When the Swiss are worried, you really need to watch it.
No lesser financial news giant than Forbes reports (via Thomson Financial News) that former Credit Suisse CEO Oswald Gruebel (a likelier name for the antagonist in a spy novel with a plotline involving stolen gold you have probably never encountered) quipped “We’ve narrowly escaped a system collapse. This has never happened before.” One is tempted immediately to think of World War II, the Great Depression, the Cuban Missile crisis, but this ignores the “system collapsiness” of these events from the Swiss View. To the Swiss these are but small tremors. Trifles.
So the next time someone tells you the sub-prime mess is overblown, or that Bear Stearns should have been allowed to fail, just point them to Oswald Gruebel, and remind them that the primary Swiss concern with World War II was that it increased shipping costs.
International Financial System Was Close To The Brink [Forbes]
— Advertisement —
Comments (112)
Leave a comment
You can log in with your account or comment as a guest below.
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
Talk about system collapses! Look at the Wall Street Journal. I opened my home delivery issue this morning and there’s another fucking political discussion on the front fucking page!
It’s sad to see the WSJ become a dittohead in its old age.
“…the primary Swiss concern with World War II was that it increased shipping costs.”
Ok, THAT was good. Nice work, EP.
Wow………home delivery……..wow….I’m speechless……
Excellent from start to finish. Keep ‘em short and sweet EP. You’re more effective when you hit singles and doubles rather than swing for the fences.
Great stuff. Perfect morning length. The clause in parentheses in the 1st paragraph could be shorter, but keep at it.
didn’t the Swiss have to mobilize like 50% of the adult male population to guard their borders again Germany (before capitulating and offering uninspected swiss transit to nazi railcars in exchange for nominal independence) ?
he looks nothing like Hans Gruber.
DB should try offering home delivery. Like delivering BL to my apartment tomorrow morning.
Pulitzer Prize material:
“So the next time someone tells you the sub-prime mess is overblown, or that Bear Stearns should have been allowed to fail, just point them to Oswald Gruebel, and remind them that the primary Swiss concern with World War II was that it increased shipping costs.”
I think whatever was in your coffee EP really helped the poetic value.
“To the Swiss these are but small tremors. Trifles.” Reminds me of the Merovingian in the Matrix – it is nothing, a trifle.
-dantheman
Being assigned to a trading desk in Switzerland is awful. The rich guys import all their 20 year old American sweeties to work as personal assistants and you’re stuck in time zone hell between Asian and American markets. Awful.
“didn’t the Swiss have to mobilize like 50% of the adult male population to guard their borders again Germany (before capitulating and offering uninspected swiss transit to nazi railcars in exchange for nominal independence) ?”
Foolish non-Swiss person. Adult males are by definition “mobilized” when they reach the age of majority.
The result of a large belligerent on the other side of the Alps who relied for their military power mostly on quick thrusts with armor entirely unsuited for traversing mined, pre-targeted mountain passes, was a vague and distant sense of amusement- not much else.
“To the Swiss these are but small tremors. Trifles.” Reminds me of the Merovingian in the Matrix – it is nothing, a trifle.”
I was thinking of O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.
I have a special tool for Lawrence.
Gay Guy from Delaware
“I have a special tool for Lawrence.”
So did the Governor of Deraa.
I think I have a crush on EP now. Girls who know their WWII history are hawt.
ep I take exception to your calling me “Foolish” if you are going to be factually inaccurate about it.
For the record, in 1939 the vaunted Swiss army rounded up over 400,000 swissmen and stationed them right on the border. Of course, a small division of motorized Wermacht could have still taken most of the country, or at least its population centers.
The point remains however that a 38 year old man sitting in his cabin drinking chocolate is not considered mobilized.
@9:59 she is obviously a dilettante but still pretty good for a woman
Courtesy of 9:31 I’ve got this image of Alan Rickman shouting “Orrinz!” across the empty desert.
