Rescue troops

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Air raid protection leaflet from 1951

The rescue troops (95 air protection troops up to the army reform ) are one of the branches of the Swiss Army . Your task is military disaster relief. These include:

  • Rescue operations in severe and extensive damage situations
  • Rescue operations in major fires
  • Contribution to aid to the population cut off from the environment and threatened
  • Prevention of the expansion of the disaster area and its consequential damage
  • Temporary restoration of vital infrastructure

history

During the First World War it became clear that the civilian population had to be better protected against air attacks . In Switzerland during the interwar period, a distinction was made between “active air protection” ( air defense) and “passive air protection”, understood as direct assistance to the population for protection before and after attacks from the air. In 1936 the Department for Air Raid Troops (ALST) was set up in the Federal Military Department . When the war broke out in 1939, the organization was largely ready to support the population in setting up shelters and blackouting. Because of the blue overalls, they were called the blue air raid shelter . After the war, the passive air defense was dissolved again.

As a link to civil defense in Switzerland, air raid troops were brought back to life in 1951 with a strength of 35,000 men; the first commander at that time was the later Colonel Brigadier Erich Münch . In contrast to the “blue air raid protection” of the Second World War, the air raid troops were armed with infantry during the Cold War and were part of the Swiss army. Their tasks were rescuing people from rubble fields and fighting fires. The air raid troops were also trained to decontaminate people, materials, buildings and streets. They could be used to care for the homeless and refugees.

With the reform of the Army 95 , the air raid troops experienced a first material upgrade. The name of the type of service was adapted to the broader range of tasks and has since been rescue troops. Before the XXI Army Reform , there were 23 rescue battalions, afterwards a reduced number of eight disaster relief battalions (two of them as reserve troops) and a disaster relief organization that can be deployed within hours in Switzerland, but also in neighboring countries. The training of rescue soldiers has been carried out since Army XXI in the Genie / Rescue training association using common ground with the engineering troops .

The main training barracks of the rescue force in the RS is that of Wangen an der Aare, the VBA takes place in the training village of Epeisses near Geneva.

The training village in Wangen, as well as the ASA (respiratory protection system of the army) is also regularly used by civil organizations for training purposes, for example by redogs teams, fire brigades and / or civil defense .

The technical relief organization in Germany is comparable to the rescue troops, but unarmed and not part of the armed forces .

literature

Jean Langenberger: Aspects of disaster relief for Switzerland: Contribution of the army . In: BALST series of publications . No. 3 . Federal Office for Air Protection Forces, Bern 1992.

Web links

Commons : Swiss Civil Defense  - Collection of images, videos and audio files