**Under pressure: during the Second World War, hostile powers sought to manipulate the Swiss press.** e-pics

The ‘Trump Affair’

In the summer of 1940, German press attaché Georg Trump attempted to silence critical voices within the Swiss press. Staging a fightback, the country’s newspaper editors found themselves caught between the opposing forces of neutrality and accommodation.

Noëmi Crain Merz

Noëmi Crain Merz is a historian, university lecturer and curator.

Early in the evening of 21 May 1940, when the British army was on the verge of becoming surrounded at Dunkirk as German troops continued their advance into northern France, the telephone rang in the editorial office of the Neue Zürcher Nachrichten newspaper. The caller was incensed about an article detailing the brutal treatment meted out to the civilian population of the Netherlands and Belgium by the German army. His name was Georg Trump, and he had been Germany’s press attaché in Bern since February that year. Trump complained that this was a “monstrous slur” on the German army and demanded to know the name of the otherwise anonymous author. Despite Germany’s dominance in Europe, which was being further cemented in France as they spoke, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Hermann Odermatt stood his ground. He refused to divulge the information, citing his right to protect his sources, and the press attaché never found out that the piece had been written by a German emigrant.

Editor-in-chief Hermann Odermatt never revealed who wrote the article. e-newspaperarchives

Peter Dürrenmatt, who would later become editor-in-chief of another daily newspaper, the Basler Nachrichten, described Trump as “primitive, undiscriminating and devious”. Coming at the height of Germany’s Western Campaign, this was the first occasion on which the man from the embassy chose to bypass diplomatic channels and to intervene directly in Swiss editorial affairs. Trump demanded that newspaper print an apology in the next edition.

It never came to that. The Abteilung Presse und Funkspruch (APF), the Press and Radio Division responsible for censorship in Switzerland during the Second World War, suspended publication of the Neue Zürcher Nachrichten for ten days. The APF was officially authorised to step in whenever it felt that relations with any of the neighbouring countries might be jeopardised. The president of the Swiss Confederation, Marcel Pilet-Golaz, was also at pains to point out that attacks on a foreign army, like that published by the Catholic newspaper with Conservative leanings, were not permitted in Switzerland.

The action against the daily paper was among the most drastic ever taken. But it was by no means a one-off. Keen to avoid any diplomatic upsets, the APF was already in the habit of cracking down on newspapers even before German officials began voicing complaints. Switzerland hoped to pacify its larger neighbour ‒ which, bolstered by its military successes, was taking a more and more aggressive stance ‒ by telling it that the publications in question had already been reprimanded. But in doing so, the Swiss authorities also gave the impression that these complaints were justified. Germany’s leaders took the view that a neutral country should have ‘neutral’ reporting. Although it contravened the Swiss notion of freedom of the press, articles critical of Germany were regularly subject to censorship. When, in November 1939, following the conquest of Poland, the Basel-based National-Zeitung described a potential peace settlement as “tantamount to the recognition of a policy of violence that shows a brutal disregard for treaties and international law”, making it “nothing short of catastrophic”, the head of the APF accused it of being a propaganda mouthpiece for the Western powers and of expressing views that placed Switzerland in a dangerous position. Unless this changed, he told the newspaper, measures would have to be considered and even an outright ban on publication could not be ruled out.

The Neue Zürcher Nachrichten announces the temporary suspension of publication. — **The *Neue Zürcher Nachrichten* announces the temporary suspension of publication.** e-newspaperarchives

Switzerland’s editors refused to back down

One month after Trump made his call to the Neue Zürcher Nachrichten, Germany and France negotiated an armistice at Compiègne Forest. Northern France came under German occupation, while the Vichy regime in the ‘free’ zone agreed to collaborate with the National Socialists. Switzerland had become an island in the middle of Europe, surrounded by fascist dictatorships on every side. A few days later the Swiss president went on air to make it known that the country would have to adjust to this new reality. Like many in the summer of 1940, Pilet-Golaz, a native of Vaud, was convinced that the Germans would ultimately win the war. He was willing to bow to Germany’s demands in order to safeguard Switzerland’s independence.