Anyone that has had the good fortune to visit Swissie knows that CH is one of the most highly fortified nations on earth. Compulsory military service until 55, hidden gun emplacements on highway passes, hidden runways etc etc
There is a good reason that all the rogues deal with Swissie, they know they will always be there.
ep – I believe most research indicates that Lawrence made up the part about the Governor. While a great writer,soldier and adventurer, he was one whacky dude who embellished much of the seven pillars.
@novice those were both great movies.
Shoot the glass!
@ 9:59 – agreed
Careful, EP. Give us too much focused, accurate information and we will be able to triangulate certain aspects of your true identity, like your place of birth and nationality.
We Germans may be unsubtle and obvious, but we are not stupid.
Cordially,
E.J.E. Rommel
@8:51
Election news is news, and the prospective candidates views on taxes/economy/businesses make them relavent to readers of the Wall Street Journal.
@ 10:22, which is why A-section is such a quick skim, er, read I meant…
“The point remains however that a 38 year old man sitting in his cabin drinking chocolate is not considered mobilized.”
I think you need to spend more time on the rifle range with the Swiss, or in the library. It’s worth mentioning that when German soldiers with MP-40s took over the American Embassy in France it was a Swiss diplomat who expelled them, single handedly, with his Swiss Army Knife.
The non-Swiss definition of “mobilization” bears precisely no resemblance to the actions of the Swiss military starting in 1939 after the invasion of Poland. When it is said that the Swiss were fully mobilized “in days” after the decision to act in 1939, this should be plain.
Also, this contention that the Swiss intended to conduct a fortified border defense against the Germans is at wild variance with the facts.
In fact, the country was positioned for an extensive and prolonged resistance based from the “Réduit national,” rather than a head-to-head struggle. “400,000 swissmen” were never “stationed right on the border,” much less pulled from the country in two days in order to do so. This is easy to intuit if you remember that army and militia never much exceeded 430,000 in these times. Eventually you could count 850,000- but only later, and then only because ever member of the citizenry was ordered to resist “to the last cartridge” the invaders and also told that any order to surrender would be enemy propaganda. I wouldn’t trade places with the Generalfeldmarschall responsible for the pacification of Switzerland for all the gold in Zurich.
Even so, Operation Tannenbaum was almost certainly impossible once Barbarosa was undertaken, the manpower simply did not exist and even the later (and wildly optimistic) 1944 SS plan for invasion predicted 800,000 – 1.2 million casualties.
Instead of reading Wikipedia on these issues, try Guisan’s biography- and be careful who you accuse of factual inaccuracies. You might just challenge someone who wrote their thesis on the issue without knowing it.
“involving stolen gold you have probably never encountered.” Perhaps you should have worked with that sentence a bit more? I, among many, have never encountered stolen gold.
“ep – I believe most research indicates that Lawrence made up the part about the Governor. While a great writer,soldier and adventurer, he was one whacky dude who embellished much of the seven pillars.”
I was talking about O’Toole- not Lawrence literally. The real Lawrence probably exaggerated the story to inflame popular opinion against certain Arab radicals (who he alleged betrayed him in the incident) and then ripped the operative pages out of his diary.
@10:33 Its been reported that the whole point of the makeover is to make the paper more breezy. Digistible for the multitasking, ADD-addled Ipod generation. Good luck with that. Don’t count myself among them, but I confess that the articles were getting a bit windy.
Peter O’Toole……now that was a name!
The Swiss are nothing if frugal. It is a Calvinist principle that there is an entrance fee to heaven to keep the riff-raff out.
-40 (C or F, your choice), keeps the riff raff out of North Dakota.
I heart ep now and forever after that verbal beatdown she just handed out…
Seems like an odd thesis for someone who majored in hopelessly obscure foreign poets.
It also seems odd to me that despite the 1939 border mobilization, and the timing of Henri Guissan’s development of the reduit concept in 1940, you are claiming that soldiers were already deployed for this effect? Unlikely at best, but I acknowledge the possibility of a coincidence.
