Talk:History of Switzerland

Direct Democracy
Hi, I am new to Wikipedia and would like to make my first contribution. I have the following I would like to add to the Switzerland direct democracy. After reading some more here, I wonder though if this is a bit too much of an opinion. I just thought it might provide some food for thought. Let me know what you think and, of course, feel free to edit it.

Here is my text:

Whereas most modern democracies are increasingly plagued by a disgruntled and cynical citizenry, it strikes the astute foreigner in Switzerland with what committed seriousness, respect and sense of duty the Swiss partake in their own governance. Switzerland was considerably inspired by the American political system based on checks and balances, a strict separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, a strong independent central bank directing monetary policy as well as a liberal Constitution guaranteeing broad rights to all people. Its exceptional openness to popular plebiscite, mixed with strong federalism, as described above, managed to, however, (so-far!) maintain a strong sense of faith among the people in the functioning and legitimacy of their governmental institutions. That the country has not slipped into the worst of populism which such an accessible legislative system, (despite some disturbing recent examples to the contrary originating from the extreme right and left of the political spectrum), can be best explained by history and culture.

The Swiss never had royalty and shrugged off their aristocratic heritage well before their European neighbors did. Much as Americans in the United States, they remained highly suspicious of any claim of hereditary lineage and privilege. This, in conjunction with the highly federalized system of governance where not just every Canton but every single County was responsible for its own budgets and expenses such as schools and social welfare, produced early on an environment highly conducive to the emancipation of the common folk and ingrained a concomitant sense of civic responsibility. The broad general admiration and respect that its increasingly successful mercantile classes commanded, combined with an almost instinctive mistrust that the Swiss (and this includes the otherwise more temperamental Latin French and Italian speaking inhabitants) have of emotional excesses, especially with respect to all matters economic and political, served until now to curtail any excessive “irrational exuberances” or “tyrannies of the majorities”. Whereas surrounding continental Europe transitioned from paternalistic monarchies to experimentations with fascist dictatorships or later various degrees of centralized socialism, Switzerland managed to, by and large, stay true to its tradition of liberalism.

This culture of civic responsibility combined with the century old experience of internal negotiation between the various religious and linguistic groups to create a culture based on consensus building. This is epitomized by the federal executive body comprising of 7 ministers who deliberate behind closed doors but present their decision to the country as a single body. Switzerland is deemed a “Willensnation”, German for a nation by the grace of the will of the people, as opposed to royal fiat, language, conquest or even a single culture. In order for such a nation-state to survive, continuous deliberation must be engaged in. This produced an unusual penchant for stability, the long-term and pragmatic, as opposed to the emotional, decision making process and with time created a polity that expects debate on virtually all matters. An exceptionally diverse and sophisticated media serves as the backbone of this system. Indeed, it can be argued that a direct democracy can only function well if its electorate invests considerable time and financial resources to remain well informed.

The creation of this system took centuries and is the consequence of the country’s unique history and the result of some past exceptional leadership such as those of Paul Usteri and Alfred Escher. Due to its inherent vulnerability, however, it may be readily disassembled. Indeed, it is questionable if the long-winded and time intensive political process can survive in our ever faster paced and complex world. Moreover, it is also questionable if the old federalist structure of the country continues to serve it well today. For example, the sparsely populated farming cantons wield inordinate political, and thus financial, clout on the federal level via the National Assembly. This results in often questionable infrastructure investments in rural areas and has created the world’s most subsidized and protected agricultural sector as based on percentage per GNP spent. Moreover, the ephemeral anxieties of citizens are increasingly exploited and mobilized by special interest groups via initiatives and referendums so as to often derail carefully crafted governmental legislation. It will be interesting to see whether the unique brand of democracy in Switzerland will be able to adapt to the challenges of the future. In the meantime, it is a worthy model to study for anyone interested in an exceptionally well-functioning direct democracy.

article structure
Can anyone write a non-linear history of Switzerland (maybe to complement)? If we refer to the Swiss say in 1315 (Morgarten), who were they, who were the others? Oh, and the Habsburgs, weren't they Swiss, too? What I mean is that for a long time 'Switzerland' wasn't as big as it is today and many battles were fought between what is Switzerland and oh, what is Switzerland now.... Kokiri


