“Top secret”: Espionage and Resistance in Switzerland and Europe, 1939–1945

For several weeks now, Château de Morges has been hosting an exhibition that is likely to be unique worldwide. It is devoted to the activities of the international intelligence services in Switzerland during the decisive years of the Second World War. Shortly after the outbreak of the conflict, Switzerland found itself surrounded by Axis powers. Thanks, however, to its own networks and the determined expansion of its intelligence service, the country soon acquired detailed knowledge of several plans drawn up in Berlin to attack Switzerland in response to the rapidly changing overall war situation. All of these plans aimed at neutralising the Swiss Confederation – after 1940 the only remaining sovereign democracy in the heart of Europe – through a short, concentrated war of manoeuvre. Switzerland’s key geostrategic position at the centre of Europe, together with its policy of integral neutrality, officially reaffirmed by the Federal Council at the outset of the war, had long been a source of irritation to the Nazi leadership.

Given its status as a permanently neutral state, guaranteed by internationally binding treaties and upheld by its own political will, how did Switzerland respond to this threat? The exhibition at Château de Morges explores aspects of this question that have so far received little attention. In particular, it highlights the fact that, shortly after the beginning of the Second World War, the intelligence services of one of the belligerents – the Allied powers – were permitted not only to operate on Swiss territory without interference from Swiss counter-intelligence, but were also allowed to do so with the explicit approval of the Federal Council and with cooperation that was soon formally organised. Soon after the war began – at the latest following the defeat of France in June 1940 – no fewer than five such services were active: the British; the Polish, operating via émigré networks; the French, first from the still- unoccupied part of France and later underground; the Americans after their entry into the war, and, finally, the Soviet intelligence service, which maintained surprisingly effective contacts with concealed dissident circles in and around the German General Staff.
    All this occurred despite the considerable pressure exerted on neutral Switzerland by the Third Reich over this issue. German intelligence soon became aware that Switzerland was allowing Allied intelligence services to use its territory for their operations – unofficially and in strict secrecy – and that it was exchanging information with them on a regular and organised basis. From the German perspective, this constituted a flagrant violation of Switzerland’s proclaimed policy of integral neutrality. This was compounded by the fact that Switzerland prosecuted German agents before military courts, handed down sentences and, in some cases, even carried out executions. Although this aspect is not explicitly addressed in the exhibition, it is nevertheless present in many indirect ways.
    The material on display makes clear that, during the war years, Switzerland was indeed a strategically important hub for all the major Allied intelligence services. This, in turn, raises a question that has so far received little attention: To what extent did the presence of Allied intelligence services in neutral Switzerland constitute an additional determining factor in the country being spared an attack by the Wehrmacht, despite the persistently high level of military threat?

Into the world of shadows

The intellectual originator and practical designer of this remarkable exhibition is the former Swiss colonel, Jacques Baud. His name has appeared repeatedly in the public sphere in recent times, albeit often in an unjustifiably defamatory and disparaging context¹ (see box). Yet this exhibition in particular demonstrates how seriously and cautiously, and with what rigorous dedication to facts Jacques Baud approaches controversial subjects – an approach that likewise characterises his numerous books and his public interventions on contemporary conflicts.²
    Coinciding with the exhibition on Lake Geneva, which will remain open until the end of 2026, Jacques Baud has published a richly illustrated documentary work on the same theme, entitled “Guerre de l’ombre: La Suisse au cœur de la résistance en Europe, 1939–45” (War in the Shadows: Switzerland at the heart of the resistance in Europe, 1939–45). This meticulously produced volume is currently available only in French.³ The publication is jointly issued by the Canton of Vaud (Department of the Environment, Youth and Security / Division of Civil and Military Security) and the Château de Morges and its Museums (Director and Curator: Adélaïde Zeyer).
    In the extensive photographic section, arranged thematically and presenting most of the exhibits within their historical context, visitors encounter camouflaged radio and wireless sets, encryption machines, even silenced revolvers small enough to fit into a lady’s handbag, as well as protective suits of the period designed for parachute drops over enemy territory (male or female – foreign intelligence services had a striking number of women in their ranks). These items vividly illustrate the degree to which intelligence operatives were required to risk their lives just as much as officers and soldiers on the front lines. In the Second World War – more so even than in the First – victory or defeat depended not only on major battles, but also on modern communication technologies, which were developing at a rapid pace. Whoever gained access first to decisive information enjoyed a crucial military advantage.