If you were not so hot under the collar at even the notion of being challenged factually, you would note I never contended the Swiss intended a fortified border defense with their woefully under-equipped “soldiers,” only that they were stationed there, and all your discussion following from this straw man is unnecessary. In fact some sort of delaying force would be necessary anyway, a service for which the grenzbrigade was conceived. If I am recalling correctly the plan was always to retreat to the hills and blow up bridges and tunnels on the way to the (not very deep) rear. The Swiss army -if you can call it that – was not even strong enough to man its whole line, and had to request the aid of the French to fill some gaps in the event of an actual German invasion.
The Swiss & French – now theres a might military combo!
Here we go. Even as of June 1940, most forces stationed at the norther borders.
http://www.schweiz1940.ch/limmat40-en/index.htm
Following fall of France, Swiss forces finally collapse to the interior
http://www.schweiz1940.ch/limmat40-en/index.htm
Please feel free to dispute these sources if you wish, it is the best I can provide you anonymously and over the internet. Either way, I think this should be at a minimum enough to show the mountain gnomes clearly had more concerns than the cost of shipping at this particular moment in history.
This was fun, I hadn’t looked at this stuff in years.
oh perfect … here is the 1939 mobilization. here we are still looking at basically an omnidirectional border disposition of fighting forces.
http://www.schweiz1940.ch/limmat40-en/index.htm
woops sorry. sept 1939: http://www.schweiz1940.ch/limmat40-common/large-images/Op-Bf-1.htm
june 1940: http://www.schweiz1940.ch/tannen40-en/swiss/orders/opbefehl10-large.htm
july 1940: http://www.schweiz1940.ch/tannen40-en/swiss/orders/opbefehl11-large.htm
“…be careful who you accuse of factual inaccuracies. You might just challenge someone who wrote their thesis on the issue…”
writing a thesis on a particular subject does not imply extensive research, or even any intelligence, from the abundance of mediocre dissertations out there.
not saying you’re wrong or right about the rendition of facts. i wouldn’t know.
I love when a quasi-finance, kind of relevent piece devolves into some sort of mostly-unrelated history/philosophy/political pissing contest. Keep it up (although EP, I believe – even though I’m not as up on my Swiss history – layed the smacketh down on someone’s candy ass, above)
Hey, those are my private golf course plans… how did you get a copy? They are supposed to be safely stored in my swiss bank box.
~SEG
“Seems like an odd thesis for someone who majored in hopelessly obscure foreign poets.”
I’m not sure what you conclude from a thesis topic being at variance from one’s undergraduate major- unless there is some form of undergraduate program that emphasizes the thesis after a 4 year degree?
You are confusing the “reduit concept” (itself a mistranslation- and it should be capitalized) with the use of “Réduit national.” The former being a Summer 1940 invention. The later being much older.
As to, “woefully under-equipped, soldiers,” I suppose this is a reference to the German superiority in armor and air, both fairly useless in Switzerland. Certainly you don’t mean Swiss small arms, which were vastly superior to their German counterparts (and the Germans knew it). Nor are you referring, I suspect, to uniforms (the Germans had little in the way of cold weather gear, except for their Gebirgsjäger troops, few and far between, their plight in Russia would highlight this) or anything else of use in Switzerland.
The Grenzbrigade system was conceived in 1935 and deployed in 1938, so I’m not sure what you think you are talking about here. Certainly, it never constituted anything near 400,000 troops “stationed right on the border” head to head with the Germans.
In fact, about every “fact” you assert is easily disabused by looking at the the map of Swiss Operationsbefehl 1, which was followed almost to the letter in 1939.
Operationsbefehl 2 is about as close as Switzerland got to the concentration you describe. That lasted only a few months.
But, you wouldn’t know this from Wikipedia. Luckily, I have a copy of the deployment diagrams.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/5215/opbf1uz8.jpg
Anyhow, suffice it to say, your view of the mobilization and deployment of Swiss forces, as well as their strategic and tactical doctrine, leaves much to be desired.