 * Geschichte_der_Schweiz is much better structured, and much more detailed. I will start to remodel this article after it. The problem is that in prehistoric to early medieval times, "History of Switzerland" amounts to the History of the territory of modern Switzerland. After 1291, the focus is contracted to the founding cantons (since the other territories belong to France and the Holy Roman Empire, and should be included in the histories of these), and slowly expanding again, until in 1815, the modern territory is again reached. This is not really a problem, but it has to be made clear from the article text. It's silly to start with 1291, though. Much can be said about Archaeology, the Helvetians vs. Caesar, the frankian cities in the early middle ages, etc. dab 08:51, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I've tried to jump-start this process by supplying a Template:History of Switzerland and also writing the first article of that proposed series. The template is a bit preliminary, though. See Template talk:History of Switzerland. Lupo 13:42, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * very good. We could reduce this article to essentially a long chronological bullet list, maybe with a summarizing paragraph for each section, and export the present text, as far as it is worth keeping, to the sub-articles. Concerning the article titles:
 * "Napoleonic era" is mostly about post-napoleonic times. Can't think of a better title at the moment, though.
 * "Democracy" is slightly misleading, since forms of democracy have been present for much longer. We should say "Constitution" or "Federal State".
 * I suggest we lump 1914-1938 with WWII.
 * "Modern history" is misleading. So is "postwar" (because there was no war, in Switzerland). Simple "After 1945" is probably better.
 * dab 15:04, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't turn the article into a pure chronological list. I like short summary paragraphs better. If you come up with a better term for what I've called tentatively the "Napoleonic era", go ahead and change it. I am quite aware that it would cover many events after Napoleon I was sent to exile. "Federal State" as a shortcut for Switzerland as a liberal democracy sounds good. Lupo 15:33, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * "Napoleonic era" is fine. Federal State is preferable in my view, because of the widely differing uses of liberal. Maybe the subsections in "before 1291" maybe too much for this summary; since there's a main article, we can get away with being very brief. dab 15:37, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've changed the template accordingly. Lupo 07:45, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

World war description
I have removed the following from the Switzerland article:


 * --Spain and Sweden also sold munitions and other industrial products to Nazi Germany during the war, and Venezuela sold the Nazis oil during the war)

IMHO, this is too much for the general article, but it could be included here, in the more extended article on the Swiss history. Kokiri 09:18, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Great. Someone's added some more details about the world wars. Originally we just had the rather curt sentence "Switzerland was not involved militarily in either world war". I corrected this with the Operation Tannenbaum reference, but steered clear of the contentious nazi gold issue. All interesting stuff though. The phrase "not involved militarily" has crept back in though. I'm not sure it is correct. Depends on your interpretation of the phrase I suppose, but it seems missleading. It was a stance of armed neutrality. The Swiss did mobilize a big army to defend themselves. It just never engaged the enemy in the end.

Quote from this article (which is bit biased)

"Threatened with attack from German and Italian forces from all sides, General Guisan devised the strategy of a delaying stand at the border, and a concentration of Swiss forces in the rugged and impassable Alps.... A fifth of the Swiss people, 850,000 out of the 4.2 million population, was under arms and mobilized... ". 

Nojer2 20:44, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * yeah, the article is very unfinished. I researched a little bit about the nazi gold, yesterday, but I didn't have enuogh time. It's certainly important that the issue is addressed in this section, but the first reparations of 1952 should be explained in greater detail, and it should also be noted that the Bergier results showed that there was certainly econoic involvement, but rather less than Switzerland had sometimes been accused of.
 * the "militarily" part: Switzerland was armed, but not *involved*. To be involved in a war, you actually have to participate in combat. We can take the number (850.000) of Swiss forces from your link, (but, please, not the adjcetives). dab 08:14, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Within Switzerland at the time of the conflict there was moderate polarization. Some were pacifists. Some took sides according to international capitalism or international communism. Others leaned more towards their language group, with some in French-speaking areas more pro-Allied, and some in Swiss-German areas more pro-Axis. The government attempted to thwart the activities of any individual, party, or faction in Switzerland that acted with extremism or attempted to break the unity of the nation. The Swiss-German speaking areas moved linguistically further away from the standard (high) German spoken in Germany, with more emphasis on local Swiss dialects."

This section makes no sense to me and if I had to guess I would assume that it originally described the situation during the 1st world war. Then there was a certain tendency of the German (well actually Swiss German) speaking part of Switzerland to be more in favour of Germany and of the French speaking part of Switzerland to be more in favour of France, but during the 2nd world war such a thing did simply not happen! To allude that the general "Swiss German" public was Nazi friendly is just simply nonsense! The last (and correct) sentence of the section actually reveals this discrepancy. The rest of the section is also quite awkwardly written; what exactly was the side of "international capitalism"? This needs to be rewritten. [anonymous 21:01, 12 Aug 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, what is this about moving linguistically away from high german? That implies people actually spoke to each other in high german before the war, and that the war caused them to use dialect more often. This sounds implausible. I think that sentence should be cited or simply removed.