Doing justice to history, including our own

In the introduction to the aforementioned documentary, Baud writes: “Since the end of the 1990s, our view of Switzerland’s stance during the threat posed by the Second World War has been influenced by an approach that neglects Switzerland’s military and geopolitical situation at the time, placing strong emphasis on economic and financial factors in particular. However, the reality at the time was much more complex.”⁴
    In this context, Baud specifically mentions the report by the Bergier Commission,⁵ which he believes does not give sufficient weight to the massive military threat Switzerland faced. The report downplays the importance of the Swiss Army’s defensive measures under General Henri Guisan, who lead Switzerland through the Second World War, in protecting Switzerland from the planned attacks. In contrast, as Baud points out, this “bible” of authors critical of Switzerland places great emphasis on what they call Switzerland’s conformist willingness to compromise with the Axis powers. In contrast to this one-sided view, Baud’s documentation, and the entire exhibition, insist on the military-strategic perspective, which some of the post-war generation of Swiss historians tend to underestimate.
    Baud emphasises that Switzerland – through its own intelligence service and its soon-to-be institutionalised cooperation with the Allied secret services – had detailed knowledge of several attack plans by Hitler’s Germany against Switzerland, each of which had been worked out in detail and modified in response to the changing military situation. The three plans were available to them in full on copies of the originals. They can be viewed in Morges. General Guisan’s defence concept, which underwent radical changes after the fall of France and focused on the national “Réduit’s” defence system, already took the first of these plans into account. According to German plans, the Blitzkrieg-style invasion of Switzerland was to have been carried out in late-summer 1940, shortly after Guisan’s Rütli Report, in which he demanded that his senior officers actively promote the will to defend among the troops under their command.
    Guisan told the senior officers gathered on the historical Rütli mountain meadow, known as “the cradle of Switzerland,” that he would not tolerate defeatism in their ranks and would “part ways” with any commanders who displayed such attitudes.⁶ He also took the opportunity to outline the strategic reorientation of the Swiss Army’s defence concept, which was already in place in the summer of 1940 and was swiftly implemented shortly after Guisan’s report. This involved the occupation of the so-called national redoubt, the concentration of the Swiss Army’s defensive forces in the mountains, making optimum use of the natural barrier provided by the Alps.
    This restructuring would have forced the highly mechanised Wehrmacht, in the event of an attack on Switzerland, to wage a protracted mountain war and thus miss its main objective, the fast north-south corridor through the Central Alps. Both the Gotthard line and the Simplon Tunnel would have been made impassable at the outbreak of hostilities by Switzerland itself through the detonation of prepared explosive charges.
    The course of the war confirmed Guisan’s strategy. The German attack on Switzerland, planned in detail several times, would not have been as quick to carry out as the mechanised wars of movement of the first year of the war, given the losses suffered by the Wehrmacht in the war against Great Britain (especially aircraft) and then against Russia. It would have taken too long for Germany and, moreover, would have required the deployment of massive infantry forces, which the German Wehrmacht no longer had at its disposal after the Russian counteroffensive.
    Guisan’s strategic and tactical preparations in connection with the Swiss military defence concept of the national Réduit were very effective thanks to his knowledge of the German attack plans. This was based on a well-functioning Swiss intelligence service, which Guisan had pushed for. The organisational charts of the Swiss intelligence service printed in the documentation show that mutual cooperation with the Allied intelligence services operating in Switzerland was part of everyday life. Switzerland thus had detailed, immediate knowledge of all movements on the European fronts. For Baud, an internationally experienced strategy expert, this circumstance represents the main reason Germany, although willing until the end to take the Alpine fortress of Switzerland, was never able to do so, precisely because of the ingenious counterstrategy developed by Guisan’s general staff.
    After Stalingrad, the 200,000 soldiers the German General Staff had calculated to be what would be required, were not enough to wage an airborne blitzkrieg against the resistance army entrenched in the Alps, with bridges and railway lines destroyed.
    In this context, political scientists and specialists in international intelligence still pose a key question for those who deny that Switzerland faced an existential threat at that time: Why, if not primarily to exploit the central Swiss Alpine passes, did Germany repeatedly want to attack Switzerland throughout the Second World War, using varying strategies? According to Baud, factual information to answer this question, which has so far been given insufficient attention in public debate, both in the media and by many modern historians, can be found in Baud’s aforementioned documentary, which is concise and plausible.
    The book and the exhibition give persuasive treatments of their subject, rather than assign blame and ridicule what they call the “Rütli spirit.”

