July 23, 2026 • 47 mins
We all know Switzerland is neutral. But why? Listen in and you might learn something.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
chalk and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
should know, everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
That's right, we're talking about one of the two things
switzerm One is known for.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
What it's not cheese Okay, then chocolate, that's true. Three
things okay, cuckoo clocks, four things, beautiful mountains, five things.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Beautiful people, roasty, six things, seven things. All right, let's
just cut to the chase. Then there's a lot to Switzerland, everybody.
And this is just one of myriad things we could
talk about, and that is Swiss neutrality. And I think
this came to mind because of the recent talks between
the United States and Iran and a new Switzerland had
(01:02):
a role to play there, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Like, what the heck is up with that country?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Did you say that out loud?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I think I did, And Ruby was like, what country did?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
It's a good idea, Chuck. I had no idea about this,
and I'm not sure if I ever would have thought
of doing one on this, but it's actually pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, and thanks to Olivia. But I now understand it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, and we should say that. Right before we started recording,
Jerry announced that she is the Switzerland of stuff. You
should know.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Jerry likes to think she is.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, then who would be the Switzerland?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
We have no Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Okay, who are you?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Uh? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I'm a mix of Turkmenistan and Denmark. Okay, all right, great,
And that's just where we're going to leave this, because
let's get back to talking about Switzerland, which is, like
you said, known for many things, and this neutrality thing
I had no idea, but it is in stark contrast
to how Switzerland used to be during the Middle Ages
(02:06):
or medieval times, if you're one of those people who
goes to medieval times.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and you know we should point out too, Switzerland's
not the only neutral country. I think Livia found twenty
to twenty five basically neutral countries around the world. But
Switzerland it's a real like when you think of neutral countries,
I think most people would say Switzerland because they've taken
not just neutrality as a stance, but like a really
active neutrality and like, hey, come and settle your warring
(02:33):
disputes here in our friendly confines, or your financial disputes
and our friendly confines.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah. As a matter of fact, Switzerland is the only
country that comes to mind when I think of neutrality.
I had honestly no idea that other countries were officially neutral. Yeah,
like Ireland is Did you know that?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
No, but I believe it.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Okay, well, at any rate, Yes, they are the standard,
the gold standard, the Nazi gold state of neutral countries. So,
like I said, the whole thing kind of, I think
it was officially neutral as of like the eighteen teens.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Right, yeah, and then eighteen fifty one, I think when
they formerly became a country. But right, but yeah, but
you promised talk to the Middle Ages. And it is
interesting that we can go back to the thirteenth century
to kind of see the beginnings of this.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, apparently this is where William Tell comes from too.
Did you know that? No? I know shamefully little about
William Tell's I was reading I think it's swiss info
ch They're like the English speaking outlet for Switzerland, and
this article this guy was writing. He's like, we all
know the story of William Tell, blah blah blah, And
(03:49):
I was like, actually, I don't know anything that you
just mentioned.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, agreed. He has a heck of an overture, that's
all I know.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, apparently so I here in the United States, everybody,
we're that William Tell shot the apple off of his
kid's head to show off like his skills. Apparently he
was forced to do that by some evil, evil Austrian
like overlords who had taken over Switzerland. And William Tell's
actually a resistance fighter who helped Switzerland overthrow those Austrian overlords. Fantastic,
(04:20):
but he comes out of this time, right. So, Switzerland,
like you said, until the eighteen fifties or sixties, was
a confederation. It's still known as the Swiss Confederation of Cantons,
which would be like states, provinces, maybe counties, but they're independent,
little municipalities that all together form Switzerland or the Swiss Confederation.
(04:42):
And that's where the whole thing starts. Back in twelve
ninety one, there was an alliance between three of these cantons.
Now there's like twenty five Uri, Schwitz, Schweits maybe and
untor Walden Valden Walden, yeah, yeah, and they formed the
valds Thought Alliance.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, Stett Stett Voldstetta Alliance.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I would say, I think I don't know if the
East pronounce well, I know that that gives you a
certain thrill, but I think the umlaut would make it
a stett stett.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Say it again, say the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The Woldschtez Alliance. These were basically free peasants at the time,
and they you know, partially the reason this all goes
down is because of their location in the Alps, kind
of isolated from a lot of Europe. And so they
were isolated, these free peasants from a lot of the.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Feudal hierarchies all over Europe.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And they were like in a good like geographic position
because they were there in those mountain passes with Italy
to the south and you know German speaking people's to
the north, and so they were there as like hey,
we're kind of here in the middle. So that kind
of started the whole thing of like, hey, everyone wants
to get along with them because they needed them.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, they've they've from time to time served as a
very useful buffer which has helped other outside nations support
their bid for neutrality right and just to be left alone. Yeah,
at the same time, that isolation, like you said, from
time to time some of their neighbors would break it
and try to basically take over Switzerland and in wood
to varying successes from time to time. Like I said,
(06:27):
but the isolation and the fact that they were mostly
independent made Switzerland or still to this day, that gave
them this fiercely independent streak as a nation that they
see themselves as like it's a different thing. They're separate thing.
They're nothing like a typical nation whatsoever. They're their own thing.
(06:49):
And one of the big things, you can almost call
it a brand, is their neutrality.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And when they formed that Bulstead Alliance, it wasn't the
biggest deal because that that had always kind of been
the deal with them, So it was really just renewing
these ties that had already been around for a long time.
But everyone later on would say, oh, actually, that's kind
of when Switzerland started coming together as what would later
be a country. Yeah, And then more cantons came aboard,
(07:17):
the alliance got a little bigger and started getting referred
to as the old Swiss Confederation the new one that
we have now, and that's when they started becoming like
a real kind of piece of the military puzzle that
was going on all around them.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I'm very I'm certain when back in the thirteenth century
they were confused when people called it the Old Swiss
Confederation because it was present to them.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
They're like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So it was around this time that the Swiss actually
became militarily mighty. The Swiss actually were known for their
warlike tendencies and their excellent fighting skills, so much so
that as they kind of grew and started to take
part in European wars during the medieval era. In the
(08:07):
very very early modern era, apparently Niccolomachiavelli referred to them
as the new Romans, this conquering group of incredibly well
trained fighters that were willing to take on the world. Essentially,
that's that was the image of Switzerland. It's like the
total opposite of how we viewed Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And you know, they had some pretty decent military upsets
leading up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and
that's when they started to kind of move away from
that idea because there were some really big countries and
countries getting together and like forming larger alliances around them,
and they were, you know, they were still even though
they had some military might, they realized they were probably
(08:49):
smallish compared to other places that were popping up around them, sure,
notably the Holy Roman Empire. Of course, France, Spain and
Italy kind of all over the place over there trying
to get at least control in the sixteenth century of
the Duchy of Milan, and that's when the Swiss came
out and they're like, hey, you know, the different cantons
(09:09):
had different ideas on who they should support, which would
kind of become a recurring theme of like who they
should have allegiance to and not necessarily agreeing. So maybe
remaining neutral was the best path of least resistance, I guess.
But in this case, at the time, they started out
backing France, then switched to the Italians, and then at
(09:31):
the Battle of Mariniano in fifteen fifteen, the French kind
of kicked their butts, the French and Venetians, and they
were like, all right, we lost ten thousand infantry people,
so like, maybe we need to really rethink putting our
eggs in baskets of other countries.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, ten thousand was half of the entire Swiss military
force was killed at this one battle. So yeah, It
was a really big deal, so much so that they
were like, yeah, this whole warlike thing is not really
working out all of a sudden, let's explore the idea
of being neutral. And it wasn't just that, but from
everything I've seen, that battle was a decisive turning point
(10:12):
for the mentality among the Swiss about, you know, taking
part in European wars. But there were other things that
kind of contributed to that decision. One was the Protestant Reformation,
because different cantons in different parts of the country supported
or were Protestant or were Catholic, right, Yeah, And that's
(10:34):
a very sticky situation when you're trying to keep these
cantons part of a confederation. Right, there's no central government
that's telling the cantons, no, you can't do this, No
you can't do that. They're a confederation essentially, so they're
all still quite independent, but they're all still also Swiss.