CH Where does it stand for?
Can some one please add where CH stands for... I know it has to do with the cantons and there federation, yet I can't find any good explenation..
 * 'Confoederatio Helvetica'. Being rather a result than an event of history, this is already covered on the more general Switzerland page.

Valtellina
I googled a date of 1623 for the loss of the Valtellina. Why does it appear again 1798? (I'm not saying that must be wrong. The happenings in Grisons were quite complicated, and I don't have any detailed knowledge of the period) dab 11:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * The Grisons (or more precisely, the Drei Bünde) lost control over the Veltlin in the events of the Thirty Years War in the area from 1620 - 1639, when it was occupied by Spanish troops. They even lost the north-eastern parts of their territory to Austria for some time, and regained it only at the end of the war. looks pretty comprehensive and accurate, as far as I can tell. Lupo 12:09, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Another good source is . Lupo 12:14, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * that's what I had gathered. But why do we say "It lost the territory of Valtellina." under "Napoleonic era" for 1798, then? dab 12:35, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Because the Veltlin became part (or a dependency) of the Drei Bünde again after the Treaty of Westphalia and remaind so until the founding of the Cisalpine Republic by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797? It should be 1797, and the whole thing is a bit questionable anyway, the Grisons becoming part of Switzerland only in 1803! Before that, the Drei Bünde were a close associate of the Eidgenossenschaft, but not a member. (And similarly for the Valais, by the way. Geneva, too.)Lupo 12:52, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * ok, but unless we make a History of the Grisons article, this is the place to discuss these things. I try to make it all more clear. (also, the part of the intro "foussing on the fates of the Confederacy" may have to be expanded to explicitly allow accounts of post-1291, non-confederacy events on modern swiss territory) dab 13:25, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Swiss territorial increase claim is wrong
I don't agree with the statement made in the endof the Napoleonic years section that states that at that time "Swiss territory increased for the last time". I don't have historical sources to cite, but being from Switzerland I know that Jura became a formal Swiss Canton only in 1974 or so and thus the territory changed. Unless of course Jura was fully part of Berne before and thus geographically there was not increase in territory. In any case I think it should be made clearer.
 * the latter is the case. Jura was split off of Berne, and the Swiss territory remained unchanged. Also, it was in 1979 (as is stated quite unambiguously right here, in the "After 1945" section). dab (T) 13:11, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is actually still wrong as it increased in October 4, 1967 when Verenahof became part of Switzerland. I am deleting it as it is wrong. 137.195.250.2 (talk) 00:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Independence
Switzerland and History of Switzerland seem to have a number of inconsistencies. According to these articles, Switzerland won de facto independence from the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire in 1315, 1385, and 1499, with no mention of becoming dependent between these dates. In addition, the article on Habsburg indicates that the Habsburgs weren't in control of the Holy Roman Empire on the first two of these three years (during which the House of Luxembourg had control of the empire, such as it was). Even if these seeming contradictions are somehow technically true, they should be clarified so as not to confuse readers. Calbaer 19:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Right. Talking of independency in 1315 (Battle of Morgarten) is utter nonsense. All the Swiss achieved in this battle was preventing being squashed by the Habsburgs right away. It's also nonsense for 1385 (should be 1386, Battle of Sempach). Again, this did not give them independence in any formal way, but it (and the following victories at Näfels etc.) firmly established the Swiss control over formerly Habsburg territories. One could perhaps say that in these battles at the end of the 14th century, the Swiss gained the indepency from the Habsburg dukes. They were, however, still a part of the Holy Roman Empire. 1499 (Swabian War) can indeed be seen as resulting in a de facto independence from the HRE, although that's simplifying a bit. The Old Swiss Confederacy still remained part of the HRE, but was exempt from the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber Court and did not have to pay imperial taxes. However, the Confederacy was perceived by other European rulers as a separate entity. Finally, in 1648 (Treaty of Westphalia), the Confederacy as a whole was granted formal exemption from the HRE and acknowledged internationally as a separate state. I don't have the time to fix all this now. Lupo 07:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * well yes, 1315 just established them as troublemakers to be reckoned with. But I think the point is that the OSC expanded over the 15th century, with some parts having more "de facto independence" than others. After 1386, the Urkantone may have been de facto independent, while the cities were still happy to entertain the emperor from time to time and saw no reason to aggressively detach themselves from the HRE. 1499 marks when the full OSC (approx. today's Alemannic Switzerland, minus the Grisons) cut the remaining bonds with the HRE for good. 16th century Switzerland cannot in any way be considered part of the HRE, and the Westphalia treaty was just a belated recognition of the status quo. dab (&#5839;) 08:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Uhm... I don't agree with "1499 marks when the full OSC ... cut the remaining bonds with the HRE for good. 16th century Switzerland cannot in any way be considered part of the HRE, and the Westphalia treaty was just a belated recognition of the status quo." That's the simplified schoolbook view. Modern historians disagree. While it is true that other rulers in Europe considered the OSC a separate entity (and often also viewed the OSC as a more homogeneous entity than it really was), the OSC was by no means independent yet, and the Swiss people did still consider themselves subjects (although distant ones, and reichsfrei) of the emperors. Even after 1499, Schaffhausen, Basel, and also the associated city of St. Gallen still had to respond to the Imperial Chamber Court because the emperor did not consider them included in the Peace of Basel as they joined the confederacy only later. (Which, BTW, was a major motivation for Wettstein's lobbying for formal exemption in 1648. This was initially his own initiative!) Look at crests in Switzerland from the 16th century, e.g. Image:COA Lenzburg.jpg (1596) or also Image:Schweizer Chronik Etterlin.jpg (1507): the imperial insignia were still used, and, as can be seen at Lenzburg, normally topped the Swiss' own insignia. See e.g. Jorio, M.: 1648: Die Schweiz und Europa: Aussenpolitik zur Zeit des Westfälischen Friedens, Chronos Verlag, Zürich 1999; ISBN 3905313146. Lupo 09:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * you are, as almost always, completely right :) 'all bonds' and 'full OSC' was exaggerated, and I suppose especially the more urban and upper-class strata cultivated "imperial nostalgia" for a long time after 1499. dab (&#5839;) 09:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

