61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

was a small and neutral country which had endeavoured not to be diverted from
tried and tested norms and had defended itself against attacks on its national
sovereignty. The Allies, however, in particular the Americans, were unwavering
in their demands for restitution, and met with a lack of understanding on the
part of the Swiss. When the USA, Great Britain, and France insisted on
Switzerland making reparation payments for the looted gold purchased from
the Germans and lifting the bank secrecy laws for all German assets, there was
no alternative but to send a Swiss delegation to Washington in March 1946.
Swiss Minister Walter Stucki who headed the delegation, stated at the
preparatory meeting in Bern that «his blood had boiled» when reading the
notes of the Allies: «We are basically being treated as a conquered and occupied
country. I can imagine much the same tone being used in a communication from
the Allies to a German authority.» 131 In his opening speech in Washington,
Stucki went so far as to compare the American «arsenal of democracy» to
Hitler’s Germany. Such criticism became harsher in the following years with the
onset of the Cold War. This position was maintained in the report entitled
«West-East Trade» by Alfred Schaefer, the director general of the Union Bank
of Switzerland. He writes in his report on a meeting with the director of the
Federal Finance Administration, Max Iklé of 12 June 1952: «The Federal
Council is truly outraged at the behaviour of the Americans, whose position fails
to take into account the Swiss situation and is worse than their view of the
Germans during the war.» 132 The Swiss delegation in Washington 1946 lost out
to this attitude and had to pay 250 million francs as reparation for the purchases
of looted gold from Germany. From the Swiss perspective, this was seen not as
restitution, but rather as a voluntary contribution to the reconstruction of a
Europe in ruins.
At a later stage, there was once again more range of action for Switzerland in
foreign policy. Both the ostracism and self-isolation lessened significantly in
1947/48 with the increase in the East-West polarisation manifested in the Cold
War: the «Western camp» was interested in good relations with Switzerland
from every perspective, political, economic and military, and in turn
Switzerland joined the Western economic community and community of values
(Wirtschafts- und Wertegemeinschaft) along with the OEEC (today OECD) voluntarily,
yet remained out of the UN and NATO. 133 The fast-growing antagonism
between the victorious powers affected the attitude towards the conquered, and
yesterday’s enemy became today’s ally. When a new discussion partner for the
bilateral resolution of issues regarding assets from the war years was created in
1949 with the birth of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) at the same time
as the Western defence alliance, Switzerland seized its opportunity. At the end
of August 1952, it dissolved the Washington Agreement, which had become
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