Max Waibel (officer)

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Max Waibel memorial plaque (Allmend barracks, Lucerne )

Max Waibel (* 2. May 1901 in Basel , † 20th January 1971 in Lucerne ; citizen of Basel and Itingen ) was a Swiss news service - officer in World War II .

Life

In 1923 he received his doctorate in political science . From 1927 he took over the function of instruction officer at the Waffenplatz in Lucerne . In 1935 he was transferred to the General Staff and in 1938 sent to the Berlin War Academy . When the war broke out in 1939 he returned to Switzerland and took over the management of the Rigi / Lucerne news collection point.

In 1940 Waibel was one of the founders of the Officers' Union, which wanted to take up the fight against any German troops that might march in if the Federal Council decided to surrender. Waibel was arrested together with his deputy Bernhard Mayr von Baldegg, but soon released and promoted to major at the end of 1940. He was involved in the national resistance campaign. He then headed the intelligence service section 1 (NS-1, Rigi) of the Swiss Army and commissioned Christian Schneider , an employee of the Ha department's office , to pass on militarily relevant information to the Soviet Union.

For SS-General Karl Wolff , Waibel became the main mediator in the German surrender in northern Italy because of his acquaintance with Allen Dulles , the representative of the Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland . Secret meetings took place with him, the first time on March 8, 1945 in Zurich. At the same time one was in contact with the Italian partisans. After the war, Waibel met with Allied generals, who thanked him for mediating the peace. According to the historian Edgar Bonjour , Operation Sunrise shortened the war by six to eight weeks and saved northern Italy's rich cultural heritage from German destruction in the event of a forced withdrawal. In 1953 Max Waibel was promoted to colonel division.

Max Waibel was married to Margrit Schwytzer von Buonas from the Lucerne patrician family of the same name and lived with his family at the prestigious Dorenbach manor, in whose stately salons the negotiations mentioned took place. The meetings, which were kept under the utmost secrecy and threatened to fail several times, represented a logistical masterpiece every time. Meetings also took place in the Hotel Schweizerhof Lucerne as well as in Ascona and Lugano. a. with Generals Lemnitzer and Airey .

60 years after the end of the war, a memorial plaque was inaugurated in the presence of his family in the army training center in Lucerne. The Swiss President Samuel Schmid and the ambassadors of the USA, Russia, France and Italy were present. In his speech, the former State Secretary Franz Blankart said that Waibel would have been stopped by the Federal Council had it known of its activities. Courageously and willfully he did not follow orders but followed his conscience and thus brought the war in Europe to an early end. This is what it says on the plaque.

After his retirement, Waibel became chairman of the board of directors of Ernst Brunner, a businessman who had gotten rich trading penicillin. In 1970 the bank collapsed, leaving behind a debt of 20 million Swiss francs. Waibel felt jointly responsible for the debtors, gave a farewell party at Christmas, saw no way out and then shot himself with his service pistol in January.

People of the "Red Chapel"

Fonts

  • 1945 - Surrender in Northern Italy. Original report from the intermediary . Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1981, ISBN 3-7190-0803-7 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Peter Müller-Grieshaber: Mayr von Baldegg, Bernard. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ^ "Operation Sunrise" - secret deal with Nazis and allies , NZZ, March 30, 2020
  3. ^ Basler Stadtbuch - Chronicle entry for September 21, 1953: Colonel Corps Commander Heinrich Iselin appoints Colonel Max Waibel as Colonel Division and Chief of Arms of the Infantry .
  4. ^ Initiation of peace for northern Italy. NZZ Online from April 16, 2005: (….) The now 93-year-old Marguerite Waibel-Schwytzer von Buonas has outlived her husband, Max Waibel, by decades and still lives on the idyllically located patrician estate Dorenbach at the foot of the Dietschiberg in Lucerne . Sixty years ago Allen Dulles, head of the US secret service in Bern, met SS-General Karl Wolff (...)
  5. ↑ Swissinfo.ch, May 6, 2005.
  6. ↑ Gatsby in Central Switzerland - NZZ . November 4, 2007.
  7. ↑ Alex Capus: 13 True Stories , pp. 50/51


personal data
SURNAME Waibel, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss army officer
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH 20th January 1971
Place of death Lucerne