The Nation (Switzerland)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Die Nation" was a Swiss newspaper that existed from 1933 to 1952.

history

The nation was founded in September 1933 by a group of personalities who campaigned for independence , democracy and the rule of law across party and class boundaries . The Swiss artist Max Bill designed the typography . The nation denounced fascism in Italy as well as National Socialism in Germany and became an anti-fascist intellectual bulwark in Switzerland.

Before the journalist Peter Surava joined “Nation”, the newspaper had a circulation of 8,000 copies. Surava's articles turned out to be well-informed. They reported on the victims of National Socialism and the situation in the Jewish ghettos . She turned against politically motivated tendencies in Switzerland to filter the news about world politics through censorship and to make it beautiful.

The Swiss press censorship did not want to irritate National Socialist Germany. General Guisan warned that the press could be held responsible for a National Socialist attack on Switzerland if it continued to write like the “Nation” and spoke of the possible “blood toll” of its soldiers. But the subject of censorship was political, and Guisan didn't really want to interfere, which is why he transferred the management of censorship to a civilian agency in 1940, the Police and Justice Department of Eduard von Steiger . In hundreds of censorship decisions, the Swiss press censorship denied the extermination of the Jews under the then BGB Federal Councilor Eduard von Steiger, who was an attorney of trust for the German legation in Bern before the war. In the censorship decisions there are expressions such as "Germany, a power that is friends with us". The Swiss press censors had described the extermination of the Jews as “atrocity propaganda”, “horror tales” or “pure Polish propaganda”. There are handwritten marginal notes in these files in the Swiss Federal Archives, some of which come from Eduard von Steiger, such as: "The nation is a filth that should be stopped as soon as possible" or "Surava - a bastard!". The editor-in-chief at the time, Peter Surava, and with him “Die Nation” resisted and were constantly bullied for it.

So the name Peter Surava became a clear sign of the way for many Swiss people during the World War. It was therefore no wonder that the circulation of the “Nation” rose to 120,000 copies. The increase in circulation started especially after Stalingrad . At that time, many Swiss people visibly tucked “Die Nation” in their vest pockets to show what they thought, having previously preferred not to express their opinion publicly. The "Nation" was also a pioneer newspaper for social reports with texts by Peter Surava and photos by Paul Senn .

After a long period of oblivion, the “Nation” and Peter Surava caused a sensation again with the 1995 documentary “He called himself Surava” by Erich Schmid and the book “Abschied von Surava” (Ed. Erich Schmid) published by Wolfbach Verlag Zurich Texts by 22 authors, including Federal Councilor Ruth Dreifuss , Federal Councilor Flavio Cotti , Alfred A. Häsler , Oskar Reck , Helmut Hubacher , Josef Estermann , Werner Kramer , Sigi Feigel , Richard Dindo , Peter Kamber and drawings by Hanny Fries .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cf. the extensive technical work by Annetta Bundi and Andi Jacomet “There is something in Switzerland” - University of Bern, Institute for Media Studies, June 1997 (PDF; 590 KB)

See also

Web links