What is Switzerland?
The founding of Switzerland is typically dated to 1291, with an oath on the Rütli meadow between Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden. This was a small band of territories coming together to pledge mutual security to one another, and to offer reciprocal recognition of laws and legal verdicts.
Switzerland’s name in German, Schweiz, is a synecdoche, taken from the single original canton, Schwyz. It is thought that this was originally used pejoratively by Swabians and Austrians. If, in 1450, you told someone from Bern that they were a Schwyzer, it meant that they were a miserable farmer rather than an upstanding burgher. This was also imbued with a suggestion of sodomitical pig-fucking (the Sau-Schwyzer) and all the taboos this would have carried in the Middle Ages. Nonetheless, with time the urbane northerners of Zürich and Basel came to embrace the label and its free, rustic connotations.
Folk-mythology says that the ancestors of the Swiss came from Sweden. This clearly accords with our understanding of the Germanic migrations. As these people ventured south to build a new home in the valleys of central Switzerland, they were said to be led by two brothers, Suito and Tschey. As the story goes, Suito killed Tschey in a duel and, like Romulus, named his domain after himself.
The Battle of Sempach in 1386 marked a pivotal moment in Swiss history. Lucerne, challenging Habsburg authority by protecting cities and villages – a Habsburg prerogative – faced retaliation from the Habsburgs, who deployed the Upper Rhine nobility. However, in a surprising outcome, the Swiss, mainly commoners and local militias, defeated the Habsburg forces. This victory, underscored by the death of Duke Leopold of Habsburg, was a decisive moment for the Swiss Confederation.
During the Burgundian Wars in the late fifteenth century, Switzerland further established its military reputation, with its victories boosting the country’s military stature and bringing wealth and expanded territories, marking a decline in Burgundian power.
However, these successes led to internal strife, particularly between rural areas like Schwyz, focused on maintaining autonomy, and urban cantons such as Zürich and Bern. This discord culminated in the Stans Commune of 1481. Here, a meeting led by hermit and mystic Nicholas von der Flüe aimed to address potential civil war threats. The resulting Stanser Verkommnis, emphasising respect for cantonal autonomy and the need for cooperation, solidified federalism and communal harmony as pillars of Swiss political culture.
The sixteenth century in Switzerland witnessed the Kappel Wars, pitting Protestant Zürich against the Catholic cantons. The Peace of Kappel in 1531 allowed each canton to determine its own religious affiliation, prefiguring the 1555 Peace of Augsburg in the much larger Holy Roman Empire (from which Switzerland was de facto independent since 1499, and formally so following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648).
This religious landscape was, of course, another contributing factor to Switzerland’s cantonal structure, favouring local governance in an already compact state. As a confederation of both Protestant and Catholic cantons, Switzerland navigated a path that avoided entanglement in broader religious conflicts – one of many ways through which Swiss neutrality was reinforced.
By this point, you may have noticed that all the various names you have encountered are German names. Where’s Geneva? Where are the Italians? The Rumansch? There is a simple reason for this. For most of Swiss history, Switzerland was not a bilingual or trilingual union. It was an essentially German confederation. Switzerland’s most basic national myths – the battles of Morgarten and Sempach, the oath on the Rütli, Wilhelm Tell – all involve its foundational German cantons and their German-speaking citizens.
There was no equality for French-speaking Swiss until 1798. In bilingual areas like Fribourg, German was the official language. The Canton of Vaud, which contains Lausanne, was for most of its history a subject of (German) Bern. Geneva, while a longtime ally of the Swiss Confederation, was an independent Calvinist city-state, only joining Switzerland in 1815 after being assigned to it in the Congress of Vienna.
The less populous Italian subjects of Switzerland were also just that: subjects. They were not equal members of the Confederacy, but territories governed by bailiffs appointed from the German-speaking cantons which had expanded south to secure key trade routes. The canton of Ticino, formed out of these territories, was only established in 1803.
In other words, the idea of a multilingual, ‘diverse’ Switzerland is a post-Napoleonic invention. To the extent that Swiss national mythology is authentic, it is as a southern German state.
One way of looking at all of this is that while Switzerland’s many divisions – between city and country, language, and religion – were increasingly pronounced from the sixteenth century, these did not follow a simple centrifugal pattern as there was no single, dominant centre. There was no deep-seated, fundamental conflict that pitted one group against another in a way that threatened the country’s existence.
Germans and French were each divided between Protestants and Catholics, who were in turn divided by town and country. You didn’t have an entrenched opposition between French-speaking burghers and German-speaking peasants, because you also had German-speaking burghers and French-speaking peasants. You had French Protestants in Lausanne and German Catholics in Lucerne, but you also had French Catholics in the Jura and German Protestants in Zürich.
