In 1940, confronted with the successful Blitzkrieg of Nazi Germany against Poland and France, and the German Panzer divisions lined up along their border, the Swiss government found itself in an awkward position.
[2] The then President of the Swiss Confederation and Foreign Minister, Marcel Pilet-Golaz delivered on 25 June 1940 an ambiguous speech where he made allusions to an "adaptation to the new conditions", a "partial demobilization of the Army", a "national turnaround", a more authoritarian regime for Switzerland and to a "new order" in Europe, in short a lot of Petainist vocabulary mixed with consensual, religious-ringing rhetoric (which earned the speech the nickname of “sermon”).
[4] His calculated but ambiguous attitude was confirmed and raise even more doubts within Switzerland when he received on the federal premises a delegation of the Swiss extreme right "frontists", on 10 and 14 September 1940.
[11] Charles-F. Ducommun, a trade-unionist,[11] and Julien Lescaze, communication officer at the ICRC[12] soon joined the signatories and worked efficiently to spread the League's message.
Among the most notable supporters of the Gotthard League are Gottlieb Duttweiler, founder of the Migros chain of grocery stores, Protestant theologian Emil Brunner, conservative historian Gonzague de Reynold and socialist philosopher and psychologist Philippe Müller.
It appealed strongly in favour of the military defense of the réduit national around the Saint-Gotthard Massif – as advocated by General Guisan, of intelligence gathering, of a series of economic and political reforms and of a "struggle against defeatism and deceitful propaganda".
The federal assembly representing the cantons was for instance named "Diète" (Diet) as in the Ancien Régime of Switzerland (prior to the 1798 French invasion).
"[19] Working through press conferences, « patriotic evenings », meetings, courses, advertisements, posters and pamphlets, the circa 8000 members of the League campaigned for collective social responsibility on matters such as agricultural development (to achieve food self-sufficiency, see fr:Plan Wahlen), family protection, elderly care, and job creations.
[23] The Gotthard League’s attempt to unite people from highly diverse backgrounds into a kind of union of opposites (Catholics and Protestants, French-speaking and German-speaking, political right and left, …) raised questions in many quarters of Swiss society and criticism was both sharp and immediate ; in a letter dated 6 August 1940, Denis de Rougemont mentions « the 200 articles written against us » and he goes on to add « we are being accused with utmost assurance to be Nazis, Marxists, Catholics, Oxfordians, a daughter company of Duttweiler, utopians, fixers, etc.