So that in and of itself meant like, how can
you participate in European wars when half of your cantons
(10:57):
want to go to war with one another?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
You know, in the wars out and the rest of
Europe are about are between Protestants and Catholics like, you
just can't do that. So the Swiss said, you know what,
let's just stay neutral. And this is a good example
of how being neutral has literally kept the country together
many times over the years, Like where they're like, our differences,
as our differences of opinion are too great right now
(11:21):
among the Cans, so we're just going to not have
an opinion officially as a country.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Another thing that helped was they got a pretty sweet
financial deal out of the end of the conflict with
France in fifteen sixteen. That peace treaty gave them access
to French markets. They had I think internally they were like,
I'm not sure if they noticed, but we can do
business with France now, and we could already do business
business with other people, So let's just keep flying under
(11:50):
the radar here financially speaking, because they've got the best
of both worlds. So they had no one to like
financial incidentive to bust up. Almost said bust that move,
but that would be the right term.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Ial think bus a move on French markets. Yeah, sure, okay, yeah,
so yes, this is where their business image also started
to Yeah, this is where the three piece suit was
invented in the peace treaty between France and Europe in
fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And let's see, here's a great example. I have no
idea whether to believe you or not. At this point
in my life.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I don't know whether to believe me or not.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Even at least were aligned.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So this is a I don't know if you're picking
up on this, chuck. This is a time of frequent
wars across Europe. And that's the problem. When you put
authoritarian despots in charge with limitless riches. They the elites
wanted to compete among themselves because they want to have
the biggest castle, or I want to have the most
people at my command. Yeah, I want to torture the
(12:53):
most people, right, And they start competing with each other
and they send their own people off to war with
one another. It's a great lesson today. It was something
to learn from, and it happened a lot during this era.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of threats to
kind of break up this neutrality. The Thirty Years War
was a big one in sixteen eighteen because again they
were divided sympathies I guess within those cantons, because what
you talked about, but religion for the most part, and
if you got involved in that war as Switzerland, that
would have kind of torn apart this confederation that they
(13:30):
had worked so hard to keep together. And so again
they were like, hey, let's we got to keep a
good thing going here. Let's remain neutral. And in sixteen
forty six the Swedes were sort of threatening them, and
so they're like, well, we need to at least have
an army though for national defense. We can be neutral,
but we can't be we can't be rubesure. So each
(13:53):
canton had like quotas for troops that they had to supply,
and that's when they were like kind of formed that
army of for defense purposes, which still exist today.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
So yeah, they created an army in sixteen forty six,
and then two years later really big thing happened. It's
just enormous. I'm really impressed. There is this guy named
Johann Rudolph vechtein Yeah, sounds great. He was the mayor
of Basil, right, and the Thirty Years War came to
an end in sixteen forty eight through the piece of Westphalia,
(14:26):
and vechtein Stein showed up to the piece of West
Fallia Treaty negotiations. He said, I'm glad you guys are
doing this. This is fantastic. Keep up the good work. Also,
I want to talk to everybody about something, even though
I'm just the mayor of Bosel. I want to make
sure that Switzerland is represented here because we're just neutral
(14:48):
and we think that we should no longer be under
the thumb of the Holy Roman Empire. We think that
we should have recognition as an dependent nation and also
we want to be neutral too, And he got it
passed through, like he gained recognition from these major powers
(15:09):
of Europe that Switzerland was now its own country. Holy
Roman Empire, Sorry, you just lost Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, I mean that was I'm not sure how he
pulled that off actually at the time, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
With a lottery chocolate I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
That, yeah, and cuckoo clocks.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So about one hundred years after that, there was another
threat to their neutrality. This was seventeen nineties, late seventeen
nineties when the French Revolutionary Republic and Austria and Russia
were going at it and they kind of eat that
battle into Switzerland some and I think after that victory
(15:48):
that was like seventeen ninety eight, close to eighteen hundred,
the French government created the Helvetic Republic assistern Nation, and
that covered a lot of Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah. They basically, he said, oh, we just happened to
create this country that just is within the borders of Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Sorry, Switzerland, see some overlap there, guys. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
They basically turned it into a territory. And this is
pretty much par for the course for Napoleon. He really
kind of sealed the deal when he sent an army
to occupy Switzerland, I guess to protect his new made
up country of Helvetic. I want to say Helvetica is
so bad. But he essentially plundered Switzerland for the next
(16:29):
decade in resources and humans. And actually, when he invaded
Russia in eighteen twelve, he brought some Swiss troops with
him and they did not do very well there.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, they sent nine thousand troops in seven hundred only
seven hundred came home. Yeah, you know, the tide finally
turned against Napoleon, and so they were like, all right, thank.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
God, we got rid of this guy. Yeah. And so
after the Battle of.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Leipzig in I believe eighteen thirteen, they were like all right,
we're back to being neutral again. We do have our
military force, but we're not gonna fight anymore. And in fact,
in December of eighteen thirteen, when the Austrian Imperial Army
was like, all right, we want to march through your
country to go to France, They're like, fine, go right ahead,
we'll just let you do that.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, they just turned their backs and whistled. So one
other thing happened. There was another another guy named Charles
Pictet de Rochemont, and also in eighteen thirteen, during the
peace treaty that ended well Napoleon's reign, I guess essentially
he showed up and he said, also, we want to
(17:40):
make sure that we're still getting recognized. We're now the
Swiss Confederation. And everyone said, you mean the old Swiss
Confederation and de Rochemont said, no, no, this is brand new.
It's a new Swiss Confederation. You guys are gonna love it.
And he was first just the mayor of Geneva, which
was actually a city state, independenceay state, part of a
(18:01):
canton now and I guess he did such a good
job that he ended up representing Switzerland as a whole.
And this is where their perpetual neutrality was established at
the eighteen fourteen Congress of Vienna.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, that's right, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I mean people generally look back to eighteen fifteen as
like that's when everything really officially kind of started. When
they became a unified federal state in eighteen forty eight,
was when the final stamp was stamped.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Right, So now we've reached the point where modern Switzerland
is born and it is officially neutral. It's a sovereign nation,
but it's still a confederation. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
That's right, and that is where we're going to take
a break and we'll be right back with more Swiss
neutrality right after this.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
So, Chuck, we're in Switzerland now. It's a nice established
country and part of it is very lovely. Part of
what you said it needs and should have is a
military for defense, and still today it has a military.
In fact, I believe this month the military assembled like
four thousand troops along the border to basically just keep
(19:35):
any of the ne'er do wells at the G seventh
summit spilling over, because the G seventh summits in France
right now, that's right, But there I guess military presence
states back I mean much further obviously, but the modern
version of it is from like the nineteenth century, I think.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, And you know, they have to abide by certain
rules that have happened since then, like the the Hague
Convention nineteen oh seven. If you're a neutral country, which
I guess there's like twenty three or so now that
we've learned that, they can't fight in a war. They
can't support any other countries warring parties. They can't send
them weapons like most other countries do. They can't send
(20:17):
money to help out in a war. They can't say hey,
we'll host a base here, or your foreign troops can
stay here for a little while. So, you know, they
have to remain truly neutral under the Hague Convention, which
they were. I'm sure they were quite delighted to make
it official. But they again they've maintained that army because
(20:39):
they have to have their own defense. And also we
should point out that the Swiss army knife kind of
came around in the nineteenth century, the eighteen eighties. It's
like a literal, you know, if you didn't think the
Swiss had an army, they had a knife named after them.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, of course they had an army.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
For sure, and I mean it really is this army knife.
They just call it the army knife. I'm guessing in Switzerland,
but everywhere army knife, Swiss army knife. Yeah. Like the
cake roll.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
God, I forgot about the cake roll that's another thing.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah. Well, I don't know that they know that Little
Debbie is putting their name on its cake rolls, because
I think they would have a problem with that. Yeah, yeah,
look it up, Switzerland, You're not going to be happy.
So World War One was a threat. Obviously all of
Europe was fighting, but I don't believe Switzerland was drawn
(21:34):
into it much. World War Two was a much greater threat.
They had to work much harder to stay neutral and
to keep the other countries out. And when Germany occupied France,
all of a sudden, Switzerland was surrounded by the Axis
and it was a very nervous time. And they managed
to to amass an army of I think four hundred
(21:58):
thousand troops in the Alps, and they let everybody know
we're staying neutral, but if you come here, we're going
to beat you badly. And it generally worked. I saw
that they were accidentally bombed several times that other powers
basically said, oh, we didn't mean to bomb you, sorry,
but you know, we killed a bunch of your people.
(22:20):
But for the most part, you know, it worked in
that they were never invaded by anyone.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
You know, just because your neutral doesn't mean that you
have like you're not taking part in anything to do
with the war. So they've as you'll see, you know,
we'll talk about a little later. They have a long
tradition of receiving refugees like war refugees, but kind of
shamefully like the US and a lot of other places
during in the aftermath or during World War Two, they
(22:49):
they prevented a lot of Jewish people from from the
Holocaust from finding refuge there. So that's that's one of
the sort of dark spots.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Sure. And then still today, if you are a man
between ages eighteen and thirty four, you have to enlist
in the military, or if you're a conscientious objector and
say I'm not carrying a gun around, you can also
there's some civilian services you can enlist in. And then
if you're a woman you can also do it, but
it's voluntary, you're not required to and I think today
(23:18):
they have one hundred and fifty thousand active and reserved troops,
and just like back in the day, each canton has
to fulfill a quota and they have their own civilian
defense forces.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
That's right, which is you know, it would be foolish
not too at this point in world history for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So yeah, there's still a military despite the fact that
they're neutral. I feel like we've managed to drive that
point home.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
That's the stuff you should know. Ay, So.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
This whole idea that we mentioned kind of early on,
as as Switzerland taking an active role in neutrality and
not just being like, hey, just leave us alone, sure,
where they're like, we will host your your dealings with
one another, and we've become a center of arbitration for
the world. Basically that started out basically in like the
mid nineteenth century. The Geneva and Basil Chambers of Commerce
(24:14):
said hey, let's get a system together and let's make
this like, let's get serious about this and put some
structure around what we want to do. And they got
their first stab at that, I guess in eighteen seventy two,
when it was around the Civil War, when negotiators from
the United States and Great Britain went to Geneva and
worked out what we're called the Alabama Claims, which were
(24:37):
about losses caused by these British built Confederate ships, one
of which was the Alabama during the Civil War. Britain
ended up having to pay damages there and that started
the whole system of like saying, hey, Geneva's pretty nice,
you guys, we're pretty chill, and why don't you just
come here to settle your disputes in our courtroom, the
(24:59):
people's court, right, and then the bongo jobs started.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I did not see Alabama coming up in an episode
on Swiss New Neutrality, did you.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I did not either.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So since then, like you said, they literally wrote the
rules on arbitration, and since then, like they have had
some pretty high profile arbitration meetings, so much so that
they eventually worked what are called the good Offices, which
are everything from like a meeting place to mediation services
(25:32):
for arbitration. It's worked into the Swiss Federal constitution, so
they like that's a huge part of Switzerland maintaining its neutrality,
as saying like, come take advantage of our neutral territory,
like this is a place where you can meet and
work out your differences. Let's all just work out our differences.