This allowed for a strange equilibrium to hold into the era of modern nationalism, whereby Switzerland somehow survived. This was helped along by a combination of decentralisation and sheer affluence – the French and Italians today get to be part of a well-run state with a great deal of linguistic and fiscal autonomy, and it’s a better deal than the alternative.
Much as Swiss internal politics was held together through a strange and tense equilibrium, so was Switzerland’s position vis-à-vis other states.
From the late medieval period onward, Switzerland was renowned for its mercenaries. Particularly known for their effective use of the pike square format, they were employed by a range of monarchs and states, including France, the Papal States, and various Italian cities. Their service in foreign armies was a source of income for individual soldiers and their families, as well as the cantons themselves.
The extensive use of Swiss mercenaries by European powers meant that any invader of Switzerland would risk losing a vital military resource, as Swiss soldiers in foreign armies might be recalled or withhold their services if their homeland were threatened, posing a challenge to any would-be invader. The widespread employment of Swiss mercenaries across competing European powers created a web of allegiances and dependencies, with the end effect of a broad consensus in keeping Switzerland intact.
Swiss neutrality was formally recognised in the Congress of Vienna when the Great Powers reconstituted the Confederation after it had been transformed into the puppet Helvetic Republic under Napoleon. This formal recognition of Switzerland’s neutrality was grounded in the desire of the Great Powers to establish a stable buffer zone, helping to maintain the balance of geopolitical power that the Congress sought to achieve.
We can therefore see two neutral Switzerlands in history: an older one which supplied mercenaries, and a newer one which supplied venues for international institutions and financial services. The use of soldiers-for-hire had been declining in Europe even prior to 1815 with the rise of professional armies. The Congress of Vienna can therefore be seen as a happy coincidence, with Switzerland transitioning from one model of neutrality to the other.
It is this second neutral Switzerland that are now familiar with. The Switzerland of the Red Cross (1863), the International Labour Union (1919), and the League of Nations (1920). The Switzerland of the First Zionist Congress (1897), and the Switzerland of Vladimir Lenin (1914-17).
This second neutral Switzerland stood in contrast to the nascent Imperial Germany. Switzerland thus became a venue for different ideas and a place of exile. The legend of Wilhelm Tell – the legendary medieval figure who stood up to the Habsburgs – was popularised by the German Friedrich Schiller in his 1804 play. Schiller had never visited Switzerland, but with all the timely themes of revolution and struggle against tyranny, he did much to idealise it. Richard Wagner fled to Switzerland after participating in the Dresden Uprising in 1848/9. Nietzsche taught at Basel and found quietude in the Grisons. Einstein moved there as a teenager, ‘for the good schools’. Thomas Mann, amongst others, moved there during the Third Reich.
Switzerland had a rather funny approach to the Third Reich. On one hand, it was to a considerable extent a part of the German war economy. Its expertise in watchmaking, for instance, was repurposed to produce instruments for military operations, including chronographs and time fuses for artillery. The chemical industry supplied pharmaceuticals, dyes, and other products. Its banks were, famously, involved in converting expropriated assets into liquid funds. Its railways were an important conduit for the movement of goods between north and south.
All of this was coupled with a so-called ‘active’ neutrality, with a ‘national redoubt’ of heavily fortified defensive lines in the high Alps preparing for the possibility of a German invasion. The idea behind the national redoubt was that it would make any occupation costly and difficult. Fortifications were placed to control key transit routes through the Alps, ensuring some degree of control over crucial mountain passes. The main person behind the this project was Henri Guisan, appointed commander-in-chief of the Swiss Armed Forces in 1939.
Guisan is neutral Switzerland’s answer to Churchill. In a famous 1940 speech on the Rütli meadow – the spot where the original oath of alliance was sworn in 1291 (a comms triumph!) – he emphasised the nation’s preparedness to defend its independence against any aggressor. Addressed to gathered Swiss officers and broadcast to the nation, this symbolism would reverberate throughout the twentieth century and give renewed life to the national doctrine of neutrality.
The World Wars were important events in that they definitively decoupled Switzerland from Germany, not unlike how Ukraine and Belarus are being decoupled from Russia now. Today, Swiss-German culture is very familiar with Germany, even oriented towards Germany, but with an emphasis on difference that helps to create a Swiss internal consensus.
One important way through which this is done is through language. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a push towards greater use of High German in day-to-day life, through which High German established its position in education, bureaucracy, and other formal settings. German nationalism, however, was never particularly popular in Switzerland: there was already a well-developed national sentiment and republican constitution to which it could be grafted.
