Swiss made makes world history
by Dr Regula Stämpfli — Swiss stories write world history: the classic world of banks and associations is almost unthinkable without a Swiss Confederation. Selling human flesh obtained from mercenaries was a respectable business. The Swiss authorities, some of which had names similar to those of today, sold their subjects to the great European powers for profit. It could be the same with finance today, because money has always been counter-guaranteed with the disposal of space, people, animals, goods and other realities.
Even after Marignano in 1515, according to the medieval historian Valentin Groebner, with the mercenary alliance of 1521 “the Confederation” became “a kind of satellite state” of France. That’s why people in Switzerland only spoke French in the upper floors and splurged at the expense of foreign nationals’ pay. Unfortunately, no postcolonial historian of privilege recounts the extreme poverty of most people in Switzerland until well into the 20th century – a major omission.
Without Swiss war material, mercenaries or weapons, world history would have been different. Little Switzerland conducts world politics mostly in the shadow of good offices. For example, what is probably the most controversial football World Cup of 2022 is directly related to Switzerland: global billionaire companies like FIFA, UEFA, IOC and others are conceived as clubs in Switzerland and are therefore very harmless. In their effect of exporting global sport to dictatorships and autocracies thanks to more favorable trading conditions, these clubs are global and sometimes very undemocratic. If we tell our granddaughters 50 years from now that we have allowed our politicians to violate every democratic gain with trade, they will be horrified at the sight of such rampant nihilism combined with monetary cynicism. I don’t even want to talk about public broadcasters, which also use our taxpayers’ money to promote such events. The sporting logic of identities, biology, ratings, growth mania, trade for the purpose of “bread and games” has occupied all democracies for decades, including gender apartheid, without any real criticism; And who is always on the front line? Swiss. Swiss history has had global political dimensions for centuries and it remains a mystery why, of all historical subjects, Swiss history was abolished by the postcolonial genre historians of the University of Zurich. Except – again, the cynical answer: maybe it’s really about throwing sand in our eyes. The narrative of Swiss history is an ingenious global showcase of how international military, strategic, economic and financial goals can be linked to model fairy tales of “direct democracy”.
Well this is now being cleaned up for post war by a freelance historian. Regula Bochsler wrote the best economic and war thriller of the time. “Nylon and Napalm” tells the international, military-strategic, technical, economic and political story using the example of an industrial plant, namely the Ems-Chemie. The search for her points far into the 21st century, the common thread should only be picked up by young female historians.
In 1936, Holzverzuckerungs-AG, Hovag for short, was founded in Domat/Ems in the canton of Grisons. On the way to saccharification of wood, ethanol and methyl alcohol are produced as a mixture that can stretch commercial fuel. The company of Werner and Rudolf Oswald got off to a rather rocky start and, to stick with wooden metaphors, faltered considerably. This changed dramatically after the outbreak of World War II when fuel became scarce. Under a regime of full powers, the Federal Council allocated millions in the construction of the factory and secured the purchase of more than 98,200 tons of fuel up to 1955. The Swiss government offered the company fabulous conditions: reimbursement of production costs including interest, research costs for conversion to more profitable products and depreciation. This is what many female-led startups would like for 2023, but: “Dream on.” Switzerland would sooner become a full member of the EU than women REALLY get decisive positions of power in this patriarchal clan. This is also the awareness of Regula Bochsler, who worked as a feminist historian until this book, completely fascinated by the perfect functioning of Switzerland’s male and military state, structurally undisturbed – women’s suffrage changed only little – until the fall too of the wall in 1989 acted as such. Just a little advice for the younger generation: until the 1989 parliamentary commission of inquiry, set up by the first federal councilor, among other things, state agents could snoop and hunt down “subversives” who, as then in the GDR, paved the way for the victims to a decent career without the victims knowing why their applications were always fruitless. In 1990, the great writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt gave the brilliant speech: “Switzerland – a prison”, whereupon the Federal Councilors present refused to shake Dürrenmatt’s hand.
But let’s continue with Hovag and its founders Werner and Rudolf Oswald. Waste wood and sawdust are now being shipped to the Hovag thanks to federal subsidies; the canton of Graubünden gets almost 1000 new jobs in industry and scarce fuel can be stretched. “Emser Wasser” is the name of the additive, which is no longer needed after the war due to falling fuel prices. In the years to come, the Federal Council will sit on a deal that will cost taxpayers millions. That’s why it ended in 1956 and Hovag is desperate for new branches of the industry, including financing. Dr Johann Giesen is the perfect man for this: Giesen is a former head of IG Farben and in this capacity is responsible for the construction of the large chemical plant in Auschwitz. You read that right: Auschwitz. 30,000 people die on the IG Farben construction site. Johann Giesen is interrogated in the Nuremberg trials, he claims, like millions with him, of course that he knows nothing about the extermination camps or even about forced labor. Surprising, because the murderous commander of Auschwitz was visiting Johann Giesen in 1943. Like many others, Giesen then found a new job in Switzerland. In 1952 Giesen was on the board of directors of Hovag, from 1960 on the board of directors of Emser Werke, later Ems-Chemie-Holding. Giesen inspired Hovag to produce the synthetic fiber Perlon, the competing product of Nylon – marketed in Swiss under the name of Grilon. The Emser factory was acquired in 1983 by Werner Oswald’s adopted son Christoph Blocher, whose daughter now runs Ems-Chemie-Holding. To date, the two main shareholders are Rahel Blocher and Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, who hold a good 60 percent of the shares.
So far the well-known story, which is still missing in the history of the Ems-Chemie company and which the Blochers innocently believe was all before their time, which of course they would have known nothing about. The forgetting continues into the 1960s and 1970s, and here it gets so complicated that even author Regula Bochsler has a lawyer by her side whenever it comes to the stories of the wartime export of opalm, this Swiss variant of napalm. Opalm has proven to be used in many countries.
Regula Bochsler has meticulously, wittily, brilliantly and excitingly packaged the explosive substance of this post-war Swiss story into a grandiose historical work. You tell not only about Johann Giesen, but also about many former Nazis. The other hugely entertaining and scary Swiss labor personnel also include colonels, overworked politicians and other lackeys, dictators, civil war agitators, spies and evil opportunists who still have a say in the Swiss elite today, if only through legacy of the worth billions.
Bochsler’s book is also a portrait of the mores of a male military society, in which the left also likes to take part. Robert Grimm, a hero of the Swiss labor movement, who prefers to honor him instead of Margarethe Faas-Hardegger, sat on Hovag’s supervisory board, but did not deal with Nazi personnel or budgets.
Regula Bochsler shows what journalists can achieve if they do research and don’t constantly comment on each other. It tells of Emser Chemie as a weapons company, including napalm bombs in postwar areas affected by the Civil War; reports on Switzerland as a Nazi hub with good business contacts to Fascho-Franco and the communist GDR, shows how the motto of the Ems is actually a Swiss motto: “Success as a mission” – which of course means money, not democracy.
Read the whole “Nylon und Napalm” and if you want to study history, do it with Swiss examples, because world politics is still done today in this country.
Bochsler rule: nylon and napalm. The business of Emser Werke and its founder Werner Oswald. Here and Now, Zurich 2022, 592 pages. There is a very interesting “Rundschau” article in the book of October 19, 2022.
Article published online: December 25, 2022