(25:52):
Guy and I saw chook. One other thing that they do,
which is really surprising. They represent the interests of country
who are not speaking to each other. So I think
that they represent Iran in Canada. So let's take Iran's like,
we're not even talking to you Canada anymore. We're gonna
get Switzerland to meet with you. We're not even going
(26:13):
to be in the same room with you. They do
that for several different countries.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, I mean, it's uh, they provide a service. I
wonder what kind of like do they charge a fee
for this?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Oh, I'm sure that there's fees involved.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Sure, even if it's just like you know, the hotels
in Geneva are very overprised.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Dude, I'll bet you their like, like coffee service at
these meetings.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And comences are amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, I mean because they got they got to get
something out of it besides neutrality.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Sure. So, I you know, I knew like the Swiss
were known for being very business like. I did not
realize the extent that that is true. I believe that
the Swiss mentality is generally like, yes, it's business. We
conduct our business appropriately fairly, like we are really good
(27:05):
at it. We have good contracts, like we are really
business like, and that that is like, yes, that they
are probably getting something for all of the services they're providing,
because that's business.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah for sure. Yeah, I bet you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
They're also known for their real push toward humanitarian aid
all around the world, especially during times of conflict. Yeah,
no less than the Red Cross, still based in Geneva,
and if you look at their symbol, it's the inverse
of the Swiss flag and that's no accident. But that
(27:44):
all started out because of a Genevan businessman named Henry
Jannant Saint Henry, Yeah for real. In eighteen fifty nine,
he was in Sulfarino, a town in the north of
Italy who's there for work, and he saw the aftermath
of a battle between French and Austria and saw like
(28:04):
forty thousand you know, dead and wounded soldiers all about him,
and it really really moved him and put a dent
in a psyche. I think because he got like personally involved,
started helping out locals, started providing medical assistance, dressing wounds,
like you know, literally himself doing this and spoke to
French officials. It was like, hey, you got a bunch
(28:25):
of Austrian surgeons who are POW's, like, let them out
and let them help their own people, and let them
help your people. And it moved him to the point
where he kind of dedicated his life to it. He
wrote a book called A Memory of Sulfurino and talked
about these experiences in the creation of these committees that
would train volunteers, and that's the stuff that would become
(28:46):
the first national Red Cross Society.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah you feel like, okay, that's pretty impressive. Well prepare
for this one too. You've heard of the Geneva Convention
of the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Oh yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
That was his work. He started arguing and lobbying for
some sort of international agreements on how to treat the
sick and the wounded in the prisoners of war and
that became the first Geneva Convention in eighteen sixty four.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Pretty great.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And the YMCA that you know in love he didn't
create the YMCA, but do not really made it a
global global movement and the World Alliance of the YMCA
is also still in Geneva.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So two things when I hear YMCA, obviously think village people.
But I also think of this great moment from a
Simpsons episode where Lionel Hutts is staying there at the
YMCA and he's asleep, sitting down with his backup against
the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest
and his elbows on his knees and his head down,
so you can imagine, and I think Bart and Lisa
(29:50):
walk up and wake him up, and he suddenly comes
awake and he has it. He brandishes a knife and
he says, don't touch my stuff. Like that's he was
staying at the YA. That was his experience there.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
That's pretty good. I love it, oh man, Lionel huts
was the best.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yes he was, so if you're like, okay, still Dunant's impressive.
But he was probably also just some crazy billionaire who
just wanted to make a good name for himself wrong.
As a matter of fact, all of this humanitarian work
that he focused on led to him becoming bankrupt. He
wasn't paying enough attention to his business, and so he
(30:28):
lost his business, became bankrupt and essentially unknown for a
couple of decades until eighteen ninety five. There was a
journalist who's like, oh my god, this guy. I know
this guy, and he's living like obscurely in poverty. I
need to let everybody know about him. And he was
one of the co recipients of the first Nobel Peace
Prize in nineteen oh one. Quite rightfully so. But this
(30:51):
guy was seriously, legitimately a good person.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, we've seen this kind of one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
It happen quite a bit in history where someone has
done great things, but we're sort of lost to history,
and then some journalists or somebody in or historian dug
them up, well not literally, but you know, dug up
their legacy and brushed it off and said, hey, how
about this awesome person that we kind of forgot about.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, it's nice when they're still alive too, so they
can get the recognition. And maybe you're like, Okay, I'll
bet he owned slaves or something like that. Nope, he
was agitating for the abolition of slavery, or he was
a gun nut. Nope, agitating for disarmament like he was.
He was a humanitarian, if there was ever a humanitarian.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, all right, I say we take another break.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Is that good? Yeah? I think we're at a good break.
Let's all just think about how great Henry Don is.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
All right, Let's spend a few moments doing that, and
we'll be right back. All right. I dwelled on the.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Life of Henry do not, and I feel even better
than I did a few minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Same.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
But we're gonna move on and talk a little bit
about some of the you know, it's not all I
talked about, you know, one sort of darkness and that
they didn't allow Jewish refugees en mass during World War Two.
There's some other stuff that they have on their record
that's not the greatest in the world. I guess we
should talk about Nazi gold a little bit. But in
(32:40):
order to talk about that, we should probably talk a
little bit about just there. You know, you talked about
them being, you know, brilliant business people and a center
for business around the world. That happened because after they
became formerly neutral in eighteen fifteen, they said, you know what,
this is probably a good place for people to put
their mind because we're neutral.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
It's safe.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Anytime there's a lot of chaos around the world, like
with World Wars, everyone knows that they can come here
and do some banking. We may not be like, you know,
like a world banking center with like by the likes
of London or Berlin, but we can become pretty quietly
powerful in our own way, especially if we tell everyone
(33:25):
that all their business will be super private, if you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, they put an emphasis on that kind of thing,
where like, if you open an account in Switzerland for
decades and most of the twentieth century in fact, if
not longer, you could have a secret bank account where
like nobody could really figure it out. And that's it's
not fully true. Like I think if say the US
government came with a subpoena to find out who the
(33:51):
owner was of a specific account, this was we'd cooperate
with them. But for the most part, this was secret stuff, right,
and that was how they made their name as an
international banking center. But also because like again they are
really really good at business, so you knew that this
was like your money was safe not just because Switzerland
(34:13):
was stable, but because their banking system was incredibly stable.
So a lot of people took advantage of that. Dictators,
money launders, eventually, drug dealers, terrorists, basically anyone Jackie Chanen,
anyone you can think of who wanted to evade taxes,
launder money, or just wanted to have their money stashed away,
(34:35):
you know, quietly, and weren't really breaking any laws. You
went to Switzerland. Like it's almost a trope. I think
it is a true the secret Swiss bank account that
you would have money transferred to.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Oh yeah, that officially became official with the Federal Banking
Act of nineteen thirty four, to the utter delight of
screenwriters everywhere then and to come. But that unfortunately dried
up in the nineteen nineties when they were like, all right,
no more secret accounts. I guess we got to get
rid of that provision. But yeah, it worked this way
(35:11):
into a lot of movies over the years, just like
you know, a numbered Swiss bank account that's growing up with,
especially like Cold War movies and stuff like that, spy thrillers.