In the postwar period, the advancement of High German in Switzerland halted, and in some settings has in fact begun to retreat. This was, in part, a reaction to German nationalism itself. It was also indicative of wider regionalist trends in postwar Europe – see the rise of Celtic regionalism in Britain and France, Tyroleanism in Italy, and those regions clamouring for autonomy and independence from Spain.
Unlike other German dialects, Swiss German is spoken by all classes and across all (German) regions. It is not considered ‘low status’; it is simply the preferred means with which everyone communicates.
High German is still used for official communications, education, and in most written contexts. Swiss railway announcements are in High German, but a bus conductor would speak to a passenger in dialect. Swiss newspapers are in High German, but tabloid headlines might use puns in dialect. Swiss radio news reports are in High German, but a personal finance podcast would use dialect. Swiss teachers will instruct students in High German, but will speak to them after class in dialect.
This creates a new dimension of formality beyond the distinctions within German itself. But unlike, for instance, Russian and Ukrainian in Ukraine, there is a strict taboo against mixing dialect with High German. It has to be one or the other, depending on the context.
Swiss German has been given a new lease of life with the rise of the internet and mobile phones – new forms of communication which, in a more demotic age, ended up reinforcing dialect. Most texting and social media posting among friends is in dialect (although, for example, an online influencer wishing to target a wider audience might plump for High German, if not English).
Because Swiss German dialect is not standardised (unlike, say, Luxembourgish), it is hard to come across formal resources through which to learn it. Expatriates in Switzerland, if they are given language training, will be taught High German. More than that: native French and Italian speakers in Geneva and Lugano will also be taught High German in school. Acquisition of the dialect is done largely through contact and immersion.
This creates a barrier between Swiss Germans and everyone else. It creates difficulties between them and their Latin countrymen, who are taught a language in school that doesn’t correspond with how Swiss Germans really speak. It creates difficulties for migrants, including skilled migrants, to assimilate and make friends with their neighbours if they don’t speak dialect, even if they are themselves fluent in German.
German-Germans themselves are averse to trying to speak Swiss dialect. They think it’s basically ridiculous – at best cute, at worst completely stupid. While the likes of Zürich and Basel have large German-German expat populations, many of them stick to socialising amongst themselves.
This barrier is a funny one. It’s uneven: all Swiss Germans can understand High German, but High German speakers must strain to understand dialect and might have to deduce words from context. Since misunderstandings are not mutual, it’s not one of genuine miscommunication. It’s just that Swiss people prefer not to speak High German outside of a workplace, educational, or otherwise impersonal context, and consider its use in their social lives to be snooty, stiff, and cold (stereotypes which they then, in turn, apply to the German-Germans).
To conclude, I will offer some brief thoughts on where Switzerland is going today. As things stand, the model of Swiss neutrality which we are familiar with is under increasing pressure.
Switzerland’s banking sector, long renowned for its secrecy, has seen substantial changes under external pressures, notably from the United States. The Obama administration’s introduction of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2010 was critical. FATCA, which saw Switzerland as a major target, requires foreign financial institutions to report the financial information of US taxpayers to the IRS or face penalties. This forced Swiss banks to disclose information on accounts held by US citizens, changing the landscape of Swiss banking secrecy.
Switzerland is also not in the EU. Its relationship with the EU is bound by several bilateral treaties covering different domains and industries. In some of these agreements, Switzerland commits to adopting relevant EU legislation. In 2021, attempts at forging a new, streamlined agreement between the two failed due to disagreements on issues like state aid, workers’ rights, and wage protection. This said, it’s not impossible to imagine a situation where Switzerland integrates more deeply with the bloc, all the way up to joining it as the Socialists want, if future trade frictions become bad enough that joining the bloc appears attractive.
What is has certainly been very notable, and historically unprecedented, is Switzerland’s adoption of the EU’s recent sanctions against Russia, which includes financial sanctions and the closure of Swiss airspace to Russian flights. While this has been lamented by stalwart nationalist figures like Christoph Blocher, who have argued that it risks upsetting the country’s cherished, centuries-long tradition of neutrality, this may be a sign of things to come. Swiss neutrality, after all, was born out of the delicate balance of European politics; with a different world equilibrium, this risks being superseded.
It's not impossible for Switzerland to join the EU, but imagining it is pretty darn difficult. There's no popular support for this and after Brexit, Switzerland formally rescinded its decades-long suspended application to join, IIRC a parliamentarian said something like "you'd have to be mad to want to join now".
Post-Brexit UK the ratio of trade between the EU and rest of the world didn't change, which strongly implies there actually isn't much value to being in the single market regardless of what Europeans are told. So overall it's hard to imagine any referendum to join being successful.