Bergier commission

Founded in a decade when Switzerland had come under recurring criticism for its behaviour during World War II, particularly with respect to its relations with the Nazi government in Germany,[1] the commission was established by the Swiss Parliament and headed by Jean-François Bergier, an economic historian.

Made up of Polish, American, Israeli and Swiss historians, the commission's mandate was to investigate the volume and fate of assets moved to Switzerland before, during, and immediately after the Second World War.

The content of the research program was broadened by the government to include economic relations, arms production, "Aryanisation measures", the monetary system, and refugee policy.

"[9] The change in description came as a consequence of a March 2001 retraction regarding the responsibility for the J Stamp and police chief Heinrich Rothmund's role by the Beobachter, the Swiss magazine that had originally revealed the existence of the J-Stamp in the 1950s.

[13] However, in the final report, perhaps having taken into account criticism of the earlier figures,[14] the commission was more cautious, indicating that it must be assumed that "Switzerland turned back or deported over 20,000 refugees during the Second World War."

"[17][18] The commission defined its focus: "The question which arises is not whether Switzerland should or could have maintained its business contacts and foreign trade with the warring powers in the first place, but rather how far these activities went: in other words, where the line should be drawn between unavoidable concessions and intentional collaboration.

"Maintaining trade and business traffic was an 'essential precondition for conducting the wartime economy...'"[20] Swiss exports were a necessary condition for obtaining imports of necessary food and raw materials required for the population.

While its trading role as such could be seen as the result of maintaining neutrality, a proportion of the gold had in fact been stolen from private individuals and the central banks of Germany's defeated neighbors (particularly Belgium and the Netherlands).

Swiss justification for their role ranged from lack of knowledge of where the gold originated to the right of seizure by an invading power to the need to maintain Switzerland's neutral status.

"In 1946, the value of securities of dubious provenance to find their way to Switzerland during the war was estimated by the Federal Department of Finance (Eidgenössisches Finanzdepartement, EFD) to be between 50 and 100 million francs.

"With one exception, Swiss insurers supported the furnishing of such proof, thus endorsing discrimination against the Jews and extending the scope of Germany's racial laws to Switzerland as well.

The commission concluded that "Swiss involvement in the Nazi regime's looting and cultural policy was considerable and diverse; as a result, Hitler's and Goering's collections were boosted by the acquisition of major works by the Old Masters and the school of German Romanticism".

[41] However, the commission was unable to say much more about the size and importance of such involvement, concluding that "the notion that the trade in looted art – compared with the occupied territories of Western Europe – took place on a particularly large scale could not be confirmed.

One of the most important aspects was the abandonment of constitutional principal of equality before the law which had far reaching impact on the treatment of foreigners, minority citizens and contributed to the failure of the state to offer any diplomatic protection to Swiss Jews residing in Nazi occupied territory.

They conclude, "...diplomatic practice increasingly came into line with the ethnic «völkisch» criteria adopted by the Nazi state, an approach which sharply conflicted with the constitutional equality enjoyed by Jews in Switzerland since 1874.

However, the commission found that the practice of certifying the Aryan origin of its staff was widespread among owners and senior managers of Swiss companies in Nazi-occupied territory.

Not only were their head offices in Switzerland aware of what was happening – often because their subsidiaries within Nazi-controlled territory were involved in the acquisition of Jewish businesses – but they approved of or even encouraged the process.

"[50] In March 1945, after intensive negotiation with the allied Currie mission, an agreement was signed by the Swiss which "provided for the restitution of all assets looted under the Nazi regime and moved to neutral territory."

"[53] Although the Swiss paid 250 million francs in 1946 related to war-time gold transactions, the government refused to label it as restitution or reparation payments, but rather as a voluntary contribution to the reconstruction of war-torn Europe.

"[54] With respect to the bank accounts held by Jewish victims, the Swiss authorities were reluctant to change any of their past procedures in light of the extraordinary events in Germany and German-occupied territories.

When as a result of continuing allied pressure, a decree was issued in 1945 which broke with past legal practice, it was valid only for a period of two years and it was not publicized internationally, making it likely that there would be few claimants.

Contemporaries realised as early as 1945 that the extent of the crimes committed by the Nazi regime had called for special legislation that would have impinged on relations governed by private law in order to enable restitution to be made.

"[57] Although later work added more details about the unclaimed assets of Holocaust victims (see: Volcker Commission), it was clear that claims were rejected for narrow legalistic reasons.

After the war, the Swiss companies mainly refused to redeem policies held by holocaust victims and their heirs, arguing that the amounts had already been paid out according to German law.

Serge Klarsfeld, the French-Jewish historian, activist and Nazi Hunter claimed in 2013 that the Swiss authorities rejected fewer WWII Jewish refugees than believed.

The magazine stated that the J-Stamp was the product of 1935 negotiations between the Nazi and Swiss governments relating to the imposition of visa requirements on all German citizens wishing to enter Switzerland.

Based on the archived paper trail the German side (led by negotiator Werner Best) made the initial suggestion while Switzerland approved it at a joint meeting in 1938, where Rothmund was present.

Swiss academic Jean-Christian Lambelet of the University of Lausanne published a critical paper (translated into English) in 2001 where he questioned the internal consistency, accuracy of several statements and statistics found in the Bergier report, as well as identified instances of what he thought was hyperbole that went beyond historical analysis and evaluation.

[63] Another Swiss academic, the historian Philippe Marguerat (at the time of the University of Neuchatel) believed that the Bergier Commission, though acknowledging (and then refuting) some Swiss arguments for the legality and moral permissibility of gold purchases from Nazi Germany, failed to take into consideration the inherent military deterrent value of the gold purchases as a justification considering Germany had already made plans to invade.

The working group had around 500 members, including former ambassadors and chief officials of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, former military officers with the rank of general, professors from various disciplines and personalities from the business world and Swiss industry.