It was always like a secret Swiss bank account. I
feel like at play.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
They ended up removing that ability from the Swiss banking
system because it started to come out just how many
bad guys, right, we're using it where in Switzerland was
allowing it to happen, So their banking system took a hit,
you know, it's image, and they're like, we can't afford
(35:46):
to do that. We're not making enough money off of
drug dealers and terrorists. We need to you know, brush
our image back up. So that's when they got rid
of that.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, and their image probably needed a little brushing up
because you know, I think I mentioned something about Nazi gold,
or if I didn't, I'm mentioning it for the first
time now. But they because of World War Two, they
the Swiss National Bank ended up buying about four hundred
and forty million dollars in Nazi gold, which was basically,
(36:16):
you know, laundering that gold that was plundered that we've
talked about a lot of times, like the plundering of
World War two of the Germans from you know, different countries,
brutally from Holocaust victims. I know, we've mentioned stuff like
gold dental fillings and stuff. Yeah that was real, Yeah,
from Jewish concentration camp victims. And so it's not a
(36:38):
good look for the Swiss National Bank to be holding
onto this stuff. So later, with the Washington Agreement of
nineteen forty six, they were made to return, well at
least some of that Nazi gold not much of it,
only about twelve percent of it supposedly to its rightful owners,
and that's you know. They ended up using it for
other stuff too, though. They used to sometimes is funds
(37:01):
to repay citizens of Switzerland who had seized property by
communist regimes in Europe. So they were like, hey, maybe
we'll use some of this Nazi gold to repay our
own coffers.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, and you said that, they, you know, basically laundered it.
They one hundred percent laundered this. So they the Nazis
showed up with literally tons and tons of gold, hundreds
of tons of gold that was stolen from other countries,
gave it to Switzerland. Switzerland gave the Nazi regime money,
lots and lots of money in return, and then Switzerland
turned around and took that gold and sold it to
(37:33):
Spain and Portugal. So they fenced stolen gold for the
Nazis and gave the Nazis money in return. It's as
simple as that. People then know this until the nineteen nineties,
when Switzerland was sued by a few organizations, including the
World Jewish Congress. That was bad enough. So this is
coming out at the same time that the secret account
(37:53):
stuff is coming out too, So Switzerland's taking like one,
two punches, haymakers, ropidopes even left and right. And then
on top of that, even worse, you said that they
were returning twelve percent of the Nazi gold to its
rightful owners as part of the Washington Agreement of nineteen
forty six. Well, a lot of people who were fleeing
(38:14):
Germany or fleeing the Nazi regime, or fleeing the Holocaust
but wanted to kind of keep their valuables in a
safe place went to Switzerland to put money in bank accounts,
to put valuable items in safe deposit boxes. And after
the war ended, their heirs would show up and say,
you know, my grandpa or my dad or somebody put this,
(38:37):
you know, this family heirloom, this hope diamond in a
safe deposit box in your bank, and I'm here to
claim it. Here's all the documentation that i'm their rightful heir.
And they would say, all of your papers look like
they're in order, but I don't see a death certificate.
And the air would say, well, my father or grandpa
or whatever died in a concentration camp. The Nazis didn't
(38:59):
issue death certific kids for that they kind of wanted
to keep it secret, and this Swiss would say, sorry,
can't help you, and they did that across the board.
So they basically kept hundreds of millions of dollars is
the accusation of legitimate deposits from legitimate errors of victims
of the Holocaust.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, and well a lot of times they didn't even
have documentation at all, you know, much less death certificates
because that stuff was destroyed in the war. Finally, in
nineteen forty six they promised to say, all right, we're
gonna find these assets of Holocaust victims from people who
have no like, identifiable errors, and we're going to at
(39:42):
least transfer them to a Jewish reconstruction organization. And decades
later they basically concluded that that didn't really happen. And
then nineteen ninety I think was when you said, finally,
like fully like was exposed and there was a sus
from the World Jewish Congress that got a one point
(40:02):
two to five billion dollar settlement.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Finally in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, and again since then, the Swiss have been doing
everything they can to kind of rehabilitate their image, but
at the same time, they have also shown like they're
not ones to just immediately bow to international pressure. The
way that you get them is to hit them in
their pocketbooks, like threaten their business or their entire banking industry.
That's kind of what the pressure from the outside world
(40:28):
was doing. Yeah, so sure they seem to have rebounded largely.
There are some other things that make Switzerland peculiar too
that are much less evil or dark. One is that
they really are in a kind of a weird position
as far as international groups go. Like in some ways,
like it makes a lot of sense that they're the
(40:50):
host of the International Red Cross headquarters Geneva, is right,
But what about the UN? Should they be members of
the UN? The UN? Does they have like peacekeeping troops
with guns and stuff like that? Is what are the
ramifications of Switzerland joining the UN? And they debated that
for decades.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, they finally, I mean it wasn't until two thousand
and two that they even joined the UN. And like
you said, it took a long time to kind of
work out internally whether or not that's something they wanted
to do or that would kind of ruin all those
decades and decades of neutrality that they had become known for.
There was a referendum that they eventually voted on whether
(41:30):
or not to become a member, and advocates said, you
know what, if we get involved with them, we can
get involved and still like be committed to mediation and
humanitarian aid, like that will be our role within the UN.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And it was a pretty close vote.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
It was fifty four point six in favor and twelve yeah,
almost like right at half. Twelve out of the twenty
three cantons voted yes. And then finally in twenty twenty
three it became a non permanent member of the UN Security.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Council, that's those peacekeeping troops.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
That's right, And that was another you know, it wasn't
It was pretty evenly split as well, so like even
within the country they've always sort of hedged like whether
or not they wanted to support joining up with these
world groups, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Right exactly, and for good reason too. I mean it's
tricky stuff. One of the places or one of the
groups that they are just roundly rejecting, so much so
that they basically told the EU like we're not we're
not negotiating anymore, We're not joining the European Union, and
the reason why they actually have pretty legitimate reasons why,
(42:38):
especially if you come at life from a business like attitude.
But one is that they would immediately be a net contributor.
They would be paying out way more than they were
benefiting from being a member of the EU. And the
reason why is because they basically have cherry treaties with
all of the European countries to do business with them,
(42:59):
which is like the attractive thing for a rich country
to join the EU. So they have that without being
part of the EU, without having to pay into the
EU right now, So they have the best of both
worlds and really negative incentive, a number of negative incentives
to join the EU.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Another is they just they really love taking care of
their own business what they would call direct democracy and
deciding for them what's best for them. And if you're
part of the EU, then obviously you're part of a
larger collective and you don't like just individual citizens' ability
to decide things for themselves and hold those referendums that
(43:40):
would go away, and so they're not into that. And
also just you know, they built up this neutral brand
over the years and it's not like branding, branding but
it kind of is, and that they don't want to
just throw that all away. After again, you know, more
than one hundred years more than that actually of like
being known. Like you know, when you think neutral and
(44:02):
you think chocolate and you think cuckoo clocks and army knives,
you think of Switzerland, and they don't want that to
go away.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, when you think thirst, you think sprite. When you
think neutral, you think of Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
There's another thing too that being a member of the
EU means that any member nation or the residents of
any member nation or the EU can move to your
place unrestricted as far as I know. So immigration is
free throughout the European Union, and Switzerland's like, we actually
are pretty strict on immigration, and we're worried that if
(44:38):
we get a lot of people migrating to Switzerland, the
wages in Switzerland are going to start to be decompressed
because a lot of people migrating here are willing to
accept far less than what the average Swiss person is paid.
So yeah, essentially, every they have all these incentives, you know,
morally upstanding or not to not join the EU, and
(45:00):
it does not look like they are ever going to
join the EU.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, or NATO obviously, that's a warring organization for sure,
or not a warring organization, but a military alliance for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
And for all of its blemishes and rough spots and
all that, I hope Switzerland stays Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
You know, it would be I think everyone does.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
I think the world would kind of lose something if
if Switzerland just became like any other country. You know, agreed, Well,
that's Switzerland, Chuck, Swiss neutrality, I should say, that's right.
If you want to know more about Swiss neutrality, travel
of Switzerland, or watch a documentary on Switzerland. And in
the meantime, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
There's another Mash follow up. Hey guys, huge Mash fan.
I'm a bit older than Chuck and still only twelve
when it debuted. It was a perfect blend of comedy
and poignant drama showing the horrors of war. I always
thought the writing was brilliant and did take characters on
a great growth art being a closeted gay kid now
(46:03):
openly and very happy gay man.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
It was one of the first times.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
That a TV show dealt with the subject of homosexuality
in a sympathetic way, even if only on one episode.
I was such a fan that I'd developed a mash
trivia game similar to Trivial Pursuit, and a number of
details you mentioned in your episode were part of the game,
like Toledo and Tony Pacos.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
So great job, guys.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
You always do a great job and are so pleasant
to listen to on my daily walks and whenever you
guys touch on LGTVQ plus topics.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
You do an amazing jobs to straight guys. So thank
you for that.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
And that is from Dave in Vancouver. And Dave, I
hope you're coming to see our live.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Show in Vancouver. Yeah, we can't wait.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
There's still tickets available for all of the Well, I
guess the first LUG will be over by this time,
but that second leg in July I believe is probably
somewhere around this time.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
We'd love to see everyone.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Coming up quick, Dave, So yeah, we'd love to see
you too. You can watch Just be Too Straight Guys
live and in person.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
If you want to be like Dave and let us
know how much you like us, we really appreciate those
kind of emails. Or you can say whatever you like
whatever you have to say, send it off to stuff
Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
chalk and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
should know, everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
That's right, we're talking about one of the two things
switzerm One is known for.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
What it's not cheese Okay, then chocolate, that's true. Three
things okay, cuckoo clocks, four things, beautiful mountains, five things.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Beautiful people, roasty, six things, seven things. All right, let's
just cut to the chase. Then there's a lot to Switzerland, everybody.