reporting vandalism
insertion of "i love katie" into link --Carolinacosmina 17:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The bomb
Quote (this article as of 4 Feb 2010): ''After the war, Swiss authorities considered the construction of a Swiss nuclear bomb. Leading nuclear physicists at the Federal Institute of Technology such as Paul Scherrer made this a realistic possibility, and in 1958 the population clearly voted in favour of the bomb. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was seen as a valid alternative, however, and the bomb was never built.'' - This is complete nonsense. First of all, there was no popular vote on the subject (there were two popular initiatives in the 60s, both aimed for a halt of the programme or at least a moratorium; both were rejected). There was a statement of the federal council in favor of the programme (published on 11 July 1958), nothing more. Beyond that, the consent is today that there was nothing like a realistic possibility for the project to succeed, quite the opposite was the case - the project grew to be the Swiss military's worst embarrassment of all times and led to the resignation of a federal councillor. Before that happened, the project had already proven to be practically impossible to finish: extensive surveys didn't show any useful resources in Switzerland, so the army acquired the material needed illegally; the first two reactors were failures and proved useless, and the third reactor had to be abandoned. Planes meant to carry the Swiss bomb were to be built (or at least assembled) in Switzerland, but sheer incapability of the strategists involved rendered this enterprise a financial crash. When the national council in 1964 was asked for additional credit to finance the Mirage project, they said no - which led to the creation of a legendary investigation commission, a report and, after that, to the government giving half of the general staff the sack and the defense minister stepping down. Who wrote that entry? We need a new one. Meapappia (talk) 15:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge articles
It seems that there are three articles with overlapping information:

1. History of Switzerland

2. Modern history of Switzerland

3. Switzerland during the World Wars

I think these should be combined -- or if that is too long for one article, at least edit them so they do not overlap. --Semitemos (talk) 01:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Certainly not. History of Switzerland should a summary-style overview article covering the whole history. Each of its sections should link to one of the "main articles" from the series. Switzerland during the World Wars (1914 - 1945) and Modern history of Switzerland (1945 - present) should be two articles of that series detailing specific periods in more detail. If there's a lot of overlap between these two, it should be decided where the info should go, and in the other article, again only a summary (with a pointer to the main article) should be left. Lupo 16:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of CH and Nidwalden Protestant?
CH means Helvetica Confederation (placing swapped in Latin, thus CH) also, in the Reformation section, it mentions that Nidwalden was one of the cantons that remained Catholic, however, it is of my knowledge that Obwalden was the one remaining Catholic while Nidwalden turned Protestant no? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.198.91.95 (talk) 04:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No. Nidwalden remained Catholic (see "Nidwalden", section 3.4, "Kirche, Kultur und Bildung"). "CH" stands for "Confoederatio Helvetica", in use since 1848. That really could be mentioned somewhere. Lupo 08:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

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