised their
output since, as in the case of the aluminium manufacturer AIAG, they were
able to profit from the armaments boom or the general economic upturn. Swiss
hoteliers, who had suffered very badly during the economic crisis, demanded a
relaxation of the exchange controls in order to be able to attract wealthy German
tourists.
One exception to the general efforts by Swiss business to increase its dealings
with Germany was the banking industry. The banks were in a special position
as the high-level credit volume which they had granted Germany in the 1920s
had been frozen during the great financial crisis of 1931. From this point
onwards, the banks endeavoured to reduce their German risk through gradually
cancelling the credit limits frozen under the terms of standstill agreements. So
many balance sheet items were linked to German assets in some banks, in
particular the Federal Bank (FB) and the Basel Commercial Bank (BCB), that
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