And this is just one of myriad things we could
talk about, and that is Swiss neutrality. And I think
this came to mind because of the recent talks between
the United States and Iran and a new Switzerland had
(01:02):
a role to play there, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Like, what the heck is up with that country?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Did you say that out loud?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I think I did, And Ruby was like, what country did?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
It's a good idea, Chuck. I had no idea about this,
and I'm not sure if I ever would have thought
of doing one on this, but it's actually pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, and thanks to Olivia. But I now understand it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, and we should say that. Right before we started recording,
Jerry announced that she is the Switzerland of stuff. You
should know.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Jerry likes to think she is.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, then who would be the Switzerland?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
We have no Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Okay, who are you?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Uh? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I'm a mix of Turkmenistan and Denmark. Okay, all right, great,
And that's just where we're going to leave this, because
let's get back to talking about Switzerland, which is, like
you said, known for many things, and this neutrality thing
I had no idea, but it is in stark contrast
to how Switzerland used to be during the Middle Ages
(02:06):
or medieval times, if you're one of those people who
goes to medieval times.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and you know we should point out too, Switzerland's
not the only neutral country. I think Livia found twenty
to twenty five basically neutral countries around the world. But
Switzerland it's a real like when you think of neutral countries,
I think most people would say Switzerland because they've taken
not just neutrality as a stance, but like a really
active neutrality and like, hey, come and settle your warring
(02:33):
disputes here in our friendly confines, or your financial disputes
and our friendly confines.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah. As a matter of fact, Switzerland is the only
country that comes to mind when I think of neutrality.
I had honestly no idea that other countries were officially neutral. Yeah,
like Ireland is Did you know that?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
No, but I believe it.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Okay, well, at any rate, Yes, they are the standard,
the gold standard, the Nazi gold state of neutral countries. So,
like I said, the whole thing kind of, I think
it was officially neutral as of like the eighteen teens.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Right, yeah, and then eighteen fifty one, I think when
they formerly became a country. But right, but yeah, but
you promised talk to the Middle Ages. And it is
interesting that we can go back to the thirteenth century
to kind of see the beginnings of this.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, apparently this is where William Tell comes from too.
Did you know that? No? I know shamefully little about
William Tell's I was reading I think it's swiss info
ch They're like the English speaking outlet for Switzerland, and
this article this guy was writing. He's like, we all
know the story of William Tell, blah blah blah, And
(03:49):
I was like, actually, I don't know anything that you
just mentioned.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, agreed. He has a heck of an overture, that's
all I know.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, apparently so I here in the United States, everybody,
we're that William Tell shot the apple off of his
kid's head to show off like his skills. Apparently he
was forced to do that by some evil, evil Austrian
like overlords who had taken over Switzerland. And William Tell's
actually a resistance fighter who helped Switzerland overthrow those Austrian overlords. Fantastic,
(04:20):
but he comes out of this time, right. So, Switzerland,
like you said, until the eighteen fifties or sixties, was
a confederation. It's still known as the Swiss Confederation of Cantons,
which would be like states, provinces, maybe counties, but they're independent,
little municipalities that all together form Switzerland or the Swiss Confederation.
(04:42):
And that's where the whole thing starts. Back in twelve
ninety one, there was an alliance between three of these cantons.
Now there's like twenty five Uri, Schwitz, Schweits maybe and
untor Walden Valden Walden, yeah, yeah, and they formed the
valds Thought Alliance.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, Stett Stett Voldstetta Alliance.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I would say, I think I don't know if the
East pronounce well, I know that that gives you a
certain thrill, but I think the umlaut would make it
a stett stett.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Say it again, say the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The Woldschtez Alliance. These were basically free peasants at the time,
and they you know, partially the reason this all goes
down is because of their location in the Alps, kind
of isolated from a lot of Europe. And so they
were isolated, these free peasants from a lot of the.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Feudal hierarchies all over Europe.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And they were like in a good like geographic position
because they were there in those mountain passes with Italy
to the south and you know German speaking people's to
the north, and so they were there as like hey,
we're kind of here in the middle. So that kind
of started the whole thing of like, hey, everyone wants
to get along with them because they needed them.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, they've they've from time to time served as a
very useful buffer which has helped other outside nations support
their bid for neutrality right and just to be left alone. Yeah,
at the same time, that isolation, like you said, from
time to time some of their neighbors would break it
and try to basically take over Switzerland and in wood
to varying successes from time to time. Like I said,
(06:27):
but the isolation and the fact that they were mostly
independent made Switzerland or still to this day, that gave
them this fiercely independent streak as a nation that they
see themselves as like it's a different thing. They're separate thing.
They're nothing like a typical nation whatsoever. They're their own thing.
(06:49):
And one of the big things, you can almost call
it a brand, is their neutrality.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And when they formed that Bulstead Alliance, it wasn't the
biggest deal because that that had always kind of been
the deal with them, So it was really just renewing
these ties that had already been around for a long time.
But everyone later on would say, oh, actually, that's kind
of when Switzerland started coming together as what would later
be a country. Yeah, And then more cantons came aboard,
(07:17):
the alliance got a little bigger and started getting referred
to as the old Swiss Confederation the new one that
we have now, and that's when they started becoming like
a real kind of piece of the military puzzle that
was going on all around them.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I'm very I'm certain when back in the thirteenth century
they were confused when people called it the Old Swiss
Confederation because it was present to them.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
They're like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So it was around this time that the Swiss actually
became militarily mighty. The Swiss actually were known for their
warlike tendencies and their excellent fighting skills, so much so
that as they kind of grew and started to take
part in European wars during the medieval era. In the
(08:07):
very very early modern era, apparently Niccolomachiavelli referred to them
as the new Romans, this conquering group of incredibly well
trained fighters that were willing to take on the world. Essentially,
that's that was the image of Switzerland. It's like the
total opposite of how we viewed Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And you know, they had some pretty decent military upsets
leading up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and
that's when they started to kind of move away from
that idea because there were some really big countries and
countries getting together and like forming larger alliances around them,
and they were, you know, they were still even though
they had some military might, they realized they were probably
(08:49):
smallish compared to other places that were popping up around them, sure,
notably the Holy Roman Empire. Of course, France, Spain and
Italy kind of all over the place over there trying
to get at least control in the sixteenth century of
the Duchy of Milan, and that's when the Swiss came
out and they're like, hey, you know, the different cantons
(09:09):
had different ideas on who they should support, which would
kind of become a recurring theme of like who they
should have allegiance to and not necessarily agreeing. So maybe
remaining neutral was the best path of least resistance, I guess.
But in this case, at the time, they started out
backing France, then switched to the Italians, and then at
(09:31):
the Battle of Mariniano in fifteen fifteen, the French kind
of kicked their butts, the French and Venetians, and they
were like, all right, we lost ten thousand infantry people,
so like, maybe we need to really rethink putting our
eggs in baskets of other countries.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, ten thousand was half of the entire Swiss military
force was killed at this one battle. So yeah, It
was a really big deal, so much so that they
were like, yeah, this whole warlike thing is not really
working out all of a sudden, let's explore the idea
of being neutral. And it wasn't just that, but from
everything I've seen, that battle was a decisive turning point
(10:12):
for the mentality among the Swiss about, you know, taking
part in European wars. But there were other things that
kind of contributed to that decision. One was the Protestant Reformation,
because different cantons in different parts of the country supported
or were Protestant or were Catholic, right, Yeah, And that's
(10:34):
a very sticky situation when you're trying to keep these
cantons part of a confederation. Right, there's no central government
that's telling the cantons, no, you can't do this, No
you can't do that. They're a confederation essentially, so they're
all still quite independent, but they're all still also Swiss.
