Swiss sea import 1940-1943

Enrico Cernuschi · Post by **Enrico Cernuschi** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:48 am

Hello Gentlemen,

may someone tell me something about Swiss import by sea during the 1940-1945 time (they could use some facilities in the Ligurian harbours) and the total of their merchant marine during the war?

Bye

EC

Enrico Cernuschi · Post by **Enrico Cernuschi** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:46 am

Nothing?

EC

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:19 pm

Enrico youre going to have to go outside the Net for this, possibly harbourmaster's ledgers if theyre still extant. Unless its vital strategic military materiel that was being brought in, its not going to be in ANY primary surces anyone here deals with

The only "water-borne" imports I ever heard of into Switzerland was the salami smuggling over the lakes from Italy.

Enrico Cernuschi · Post by **Enrico Cernuschi** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:00 pm

Hi Phylo,

Switzerland needed oil. Germany sold coal and Italy increased 5 times her trade with Berne between 1940 and 1943, but some stuffs could be supplied only by USA or from Latin America (cocoa for example). Switzerland bought some Italian freighters which were in South America in June 1940 and signed a pact with Rome to have facilities in the Savona harbour for her import and export trade. The Swiss paid this facilities delivering Italy (among other items) more than 1.000 Oerlikon 20 mm guns ordered and paid, in advance, by the British in 1939.

The Italian radars were manifactured too, in 1943, with USA made components bought by Switzerland in the States and smuggled by the Swiss in Italy. In the old FIVRE factory just in front of my house there are many pounds of invoices about this trade and even remains of these materials with the year on the original boxes: 1942 and 1943.

I would be surprised if ther's no Swiss fellow of Feldgrau able to give us some more infos about the big numbers of this trade.

Greetings

EC

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 4:05 pm

Sid, scratching head now - thats quite enlightening....and I really doubt if you're going to find it in the public domain. Stuff there like trading munitions, confiscating munitions, selling completed radar components to belligerents.....i'd guess at THIS point only the ITALIAN end of this trading relationship is known and admitted to, its going to be hard to find it from the Swiss side. From what litle *I* know about Switzerland, while being supposedly the ultimate democracy....thy're also paranoid about secrecy and security. It took decades for them to admit to Italian troop trains passing through Swiss territory, ditto concentration camp-bound trains, and they managed for a long time to suppress word about how they turned German refugeee Jews and others back into Germany. So how much of an active trading relationship in military hardware and armaments is available for you to find I wouldn't be too sure of

Heimatschuss · Post by **Heimatschuss** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:54 am

Hello Enrico,

you should try to consult the following books

Walter Zürcher
Schweizer Flagge zur See. Die Geschichte der schweizerischen Hochseeschiffahrt
1986
ISBN 3716504866

Walter Zürcher
Die Schweizer Hochseeflotte 1939 - 1945 (Hardcover)
Urbes Verlag, Hamburg, 1992
ISBN 3924896240

Walter Zürcher
Die Schweizer Handelsschiffe 1939-1945 (Paperback)
Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft 1992
ISBN 378220560X

Walter Zürcher is definitely THE expert on the Swiss merchant navy currently.
http://www.swiss-ships.ch/berichte-buec ... flagge.htm

Perhaps this also contains something:

Barbara Lüem
HEIMATHAFEN BASEL
Die Schweizer Rhein- und Hochseeschifffahrt
264 Seiten, ca. 300 Abbildungen (Duplex), gebunden
Christoph Merian Verlag 2003
ISBN 3-85616-189-9

Good luck in digging down their referenced material.
Torsten

Enrico Cernuschi · Post by **Enrico Cernuschi** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 9:38 am

Thank you.

EC