**Following the armistice of Compiègne, Switzerland found itself sandwiched between dictatorships.** Wikimedia

Trump was to bypass diplomatic channels yet again. On 9 July he spoke in person to Fritz Pochon, the chairman of the board of the national press agency, the Schweizerische Depeschenagentur (SDA). The German called for the immediate resignation of Ernst Schürch, the editor-in-chief of Der Bund, a daily newspaper published in Bern, as a necessary means of improving relations between Switzerland and Germany. He argued that they would be able to draw a line under the past once Schürch had gone. Pochon, the Bund’s publisher, refused to agree to Schürch’s immediate dismissal, but said he would consider replacing the editor when the latter reached retirement age on 1 October. He did indeed inform Schürch of this decision and retirement terms were set down in writing.

For Trump, the Bund was the easiest of all the major liberal-leaning dailies on which to exert an influence. After all, the company that published it had just one owner that needed to be persuaded, and that owner was Pochon. The German attaché had also set his sights on the principal editors of the NZZ and Basler Nachrichten newspapers, but their ownership structure was more complicated. One thing was clear: following the capitulation of France, the National Socialists were keen to silence any journalists who had written negatively about them in the preceding months; Trump referred to them as “editors heavily stained by the past”.

Schürch was outraged at Trump’s interference, calling it “the worst kind of foreign coercion”. Much to Pochon’s annoyance, he informed Rudolf Lüdi, the director of the national press agency, where Trump had also demanded that personnel changes be made. Lüdi in turn told Karl Sartorius, the publisher of the Basler Nachrichten and president of the Schweizerische Zeitungsverlegerverband (the Swiss Newspaper Publishers Association). Sartorius then consulted editors Theodor Gut and Markus Feldmann, who were also National Councillors in Bern. They all agreed that the real issue here went far beyond intolerable meddling in internal affairs. Fundamental matters of principle, including those affecting the press and national policy, were at stake. Feldmann, who would later become a member of the Federal Council, noted in his diary that: “The battle for the key aspects of our national freedom is beginning.”

Rumours that Schürch was to be replaced as editor-in-chief spread like wildfire and took on new dimensions. The word on the street was that the Germans had also set their sights on Willy Bretscher at the NZZ and Albert Oeri at Basler Nachrichten. Sartorius categorically demanded that the Federal Council step in to protect the Swiss press. Schürch, Oeri and Bretscher met to discuss the matter, and on 24 July Oeri wrote a five-page letter to Swiss president Pilet-Golaz, with copies sent to every member of the Federal Council, in which he vehemently championed freedom of the press and denounced the authorities’ clampdown on public opinion in Switzerland.

Editors-in-chief Ernst Schürch of the Bund, Willy Bretscher of the NZZ and Albert Oeri of the Basler Nachrichten found themselves in the firing line of the German attaché. — **Editors-in-chief Ernst Schürch of the *Bund*, Willy Bretscher of the *NZZ* and Albert Oeri of the *Basler Nachrichten* found themselves in the firing line of the German attaché.** e-newspaperarchives.ch

The Federal Council finally got round to discussing Georg Trump’s attempts to intervene. However, the nation’s government did not share the outrage of its top editors. Although President Pilet-Golaz did not approve of Trump’s actions, he nevertheless found it desirable that certain men disappear from the scene in the interests of maintaining good relations with Germany. The men he had in mind were those who had consistently advocated for freedom of the press and, as Willy Bretscher put it, were convinced that “betrayal and self-sacrifice” were not the way to salvation. Pilet-Golaz briefly alluded to the affair during discussions with German ambassador Otto Köcher, a man he considered “sincere” and with whom he got along well. The Swiss president admitted that he could understand the Germans’ frustration, but reiterated that Trump’s actions were unacceptable.

