In 1914, men marched off in a rush of euphoria to join the fighting in World War I. They were following an ideal of masculinity that would be torn to pieces in a blaze of automatic gunfire. The ideal of the glorious knight turned out to be a cruel mirage.
Why were the Germans able to listen in on Switzerland’s encrypted radio communications so easily during World War II? Secret documents released by the US have solved the mystery.
The biography of Johann Jakob Meyer from Zurich reads like an adventure novel: womaniser, confidence trickster, and up to his eyeballs in debt. How could such a man become a Greek hero?
In 1856, the Neuchâtel deal brought the fledgling Swiss nation to the brink of war with Prussia. The reason for this was the peculiar position of the Canton of Neuchâtel.
In 1940, General Guisan stood on the battlefield and called for resistance. Meanwhile, French internees wanted to sing the Marseillaise. Yet again, women were responsible for their welfare. ‘Allons les femmes de la patrie.’
The Battle of Grandson on March 2, 1476 is one of the most celebrated and decisive battles in Swiss history and signalled their emergence as an integral player in wider European affairs.
Two German painters, contemporaries, reacted to the ‘age of catastrophe’ of 1914-1945 in very different ways. One painted a harsh and objective depiction of the world he saw. The other persisted in a rural idyll. Both approaches are political.