Anal_yst, all you gotta do is look at the maps. I know everyone loves ep but until I see a different source, I am sticking by my position that 1939 was mostly a border mobilization and to my knowledge at least, unlike canadians, these people don’t already live right up against the border, so yes this is a mobilization.
EP definitely did smack down a point I never made though. I give her full credit for that!
Ah, good show, DB readers!
Why are you all toiling in the bowels of finance?
@ Anal_yst
Lay down the flipping law, how dare people be interested in things other than finance
Luckily, we have both produced the same exact deployment diagram, and if you are so married to your idea that there was no mobilization, that people just grabbed their rifles, walked outside their cute little Swiss houses, and landed in these formations, and that furthermore this deployment is not roughly tracing out the Swiss border, then we will have to agree to disagree.
Ah, it appears he has retired and retreated to the rear.
Your assertion was pretty clear. 400,000 troops all mobilized to the border. That’s simply not fact.
The average Zurich or Geneva citizen barely noticed the difference. And shipping prices most definitely went up.
Oh, I thought you meant an undergraduate thesis. I do apologize and I certainly do not dispute that most of your other interests we know of also would be odd for someone who majored in hopelessly obscure foreign poets, to your credit!
Haha in a sense yes. I am wasting my employer’s time while you seem to be wasting your own time. As the head of my desk just called me out for having a screen full of WW2 maps, I have to cede the war of attrition.
Your assertion was pretty clear too: “the primary Swiss concern with World War II was that it increased shipping costs”.
Just out of curiosity, then, how many Swiss people would you say are represented by the 1939 formations to defend nothing more than shipping costs?
And really? The Swiss were better equipped than the Germans? I would love to see your source on this.
I always thought the primary Swiss concern was that Hitler wanted to invade, subjugate, and incorporate all of the german speaking peoples into the Reich, and without cutting some sort of deal the country would have been completely surrounded by Axis powers making imports/exports impossible. Silly Swiss. It could have been a glorious, glorious Aryan utopia.
EP, as you very well know, many (if not most) of us gave up our dreams of pursuing a field in which we’re earnestly interested once we realized how paltry it paid. Life, aye, she is a bitch.
“Ah, good show, DB readers!
Why are you all toiling in the bowels of finance?”
Well I gotta pay for my leather bound copies of Janes somehow!
“As the head of my desk just called me out for having a screen full of WW2 maps, I have to cede the war of attrition.”
This pleases me. Because, in the end, isn’t this what DealBreaker is for?
Oh, you may feel free to AIM me to continue the discussion at any time:
aim: equityprivate
I loved the discussion of Swiss mobilization in World War II. Intelligent discourse. I knew very little about Switzerland’s role in the war; I just knew they stayed out of it and were never invaded by the Germans.
I would like to, but I cannot use AIM or non MS exchange emails or even bloomberg chat from work!
However I would love if you could direct me to some reference sources to the martial superiority of the Swiss militia/army or whatever we can agree to call it over the Wermacht? Even the final report of the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland (I freely admit I did not even know before today that this existed) seems to conclude that Germany could have advanced on Bern “with a single tank regiment.”
It appears at least this was a real concern, not consistent with a state of affairs where armor and air power are useless, Swiss small arms are far superior, and either way the enemy is in danger of imminently freezing to death for lack of a winter cloak? We are, after all, talking about a time before Hitler poured out the strength of the mighty Wermacht in the frozen wastes of Russia. I am always happy to see some evidence that someone had a better army than Heinz Guderian. Just the way I feel (working for a German asset manager doesn’t help).
Guderian’s army was certainly the best for operations in wide open spaces or lowlands, but I fail to see how the Germans’ undisputed superiority in armor would translate to fighting a citizen militia in the mountains.
Just look at the German experience against Tito in Serbia – an occupation of Switzerland would have been even more futile and bloody.
I believe that any Swiss making watches or chocolate is “mobilized”
Hording Nazi gold is “mobilized”
Cuckoo clocks
Chocolate
I think it can be agreed by all that a Nazi occupation of CH would have been difficult and probably fruitless, that is a very different thing than saying the Nazis would be unable to occupy it to begin with (see US, Iraq for eg.).