Independence, neutrality and accommodation

The liberal editors-in-chief kept their jobs. And they refused to alter the trenchancy of their opinions. A lead article about the persecution of Jews in Germany penned by Albert Oeri that October met with outrage. Hans Frölicher, the Swiss ambassador in Berlin, complained to the Federal Political Department. He considered it “highly inappropriate for the head of one of the most renowned newspapers to take up the case of the Jews against German anti-Semitism, thereby causing a stir in influential circles in Germany.” Especially at a time when the main preoccupation of “all good Swiss” should be preserving Switzerland’s independence. Summoned to Bern to explain himself, Oeri stated that he wrote the article precisely with a view to safeguarding that very independence. And that meant “to discourage our people from imitating the anti-Semitic excesses of our neighbours. In light of the already very ardent attempts to stir up anti-Semitic feeling in the country, modelled on that abroad, it seemed [to him] to be a direct necessity.”

The threat facing Switzerland in the summer of 1940 was very real. The Germans were expected to invade at any time. Oeri, who lived in Riehen right next to the border with Germany, would have been among the first to feel the National Socialists’ vengeance. Bretscher and Schürch would have been equally unlikely to escape reprisals. The German embassy in Bern had branded Schürch the “greatest rabble-rouser in Switzerland”, and Trump had previously intimated that Schürch needn’t try and flee abroad as arrangements had already been made to arrest him at the border.

**Transcript of Ernst Schürch’s hearing, at which he described the events of 1940 and his relations with Georg Trump.** Swiss Federal Archives

Despite the threats to their person, the three men refused to budge from their position that sovereignty and independence meant defending freedom of opinion and democracy in the face of all authoritarian tendencies. “Switzerland must live; its survival is more important than the life of any one individual” – these words conclude the lead article by Ernst Schürch, written on 26 July 1940 to quell rumours that he was to be ousted.

The Petition of the 200

Criticism of those who voiced their objections to a policy of accommodation in Switzerland never died down. In mid-November 1940, the Petition of the 200 was submitted to the Federal Council. The initiators were sympathisers of the pro-German Volksbund für die Unabhängigkeit der Schweiz (‘Popular League for the Independence of Switzerland’) who shared Pilet-Golaz’s conviction that Germany would establish its order over Europe in the long term. The Swiss president had already held talks with a delegation of four of the organisation’s members on 1 August. Strict censorship of the press featured high on their list of demands. The editors-in-chief targeted by Trump were once again in the firing line. Their voices were to be silenced.

In 1973, historian Georg Kreis painstakingly reconstructed the events surrounding the ‘Trump affair’. He concluded that for those involved with Trump, regardless of whether they stood up to him or allowed themselves to be intimidated by him, he was more than simply an official who had grown too big for his boots: “With his visions of the future, his proposals for shaking up the press and his threats, he was also the very embodiment of the danger facing the country at the time.”

**Georg Trump was posted to Bern in 1940. He lived there with his wife and daughter until he was deported in 1945.** Swiss Federal Archives

It is mere coincidence that the WW2 German press attaché bore the same name as the current president of the United States. Yet both of these Trumps have put Switzerland in a position where, faced with an overly powerful opponent, it must choose between toeing the line and fighting back. Even though the situation in 2025 is completely different to the one 85 years ago, it once more raises the question of whether it is expedient to make one’s position unambiguously clear or whether it might be better not to do so to avoid provoking any negative reactions. Even though each side invokes independence, sovereignty and neutrality, their respective responses to these values differ considerably.

The fact that there were people in Switzerland in 1940 who remained unwavering in their support of freedom of the press and who resisted any accommodation of fascism was soon widely seen as something that created a sense of national identity. “Your voice was the voice of reason, a voice that the world listened to.” These words were said of Albert Oeri shortly after the end of the war when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Basel. “And so, we often had you to thank for the fact that the voice of Switzerland was heard in the rest of the world as the voice of rightness.” In the postwar period it was quickly and conveniently forgotten just how many political decision-makers had tried to silence the voices of Oeri, Bretscher, Schürch and others.

More of: 20th / 21st century Politics War/battle

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