SWITZERLAND: Alone, Little & Tough

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With these trumps the Swiss last week continued confidently but soberly to do what no other small nation in Europe could do: run Switzerland as the Swiss thought it should be run. Seven soldiers of the Swiss Army were sentenced to death for treason —first death sentences for military espionage in Swiss history—despite dire warnings from the Swiss Nazi Die Front that "first shots can be dangerous." In Zurich, filmgoers stood and applauded Mrs. Miniver, which critics hailed as "a touching document of democratic courage." Swiss censorship banned Goebbels' weekly Das Reich because it printed a distasteful caricature of President Roosevelt. The Volksrecht answered Nazi Press Chief Dietrich's charge that Switzerland was giving up "spiritual neutrality": "We reject spiritual eunuchry. Away with mental castration which goes by the name of spiritual neutrality! Statesmen of great powers should have learned by now that neither love nor liking can be ordered."

*Generals are appointed in Switzerland only in times of emergency. A colonel in the Swiss Army equals a general in other armies.

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