So that in and of itself meant like, how can
you participate in European wars when half of your cantons
(10:57):
want to go to war with one another?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
You know, in the wars out and the rest of
Europe are about are between Protestants and Catholics like, you
just can't do that. So the Swiss said, you know what,
let's just stay neutral. And this is a good example
of how being neutral has literally kept the country together
many times over the years, Like where they're like, our differences,
as our differences of opinion are too great right now
(11:21):
among the Cans, so we're just going to not have
an opinion officially as a country.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Another thing that helped was they got a pretty sweet
financial deal out of the end of the conflict with
France in fifteen sixteen. That peace treaty gave them access
to French markets. They had I think internally they were like,
I'm not sure if they noticed, but we can do
business with France now, and we could already do business
business with other people, So let's just keep flying under
(11:50):
the radar here financially speaking, because they've got the best
of both worlds. So they had no one to like
financial incidentive to bust up. Almost said bust that move,
but that would be the right term.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Ial think bus a move on French markets. Yeah, sure, okay, yeah,
so yes, this is where their business image also started
to Yeah, this is where the three piece suit was
invented in the peace treaty between France and Europe in
fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And let's see, here's a great example. I have no
idea whether to believe you or not. At this point
in my life.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I don't know whether to believe me or not.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Even at least were aligned.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So this is a I don't know if you're picking
up on this, chuck. This is a time of frequent
wars across Europe. And that's the problem. When you put
authoritarian despots in charge with limitless riches. They the elites
wanted to compete among themselves because they want to have
the biggest castle, or I want to have the most
people at my command. Yeah, I want to torture the
(12:53):
most people, right, And they start competing with each other
and they send their own people off to war with
one another. It's a great lesson today. It was something
to learn from, and it happened a lot during this era.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of threats to
kind of break up this neutrality. The Thirty Years War
was a big one in sixteen eighteen because again they
were divided sympathies I guess within those cantons, because what
you talked about, but religion for the most part, and
if you got involved in that war as Switzerland, that
would have kind of torn apart this confederation that they
(13:30):
had worked so hard to keep together. And so again
they were like, hey, let's we got to keep a
good thing going here. Let's remain neutral. And in sixteen
forty six the Swedes were sort of threatening them, and
so they're like, well, we need to at least have
an army though for national defense. We can be neutral,
but we can't be we can't be rubesure. So each
(13:53):
canton had like quotas for troops that they had to supply,
and that's when they were like kind of formed that
army of for defense purposes, which still exist today.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
So yeah, they created an army in sixteen forty six,
and then two years later really big thing happened. It's
just enormous. I'm really impressed. There is this guy named
Johann Rudolph vechtein Yeah, sounds great. He was the mayor
of Basil, right, and the Thirty Years War came to
an end in sixteen forty eight through the piece of Westphalia,
(14:26):
and vechtein Stein showed up to the piece of West
Fallia Treaty negotiations. He said, I'm glad you guys are
doing this. This is fantastic. Keep up the good work. Also,
I want to talk to everybody about something, even though
I'm just the mayor of Bosel. I want to make
sure that Switzerland is represented here because we're just neutral
(14:48):
and we think that we should no longer be under
the thumb of the Holy Roman Empire. We think that
we should have recognition as an dependent nation and also
we want to be neutral too, And he got it
passed through, like he gained recognition from these major powers
(15:09):
of Europe that Switzerland was now its own country. Holy
Roman Empire, Sorry, you just lost Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, I mean that was I'm not sure how he
pulled that off actually at the time, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
With a lottery chocolate I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
That, yeah, and cuckoo clocks.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So about one hundred years after that, there was another
threat to their neutrality. This was seventeen nineties, late seventeen
nineties when the French Revolutionary Republic and Austria and Russia
were going at it and they kind of eat that
battle into Switzerland some and I think after that victory
(15:48):
that was like seventeen ninety eight, close to eighteen hundred,
the French government created the Helvetic Republic assistern Nation, and
that covered a lot of Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah. They basically, he said, oh, we just happened to
create this country that just is within the borders of Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Sorry, Switzerland, see some overlap there, guys. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
They basically turned it into a territory. And this is
pretty much par for the course for Napoleon. He really
kind of sealed the deal when he sent an army
to occupy Switzerland, I guess to protect his new made
up country of Helvetic. I want to say Helvetica is
so bad. But he essentially plundered Switzerland for the next
(16:29):
decade in resources and humans. And actually, when he invaded
Russia in eighteen twelve, he brought some Swiss troops with
him and they did not do very well there.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, they sent nine thousand troops in seven hundred only
seven hundred came home. Yeah, you know, the tide finally
turned against Napoleon, and so they were like, all right, thank.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
God, we got rid of this guy. Yeah. And so
after the Battle of.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Leipzig in I believe eighteen thirteen, they were like all right,
we're back to being neutral again. We do have our
military force, but we're not gonna fight anymore. And in fact,
in December of eighteen thirteen, when the Austrian Imperial Army
was like, all right, we want to march through your
country to go to France, They're like, fine, go right ahead,
we'll just let you do that.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, they just turned their backs and whistled. So one
other thing happened. There was another another guy named Charles
Pictet de Rochemont, and also in eighteen thirteen, during the
peace treaty that ended well Napoleon's reign, I guess essentially
he showed up and he said, also, we want to
(17:40):
make sure that we're still getting recognized. We're now the
Swiss Confederation. And everyone said, you mean the old Swiss
Confederation and de Rochemont said, no, no, this is brand new.
It's a new Swiss Confederation. You guys are gonna love it.
And he was first just the mayor of Geneva, which
was actually a city state, independenceay state, part of a
(18:01):
canton now and I guess he did such a good
job that he ended up representing Switzerland as a whole.
And this is where their perpetual neutrality was established at
the eighteen fourteen Congress of Vienna.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, that's right, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I mean people generally look back to eighteen fifteen as
like that's when everything really officially kind of started. When
they became a unified federal state in eighteen forty eight,
was when the final stamp was stamped.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Right, So now we've reached the point where modern Switzerland
is born and it is officially neutral. It's a sovereign nation,
but it's still a confederation. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
That's right, and that is where we're going to take
a break and we'll be right back with more Swiss
neutrality right after this.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
So, Chuck, we're in Switzerland now. It's a nice established
country and part of it is very lovely. Part of
what you said it needs and should have is a
military for defense, and still today it has a military.
In fact, I believe this month the military assembled like
four thousand troops along the border to basically just keep
(19:35):
any of the ne'er do wells at the G seventh
summit spilling over, because the G seventh summits in France
right now, that's right, But there I guess military presence
states back I mean much further obviously, but the modern
version of it is from like the nineteenth century, I think.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, And you know, they have to abide by certain
rules that have happened since then, like the the Hague
Convention nineteen oh seven. If you're a neutral country, which
I guess there's like twenty three or so now that
we've learned that, they can't fight in a war. They
can't support any other countries warring parties. They can't send
them weapons like most other countries do. They can't send
(20:17):
money to help out in a war. They can't say hey,
we'll host a base here, or your foreign troops can
stay here for a little while. So, you know, they
have to remain truly neutral under the Hague Convention, which
they were. I'm sure they were quite delighted to make
it official. But they again they've maintained that army because
(20:39):
they have to have their own defense. And also we
should point out that the Swiss army knife kind of
came around in the nineteenth century, the eighteen eighties. It's
like a literal, you know, if you didn't think the
Swiss had an army, they had a knife named after them.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, of course they had an army.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
For sure, and I mean it really is this army knife.
They just call it the army knife. I'm guessing in Switzerland,
but everywhere army knife, Swiss army knife. Yeah. Like the
cake roll.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
God, I forgot about the cake roll that's another thing.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah. Well, I don't know that they know that Little
Debbie is putting their name on its cake rolls, because
I think they would have a problem with that. Yeah, yeah,
look it up, Switzerland, You're not going to be happy.
So World War One was a threat. Obviously all of
Europe was fighting, but I don't believe Switzerland was drawn
(21:34):
into it much. World War Two was a much greater threat.
They had to work much harder to stay neutral and
to keep the other countries out. And when Germany occupied France,
all of a sudden, Switzerland was surrounded by the Axis
and it was a very nervous time. And they managed
to to amass an army of I think four hundred
(21:58):
thousand troops in the Alps, and they let everybody know
we're staying neutral, but if you come here, we're going
to beat you badly. And it generally worked. I saw
that they were accidentally bombed several times that other powers
basically said, oh, we didn't mean to bomb you, sorry,
but you know, we killed a bunch of your people.
(22:20):
But for the most part, you know, it worked in
that they were never invaded by anyone.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
You know, just because your neutral doesn't mean that you
have like you're not taking part in anything to do
with the war. So they've as you'll see, you know,
we'll talk about a little later. They have a long
tradition of receiving refugees like war refugees, but kind of
shamefully like the US and a lot of other places
during in the aftermath or during World War Two, they
(22:49):
they prevented a lot of Jewish people from from the
Holocaust from finding refuge there. So that's that's one of
the sort of dark spots.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Sure. And then still today, if you are a man
between ages eighteen and thirty four, you have to enlist
in the military, or if you're a conscientious objector and
say I'm not carrying a gun around, you can also
there's some civilian services you can enlist in. And then
if you're a woman you can also do it, but
it's voluntary, you're not required to and I think today
(23:18):
they have one hundred and fifty thousand active and reserved troops,
and just like back in the day, each canton has
to fulfill a quota and they have their own civilian
defense forces.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
That's right, which is you know, it would be foolish
not too at this point in world history for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So yeah, there's still a military despite the fact that
they're neutral. I feel like we've managed to drive that
point home.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
That's the stuff you should know. Ay, So.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
This whole idea that we mentioned kind of early on,
as as Switzerland taking an active role in neutrality and
not just being like, hey, just leave us alone, sure,
where they're like, we will host your your dealings with
one another, and we've become a center of arbitration for
the world. Basically that started out basically in like the
mid nineteenth century. The Geneva and Basil Chambers of Commerce
(24:14):
said hey, let's get a system together and let's make
this like, let's get serious about this and put some
structure around what we want to do. And they got
their first stab at that, I guess in eighteen seventy two,
when it was around the Civil War, when negotiators from
the United States and Great Britain went to Geneva and
worked out what we're called the Alabama Claims, which were
(24:37):
about losses caused by these British built Confederate ships, one
of which was the Alabama during the Civil War. Britain
ended up having to pay damages there and that started
the whole system of like saying, hey, Geneva's pretty nice,
you guys, we're pretty chill, and why don't you just
come here to settle your disputes in our courtroom, the
(24:59):
people's court, right, and then the bongo jobs started.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I did not see Alabama coming up in an episode
on Swiss New Neutrality, did you.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I did not either.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So since then, like you said, they literally wrote the
rules on arbitration, and since then, like they have had
some pretty high profile arbitration meetings, so much so that
they eventually worked what are called the good Offices, which
are everything from like a meeting place to mediation services
(25:32):
for arbitration. It's worked into the Swiss Federal constitution, so
they like that's a huge part of Switzerland maintaining its neutrality,
as saying like, come take advantage of our neutral territory,
like this is a place where you can meet and
work out your differences. Let's all just work out our differences.