An occupation of Switzerland with no viable railways would be of only nominal military value, even less so if you could get the swiss to let you cruise through with your supplies (and, it has been alleged, concentration camp prisoners) anyway, so it was wise that the Reich intended to just take care of the Swiss porcupine at a later time.
“Cuckoo clocks
Chocolate”
“Cuckoo” clocks were invented in Germany.
Chocolate was invented by Native Americans (they called it “maize”)
WW2? Too sson!
WW2? Too soon!
Uh, the notion that the Swiss could have defended switzerland from the Germans is completely ludicrous and transparently swiss propaganda designed to bolster the the morale of their people. While on paper the arguments hold some for the mental masturbatory purposes of those here, the reality was far more harsh. The same people that say the Germans would not have been able to penetrate Swiss mountain passes are those who deemed the maginot line impregnable. In the face of overwhelming superiority in man power and material there was little to no hope for the Swiss. If France had decided they wanted to invade Switzerland its unlikely the swiss could have stopped them let alone, stop Germany.
While EP argues that guerrilla warfare would have prevented a German occupation, such tactics are far less effective against a civilization willing to inflict genocide on its opponents. In total war where the population is already being killed, hiding among said populace is no longer nearly as successful a defensive strategy.
Now here’s a really interesting question EP. I’ve always had the thought had Germany and the Japanese coordinated even a Japanese faint at Siberia during Barbarossa then Germans could have knocked the Russians out. While Hitler’s refusal to equip his soldier’s with proper winter gear didn’t help the German cause it was really the arrival of the Siberian troops outside of Moscow that doomed the Germans in the winter of 41-42. All that was needed to hold the those troops in the east was a credible japanese threat. Knock out the russians and then Overlord gets rolled back into the channel and the Germans hold the continent.
I once penetrated a Swiss Miss’ mountain top with my heat and moisture seeking missile……then proceeded to send my torpedo into her joyful lovenest…..
“…it was really the arrival of the Siberian troops outside of Moscow that doomed the Germans in the winter of 41-42. All that was needed to hold the those troops in the east was a credible japanese threat. Knock out the russians and then Overlord gets rolled back into the channel and the Germans hold the continent.”
The German defeat in Asia was, in my view, not at all a certainty. There were many MANY desperate times for the Russians, who had been badly surprised, out-thought, out-fought and out-moraled (is that a word) in the early stages.
I’d have to go look at my collection of campaign maps to really give you a view, but I think anything that kept even 15 divisions of Siberians off the line would have been the end of Moscow and, eventually, Russia.
“While EP argues that guerrilla warfare would have prevented a German occupation, such tactics are far less effective against a civilization willing to inflict genocide on its opponents. In total war where the population is already being killed, hiding among said populace is no longer nearly as successful a defensive strategy.”
I think you mistake the Swiss sense of guerrilla war- which did not include low-intensity conflict using civilians for cover. I also think you overestimate the Nazi will to exterminate the more Germanic populations of Switzerland.
Clearly the best strategy for the Swiss would have been to march Heidi and her friends to the front lines, pigtails and all…arguably the most disarming weapon man has ever encountered.
“”Cuckoo” clocks were invented in Germany.”
Germany also produced all the swiss army knives for years until the swiss themselves were finally capable of mass production.
@RB Who says the Swiss could have defended Switzerland? The whole strategy was based on immediately retreating to the mountains then pelting German groundcars with tasty chocolates as they tried to navigate the alpine passages.
“I think you mistake the Swiss sense of guerrilla war- which did not include low-intensity conflict using civilians for cover. I also think you overestimate the Nazi will to exterminate the more Germanic populations of Switzerland.”
You need only look the German occupation of Belgium in world war first to see how they responded to a civilian population that resisted their advance. I don’t know what the Belgians are ethnically (and i don’t think they know either) but the Germans didn’t bother asking before shooting them.
