Page 492 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

1132 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

and multifaceted character. 15
However the intention of a correlation between the term of the active duty generation
and the cipher of Diamond as a metaphor for the Swiss Confederation is obvious. All
those who lived during the period of mobilisation were seen as an indestructible, bright
and pure generation which grew together in times of threat. This generation stands for
Switzerland. They granted the survival and the existence of the nation. That was espe-
cially appealed to the male part of this generation, the men who served in the armed
forces. These men were invited to the Diamond conventions and were the primary ad-
dressees of the speeches. Altogether they formed the armed forces, which were inter-
preted in this corollary as the saviour of Switzerland.

Practises of imagological bricolage
As a hint to the current demand of a Switzerland without armed forces, some speak-
ers asked the question, what would have happened if there wouldn’t have existed ac-
curate troops, ready to fight against a possible invader. In drastic visions they imagined
a Switzerland under national socialist and fascistic rule. Appropriate plans or intentions
verbalised and known by the broad public 50 years ago were recalled and put in mind.
Often memorized were certain well known geographical maps which showed a division
of the Swiss federal territory in its language regions, which were in different coloura-
tions allocated to the territories of the linguistically correspondent Axis Power. It was
assumed as a logical consequence of the nationalistic pan-Germanic concept, that the
German-speaking part of Switzerland should be incorporated to the Third Reich. The
same applies to the concept of Italian irredentism and the Italian-speaking part of Swit-
zerland. The speakers pointed out, that a Switzerland without resistance would have
been of great interest to the Axis Powers: As a reservoir of manpower, whether through
recruitment or deportation, as a highly developed industrial site, as a safe which could
have been plundered and last but not least to secure the transit traffic over the Alps be-

15 In the perception of the GSoA Keller’s anti-conservative and anti-reactionary poem was not suitable for an
event, which they considered as thoroughly conservative and reactionary. Josef Jo Lang, a GSoA charter
member and politician of the Trotskyist labour party (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei SAP) for instance
proclaimed, that Gottfried Keller – if he would live in the present age – would certainly fight against the
Diamond Commemoration: «Gottfried Keller kämpfte zeitlebens für eine offene Asylpolitik, solidarisierte
sich mit den Freiheitskämpfern in aller Welt, warnte vor der Aushöhlung der Demokratie durch das
Kapital und setzte sich ein für die Gleichberechtigung der Juden. Eine Schweiz zu feiern, die im Zweiten
Weltkrieg Bedrohte abwies, Tyrannen finanzierte, Kriegsgewinnler schützte, Demokratie abbaute und dem
Antisemitismus frönte, wäre dem festfreudigen Gottfried Keller nie in den Sinn gekommen. Sein Platz wäre
auf der Seite jener, die für eine andere – offene, solidarische und friedliche – Schweiz kämpfen. Was über
die diamantenen Politiker, die uns dieser Tage mit ihren ‹patriotischen› Reden beglücken, zu halten ist,
können wir in Kellers ‹Grünem Heinrich› nachlesen: ‹Andere betrachteten die Begriffe Republik, Freiheit
und Vaterland als drei Ziegen, die sie unablässig melkten, um aus der Milch allerhand kleine Ziegenkäslein zu
machen, während sie scheinheilig die Worte gebrauchten, wie die Pharisäer und Tartuffen.›» Lang, Josef, Der
missbrauchte Diamant, in: Klunker: Die hochkarätige Zeitung zur Schweiz im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Zürich,
1989, 4.