(25:52):
Guy and I saw chook. One other thing that they do,
which is really surprising. They represent the interests of country
who are not speaking to each other. So I think
that they represent Iran in Canada. So let's take Iran's like,
we're not even talking to you Canada anymore. We're gonna
get Switzerland to meet with you. We're not even going
(26:13):
to be in the same room with you. They do
that for several different countries.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, I mean, it's uh, they provide a service. I
wonder what kind of like do they charge a fee
for this?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Oh, I'm sure that there's fees involved.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Sure, even if it's just like you know, the hotels
in Geneva are very overprised.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Dude, I'll bet you their like, like coffee service at
these meetings.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And comences are amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, I mean because they got they got to get
something out of it besides neutrality.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Sure. So, I you know, I knew like the Swiss
were known for being very business like. I did not
realize the extent that that is true. I believe that
the Swiss mentality is generally like, yes, it's business. We
conduct our business appropriately fairly, like we are really good
(27:05):
at it. We have good contracts, like we are really
business like, and that that is like, yes, that they
are probably getting something for all of the services they're providing,
because that's business.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah for sure. Yeah, I bet you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
They're also known for their real push toward humanitarian aid
all around the world, especially during times of conflict. Yeah,
no less than the Red Cross, still based in Geneva,
and if you look at their symbol, it's the inverse
of the Swiss flag and that's no accident. But that
(27:44):
all started out because of a Genevan businessman named Henry
Jannant Saint Henry, Yeah for real. In eighteen fifty nine,
he was in Sulfarino, a town in the north of
Italy who's there for work, and he saw the aftermath
of a battle between French and Austria and saw like
(28:04):
forty thousand you know, dead and wounded soldiers all about him,
and it really really moved him and put a dent
in a psyche. I think because he got like personally involved,
started helping out locals, started providing medical assistance, dressing wounds,
like you know, literally himself doing this and spoke to
French officials. It was like, hey, you got a bunch
(28:25):
of Austrian surgeons who are POW's, like, let them out
and let them help their own people, and let them
help your people. And it moved him to the point
where he kind of dedicated his life to it. He
wrote a book called A Memory of Sulfurino and talked
about these experiences in the creation of these committees that
would train volunteers, and that's the stuff that would become
(28:46):
the first national Red Cross Society.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah you feel like, okay, that's pretty impressive. Well prepare
for this one too. You've heard of the Geneva Convention
of the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Oh yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
That was his work. He started arguing and lobbying for
some sort of international agreements on how to treat the
sick and the wounded in the prisoners of war and
that became the first Geneva Convention in eighteen sixty four.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Pretty great.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And the YMCA that you know in love he didn't
create the YMCA, but do not really made it a
global global movement and the World Alliance of the YMCA
is also still in Geneva.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So two things when I hear YMCA, obviously think village people.
But I also think of this great moment from a
Simpsons episode where Lionel Hutts is staying there at the
YMCA and he's asleep, sitting down with his backup against
the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest
and his elbows on his knees and his head down,
so you can imagine, and I think Bart and Lisa
(29:50):
walk up and wake him up, and he suddenly comes
awake and he has it. He brandishes a knife and
he says, don't touch my stuff. Like that's he was
staying at the YA. That was his experience there.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
That's pretty good. I love it, oh man, Lionel huts
was the best.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yes he was, so if you're like, okay, still Dunant's impressive.
But he was probably also just some crazy billionaire who
just wanted to make a good name for himself wrong.
As a matter of fact, all of this humanitarian work
that he focused on led to him becoming bankrupt. He
wasn't paying enough attention to his business, and so he
(30:28):
lost his business, became bankrupt and essentially unknown for a
couple of decades until eighteen ninety five. There was a
journalist who's like, oh my god, this guy. I know
this guy, and he's living like obscurely in poverty. I
need to let everybody know about him. And he was
one of the co recipients of the first Nobel Peace
Prize in nineteen oh one. Quite rightfully so. But this
(30:51):
guy was seriously, legitimately a good person.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, we've seen this kind of one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
It happen quite a bit in history where someone has
done great things, but we're sort of lost to history,
and then some journalists or somebody in or historian dug
them up, well not literally, but you know, dug up
their legacy and brushed it off and said, hey, how
about this awesome person that we kind of forgot about.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, it's nice when they're still alive too, so they
can get the recognition. And maybe you're like, Okay, I'll
bet he owned slaves or something like that. Nope, he
was agitating for the abolition of slavery, or he was
a gun nut. Nope, agitating for disarmament like he was.
He was a humanitarian, if there was ever a humanitarian.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, all right, I say we take another break.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Is that good? Yeah? I think we're at a good break.
Let's all just think about how great Henry Don is.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
All right, Let's spend a few moments doing that, and
we'll be right back. All right. I dwelled on the.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Life of Henry do not, and I feel even better
than I did a few minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Same.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
But we're gonna move on and talk a little bit
about some of the you know, it's not all I
talked about, you know, one sort of darkness and that
they didn't allow Jewish refugees en mass during World War Two.
There's some other stuff that they have on their record
that's not the greatest in the world. I guess we
should talk about Nazi gold a little bit. But in
(32:40):
order to talk about that, we should probably talk a
little bit about just there. You know, you talked about
them being, you know, brilliant business people and a center
for business around the world. That happened because after they
became formerly neutral in eighteen fifteen, they said, you know what,
this is probably a good place for people to put
their mind because we're neutral.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
It's safe.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Anytime there's a lot of chaos around the world, like
with World Wars, everyone knows that they can come here
and do some banking. We may not be like, you know,
like a world banking center with like by the likes
of London or Berlin, but we can become pretty quietly
powerful in our own way, especially if we tell everyone
(33:25):
that all their business will be super private, if you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, they put an emphasis on that kind of thing,
where like, if you open an account in Switzerland for
decades and most of the twentieth century in fact, if
not longer, you could have a secret bank account where
like nobody could really figure it out. And that's it's
not fully true. Like I think if say the US
government came with a subpoena to find out who the
(33:51):
owner was of a specific account, this was we'd cooperate
with them. But for the most part, this was secret stuff, right,
and that was how they made their name as an
international banking center. But also because like again they are
really really good at business, so you knew that this
was like your money was safe not just because Switzerland
(34:13):
was stable, but because their banking system was incredibly stable.
So a lot of people took advantage of that. Dictators,
money launders, eventually, drug dealers, terrorists, basically anyone Jackie Chanen,
anyone you can think of who wanted to evade taxes,
launder money, or just wanted to have their money stashed away,
(34:35):
you know, quietly, and weren't really breaking any laws. You
went to Switzerland. Like it's almost a trope. I think
it is a true the secret Swiss bank account that
you would have money transferred to.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Oh yeah, that officially became official with the Federal Banking
Act of nineteen thirty four, to the utter delight of
screenwriters everywhere then and to come. But that unfortunately dried
up in the nineteen nineties when they were like, all right,
no more secret accounts. I guess we got to get
rid of that provision. But yeah, it worked this way
(35:11):
into a lot of movies over the years, just like
you know, a numbered Swiss bank account that's growing up with,
especially like Cold War movies and stuff like that, spy thrillers.
