Oerlikon-Bührle

Real large orders and deliveries were made to France, Great Britain and the Netherlands as a result of the massive rearmament in 1938.

In France, Germany, Italy, Japan and England there were attempts at cooperation (1932/33 with Hispano-Suiza, France), cooperation (1932/33 with Scotti, Italy), licensing (1936 to Germany and Japan, 1939 to the UK) and company investments (1934 to 1939 in the Ikaria Gesellschaft für Flugzeugzubehör mbH in Berlin; manufacturer of the 20 mm machine gun MG FF).

Emil G. Bührle's diversification strategy was to reduce risk by investing in the civil sector on the one hand and in building up the Pilatus Aircraft Works on the other.

For their fulfilment, even urgent needs of the Swiss Army for 20 mm Oerlikon guns had to be postponed out of consideration for the policy of the Federal Council.

It was not until the summer of 1940 that WO also supplied 20-mm guns to the Axis powers in accordance with Federal Council policy and under pressure from the Swiss trade delegation.

Researchers agree that the Swiss government's request to E. G. Bührle to supply Germany - later denied by Federal Councillor Kobelt - was a violation of the Neutrality Law.

After the conquest of France and complete fascist encirclement, Switzerland had been put under pressure by Nazi Germany to deliver all war material produced for foreign countries to the Axis powers.

[1] From WO's point of view, these partly entered into the supply contracts with England and France, which could no longer be fulfilled, in the deals that were now starting.

[2] WO's business with the Axis countries - Germany, Italy and Romania - reached a total of 543.4 million Swiss francs in the years 1940 to 1944 (adjusted for inflation today, about 2 billion Fr. )

The company specialised in the production of thin films and thus founded the core technology of today's OC Oerlikon, which was temporarily also called Unaxis.

Between 1963 and 1968, the group violated the Federal Council's export bans on war material by supplying weapons to the countries involved in conflicts: Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon.

[6] In the course of the affair resulting from the media reports, Federal President Willy Spühler had to admit that the authorities had had information about illegal arms exports for months.

As a political consequence, a popular initiative to ban the export of war material was submitted in 1969, which was narrowly rejected in 1972 with 49.8% of the votes in favour, but also with a clear Ständemehr.

In 1991, failures in ADATS and the end of the Cold War forced the decision to focus on technology, consumer goods and customer service.