“The same people that say the Germans would not have been able to penetrate Swiss mountain passes”
Or, I dunno, the Ardennes maybe? The Ardennes was supposed to be impenetrable.
You are clearly speaking of the French.
I must say that I, myself, would have welcomed the assignment to invade Switzerland.
The thought of being pelted with tasty chocolates by busty, flaxen-haired Heidis cooing sweet nothings in Schwyzerdeutsche as we motored leisurely to Bern really stiffens my martial resolve. If you get my drift.
Say, EP, you don’t speak Schwyzerdeutsche by any chance, do you? If so, I have some really nice raclette over at my place we could share.
Call me.
Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
E.J.E. Rommel
Rommel: I need a man who can use both hands.
Sorry, Fraulein, but that last remark just zoomed over my head like a Spitfire over a Horch staff car.
You are not interested in learning firsthand about my daring armored thrusts, maybe? I’ll bring the Savoie wine.
Kisses,
E.J.E.R.
Anal_yst, for the cause of why we “gave up our dreams of pursuing a field in which we’re earnestly interested,” my explanation was that we were born seventy years too late and in the wrong country.
So no conspirationist DB reader thinks the Jekyll Island gold is the obvious reason for PEACE between CH and DE during WWII?
I hate to compete with all of this earnest scholarship, but chocolate was never called “maize.” That’s the original term for corn, an entirely different taste than chocolate.
The word “chocolate” is derived from the Nahuatl word “xocolatl.” The term “xocolatl” was used by Cortes when he wrote to the Spanish king describing his discoveries in the Aztec empire. Nahuatl was the language of the Aztecs in Mexico and versions of it are still spoken today in central Mexico.
In French, corn is “maïs” (pronounce “maize”).
Also, “xocolatl” sounded much like “shocolate”, I think.
Conclusion : the words did not change a bit in 500 years…
I think the British use “maize” for corn as well.
@9:49AM: WOW! Delaware has a gay guy? I had no idea!
The Other Guy From Delaware
I had this dream, where Adolf Hitler and I were sitting in a Viennese Cafe in Zurich. He told me his name was “Engelbert Dolfuss.” I knew he was lying, but I went with it. As our elaborately whip-creamed coffee-drinks arrived, he told me how much he hated his girlfriend, and that he would like to show me how a real Austrian “invades from the rear.”
He was mesmerizing and had an odd sincerity in his eyes.
Though I longed to share his hatred and feel his wehrmacht in my Aryan utopia, I bid him “adieu,” and sped away in my ragtop Renault 5 in search of a charming bistro.
Is that gay?
1oMvBe Im grateful for the article post.Really looking forward to read more. Fantastic.
A round of applause for your article.Really looking forward to read more. Fantastic.
Thanks-a-mundo for the blog post.Much thanks again. Will read on…
A round of applause for your blog article. Much obliged.
Great, thanks for sharing this article post.Thanks Again. Cool.
I loved your article.Much thanks again. Much obliged.
Thank you ever so for you blog article.Really thank you! Really Cool.
Very informative blog. Awesome.
Very neat blog article.Really looking forward to read more. Really Cool.
I really like and appreciate your article.Much thanks again. Awesome.
Awesome blog.Really thank you! Great.
Muchos Gracias for your blog article.Thanks Again. Fantastic.
Very informative article. Want more.
Thanks-a-mundo for the post.Thanks Again. Awesome.
Say, you got a nice blog.Thanks Again. Keep writing.
Looking forward to reading more. Great blog article.Much thanks again. Will read on…
I truly appreciate this blog post.Really looking forward to read more. Great.
Im obliged for the article post.Really thank you! Really Great.
Wow, great article post.Really thank you! Awesome.
Very informative article post.Much thanks again. Awesome.
Thanks for the blog post.Thanks Again.
Awesome post.Much thanks again. Keep writing.
Thank you for your blog.Really thank you!
Very neat post.Really thank you! Great.
wow, awesome blog article. Great.
I value the article.Much thanks again. Fantastic.
I value the blog post.Thanks Again. Cool.