ABSTRACT
When the question is raised about the financial relations maintained by Switzerland's banking community and financial market with the Axis powers, the Allies and the neutral countries during the Second World War used a concept that became established as a subject for Swiss historical research only in the mid-1980s. Earlier surveys and studies tended to speak of capital exports, export financing, lending operations, capital flight and capital protection, 'hot money', capital imports, trade in bank notes, clearing and financial agreements and so on. These terms designate different but interdependent phenomena, which were nevertheless rarely analysed in toto. The studies that appeared in the wake of the Bonjour report were the first to attempt a coherent interpretation of Switzerland's financial sector, with its strong dependence on foreign economies. Particular attention was paid to economic cooperation between the Swiss banking system and the Nazi regime. The examination of the close-knit relationships involving manufacturing, trade and finance indicated that these business activities created potential complications with regard to neutrality law, and had securitypolicy ramifications as well. A dilemma, if not a chasm, was identified between reasons of state and state morality. With all their differences in approach and emphasis, the publications by Daniel Bourgeois (1974), Werner Rings (1985), Jakob Tanner (1986) and, in a summing-up, Markus Heiniger (1989) can be placed in this category.! More recent studies by journalists also point in the same direction.2 Because these studies clash with the myth of the reduit (Alpine fortress) and with memories of staunch resistance harboured by the'active service generation' (the mobilisation generation), they were perceived as a critical revision of the established Swiss view of history and were officially received with much reserve in many instances.