Allied intelligence services on Swiss soil: A betrayal of neutrality?

Another question arises. Was tolerating the activities of Allied intelligence services and Switzerland’s intensive cooperation with them on Swiss territory a betrayal of neutrality? Or was this concession unavoidable to protect the population? The exhibition in Morges does not answer this question, but it does raise it in a lasting way by depicting the extensive and organised cooperation that took place.
    Perhaps there is only one thing wrong with this dichotomy: the either/or. Viewed soberly, Bern’s behaviour towards the activities of the Allied intelligence services on its territory can also be explained by the fact that it was apparently the price to pay for indispensable, rapid and accurate information of its own. Throughout the war, knowledge of the exact intentions of the long-powerful conqueror on our northern border and Fascist Italy as the Reich’s ally-in-arms was the main existential question for Switzerland at the time.
    This belongs once again in the notebooks of those who portray General Guisan as someone whose Réduit concept would have left the entire Swiss Plateau at the mercy of the motorised German attack columns, which is factually incorrect. German documents and the Réduit concept show that the Blitzkrieg – as calculated in “Tannenbaum,” the first German attack plan, and its two successors – would certainly not have progressed as quickly as it did towards Paris or at the beginning of the Russian campaign, given the many geographical obstacles, self-destroyed bridges and railway lines, and the blocking of the Gotthard and Simplon tunnels.
    However, what was decisive for Guisan and the majority of the Federal Council in this extreme and prolonged situation was not only the strategy, but also the spirit of resistance that was supported by the vast majority of the Swiss population at the time. Together, the strategy and its spirit were at least strong enough that the Wehrmacht had to postpone its goal until it was too late.
    Where are the sensible defence strategies and the will to resist the arrogance of power among our “elites” today?  •

¹Current Concerns has described and condemned Baud’s scandalous treatment by the EU in several articles. See “Open Letter to Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis” and “The EU in the Abyss of Lawlessness,” both in Current Concerns No. 27, 30 December 2025. See also “No democracy can survive without freedom and open exchange of opinions,” “Freedom of expression and its enemies,” both in Current Concerns No. 1, 13 January 2026, and “Enough is enough! Thus far and no further!” In: Current Concerns No. 2, 27 January 2026.

²Putin: Game Master? (ISBN 978-2315010417) and Operation Al-Aqsa Flood: The Defeat of the Vanquisher, (ISBN 978-2315019861). Max Milo publishing house

³ Baud, Jacques. Guerre de l’ombre. La Suisse au cœur de la résistance en Europe, 39–45. ISBN 978 2-88985-028-0. Cabédita, CH-1145 Bière/F-01220 Divonne-les-Bains.

⁴ Baud, Jacques. ibid., Preface, p. 8.

⁵ The Bergier Commission in Bern was formed by the Swiss government on 12 December 1996 in the wake of the then-ongoing World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks accused of withholding valuables belonging to Holocaust victims.

⁶ General Guisan gave his half-hour speech, “From soldier to soldier,” to the senior commanders of the Swiss Army without notes, relying on keywords. These keywords have not been preserved. There are later public testimonies from officers who were present, which are very similar in wording (cf. Streit, Pierre, and Sandoz. Rütli: Une voix pour l’avenir, 1940–2015. Cabédita, 2015. The wording quoted here can be found in Benjamin Vallotton. Cœur à Cœur. Le Peuple suisse et son Général. Ed. de l’Eglise nationale vaudoise, Lausanne, 1950. Quoted from Streit, 2015.