It was always like a secret Swiss bank account. I
feel like at play.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
They ended up removing that ability from the Swiss banking
system because it started to come out just how many
bad guys, right, we're using it where in Switzerland was
allowing it to happen, So their banking system took a hit,
you know, it's image, and they're like, we can't afford
(35:46):
to do that. We're not making enough money off of
drug dealers and terrorists. We need to you know, brush
our image back up. So that's when they got rid
of that.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, and their image probably needed a little brushing up
because you know, I think I mentioned something about Nazi gold,
or if I didn't, I'm mentioning it for the first
time now. But they because of World War Two, they
the Swiss National Bank ended up buying about four hundred
and forty million dollars in Nazi gold, which was basically,
(36:16):
you know, laundering that gold that was plundered that we've
talked about a lot of times, like the plundering of
World War two of the Germans from you know, different countries,
brutally from Holocaust victims. I know, we've mentioned stuff like
gold dental fillings and stuff. Yeah that was real, Yeah,
from Jewish concentration camp victims. And so it's not a
(36:38):
good look for the Swiss National Bank to be holding
onto this stuff. So later, with the Washington Agreement of
nineteen forty six, they were made to return, well at
least some of that Nazi gold not much of it,
only about twelve percent of it supposedly to its rightful owners,
and that's you know. They ended up using it for
other stuff too, though. They used to sometimes is funds
(37:01):
to repay citizens of Switzerland who had seized property by
communist regimes in Europe. So they were like, hey, maybe
we'll use some of this Nazi gold to repay our
own coffers.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, and you said that, they, you know, basically laundered it.
They one hundred percent laundered this. So they the Nazis
showed up with literally tons and tons of gold, hundreds
of tons of gold that was stolen from other countries,
gave it to Switzerland. Switzerland gave the Nazi regime money,
lots and lots of money in return, and then Switzerland
turned around and took that gold and sold it to
(37:33):
Spain and Portugal. So they fenced stolen gold for the
Nazis and gave the Nazis money in return. It's as
simple as that. People then know this until the nineteen nineties,
when Switzerland was sued by a few organizations, including the
World Jewish Congress. That was bad enough. So this is
coming out at the same time that the secret account
(37:53):
stuff is coming out too, So Switzerland's taking like one,
two punches, haymakers, ropidopes even left and right. And then
on top of that, even worse, you said that they
were returning twelve percent of the Nazi gold to its
rightful owners as part of the Washington Agreement of nineteen
forty six. Well, a lot of people who were fleeing
(38:14):
Germany or fleeing the Nazi regime, or fleeing the Holocaust
but wanted to kind of keep their valuables in a
safe place went to Switzerland to put money in bank accounts,
to put valuable items in safe deposit boxes. And after
the war ended, their heirs would show up and say,
you know, my grandpa or my dad or somebody put this,
(38:37):
you know, this family heirloom, this hope diamond in a
safe deposit box in your bank, and I'm here to
claim it. Here's all the documentation that i'm their rightful heir.
And they would say, all of your papers look like
they're in order, but I don't see a death certificate.
And the air would say, well, my father or grandpa
or whatever died in a concentration camp. The Nazis didn't
(38:59):
issue death certific kids for that they kind of wanted
to keep it secret, and this Swiss would say, sorry,
can't help you, and they did that across the board.
So they basically kept hundreds of millions of dollars is
the accusation of legitimate deposits from legitimate errors of victims
of the Holocaust.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, and well a lot of times they didn't even
have documentation at all, you know, much less death certificates
because that stuff was destroyed in the war. Finally, in
nineteen forty six they promised to say, all right, we're
gonna find these assets of Holocaust victims from people who
have no like, identifiable errors, and we're going to at
(39:42):
least transfer them to a Jewish reconstruction organization. And decades
later they basically concluded that that didn't really happen. And
then nineteen ninety I think was when you said, finally,
like fully like was exposed and there was a sus
from the World Jewish Congress that got a one point
(40:02):
two to five billion dollar settlement.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Finally in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, and again since then, the Swiss have been doing
everything they can to kind of rehabilitate their image, but
at the same time, they have also shown like they're
not ones to just immediately bow to international pressure. The
way that you get them is to hit them in
their pocketbooks, like threaten their business or their entire banking industry.
That's kind of what the pressure from the outside world
(40:28):
was doing. Yeah, so sure they seem to have rebounded largely.
There are some other things that make Switzerland peculiar too
that are much less evil or dark. One is that
they really are in a kind of a weird position
as far as international groups go. Like in some ways,
like it makes a lot of sense that they're the
(40:50):
host of the International Red Cross headquarters Geneva, is right,
But what about the UN? Should they be members of
the UN? The UN? Does they have like peacekeeping troops
with guns and stuff like that? Is what are the
ramifications of Switzerland joining the UN? And they debated that
for decades.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, they finally, I mean it wasn't until two thousand
and two that they even joined the UN. And like
you said, it took a long time to kind of
work out internally whether or not that's something they wanted
to do or that would kind of ruin all those
decades and decades of neutrality that they had become known for.
There was a referendum that they eventually voted on whether
(41:30):
or not to become a member, and advocates said, you
know what, if we get involved with them, we can
get involved and still like be committed to mediation and
humanitarian aid, like that will be our role within the UN.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And it was a pretty close vote.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
It was fifty four point six in favor and twelve yeah,
almost like right at half. Twelve out of the twenty
three cantons voted yes. And then finally in twenty twenty
three it became a non permanent member of the UN Security.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Council, that's those peacekeeping troops.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
That's right, And that was another you know, it wasn't
It was pretty evenly split as well, so like even
within the country they've always sort of hedged like whether
or not they wanted to support joining up with these
world groups, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Right exactly, and for good reason too. I mean it's
tricky stuff. One of the places or one of the
groups that they are just roundly rejecting, so much so
that they basically told the EU like we're not we're
not negotiating anymore, We're not joining the European Union, and
the reason why they actually have pretty legitimate reasons why,
(42:38):
especially if you come at life from a business like attitude.
But one is that they would immediately be a net contributor.
They would be paying out way more than they were
benefiting from being a member of the EU. And the
reason why is because they basically have cherry treaties with
all of the European countries to do business with them,
(42:59):
which is like the attractive thing for a rich country
to join the EU. So they have that without being
part of the EU, without having to pay into the
EU right now, So they have the best of both
worlds and really negative incentive, a number of negative incentives
to join the EU.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Another is they just they really love taking care of
their own business what they would call direct democracy and
deciding for them what's best for them. And if you're
part of the EU, then obviously you're part of a
larger collective and you don't like just individual citizens' ability
to decide things for themselves and hold those referendums that
(43:40):
would go away, and so they're not into that. And
also just you know, they built up this neutral brand
over the years and it's not like branding, branding but
it kind of is, and that they don't want to
just throw that all away. After again, you know, more
than one hundred years more than that actually of like
being known. Like you know, when you think neutral and
(44:02):
you think chocolate and you think cuckoo clocks and army knives,
you think of Switzerland, and they don't want that to
go away.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, when you think thirst, you think sprite. When you
think neutral, you think of Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
There's another thing too that being a member of the
EU means that any member nation or the residents of
any member nation or the EU can move to your
place unrestricted as far as I know. So immigration is
free throughout the European Union, and Switzerland's like, we actually
are pretty strict on immigration, and we're worried that if
(44:38):
we get a lot of people migrating to Switzerland, the
wages in Switzerland are going to start to be decompressed
because a lot of people migrating here are willing to
accept far less than what the average Swiss person is paid.
So yeah, essentially, every they have all these incentives, you know,
morally upstanding or not to not join the EU, and
(45:00):
it does not look like they are ever going to
join the EU.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, or NATO obviously, that's a warring organization for sure,
or not a warring organization, but a military alliance for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
And for all of its blemishes and rough spots and
all that, I hope Switzerland stays Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
You know, it would be I think everyone does.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
I think the world would kind of lose something if
if Switzerland just became like any other country. You know, agreed, Well,
that's Switzerland, Chuck, Swiss neutrality, I should say, that's right.
If you want to know more about Swiss neutrality, travel
of Switzerland, or watch a documentary on Switzerland. And in
the meantime, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
There's another Mash follow up. Hey guys, huge Mash fan.
I'm a bit older than Chuck and still only twelve
when it debuted. It was a perfect blend of comedy
and poignant drama showing the horrors of war. I always
thought the writing was brilliant and did take characters on
a great growth art being a closeted gay kid now
(46:03):
openly and very happy gay man.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
It was one of the first times.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
That a TV show dealt with the subject of homosexuality
in a sympathetic way, even if only on one episode.
I was such a fan that I'd developed a mash
trivia game similar to Trivial Pursuit, and a number of
details you mentioned in your episode were part of the game,
like Toledo and Tony Pacos.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
So great job, guys.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
You always do a great job and are so pleasant
to listen to on my daily walks and whenever you
guys touch on LGTVQ plus topics.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
You do an amazing jobs to straight guys. So thank
you for that.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
And that is from Dave in Vancouver. And Dave, I
hope you're coming to see our live.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Show in Vancouver. Yeah, we can't wait.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
There's still tickets available for all of the Well, I
guess the first LUG will be over by this time,
but that second leg in July I believe is probably
somewhere around this time.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
We'd love to see everyone.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Coming up quick, Dave, So yeah, we'd love to see
you too. You can watch Just be Too Straight Guys
live and in person.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
If you want to be like Dave and let us
know how much you like us, we really appreciate those
kind of emails. Or you can say whatever you like
whatever you have to say, send it off to stuff
Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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