[世界史の理解]

2023年04月08日

Switzerland this time.The long history of hardship from the three primitive states or cantons of Switzerland to the recognition of the state by the Treaty of Westphalia signed in 1648 was the result of the patience and independence of the Swiss, as symbolized by Rossini's opera "William Tell". Understanding Swiss neutrality in World War II as it is from that romance and drama may be good for armed neutrality surrounded by the Axis countries on all sides, but other points are quite questionable. The 1938 international conference on Jewish refugees was scheduled to be held in Switzerland, but it was canceled, and it was eventually held in Evian, France. Refugee protection was not decided due to Germany, which was the momentum of the climbing day at that time, and on the contrary, after the "Crystal Night" incident, the persecution of Jews in each country intensified, and even in Switzerland, it was decided to introduce the "J" mark in administrative documents. " The Sound of Music depicts Colonel Trapp's Swiss exile, but Switzerland refused to enter the country for 30,000 people who wanted asylum there.During World War II,in particular after German defeat in Stalingrad, economic transactions in Europe were limited to gold and Swiss francs, so Germany effectively used the gold stolen from Jews to trade with Switzerland. In particular, cannons and timed devices are essential for the German army, and without this deal in Switzerland, Germany's surrender would have been much earlier. Recently, the relationship between Swiss financial institutions and Germany has become clear and criticism has become too intense, so they have created various victim relief funds. Finally, we have to mention the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). This BIS was decided to be established at the time of the Dawes Plan in 1924 to pay German reparations in World War I, and was officially launched in 1930 with the establishment of the Young Plan. When the Hitler regime was established in 1933, it ceased to be a compensation agency and became a cooperative agency of the central banks of each country. The president of the BIS was an American, but the British, French and other German and Italian directors were also included in the directors, and in particular, the two directors of Germany, Emil Poole, the vice president of the National Bank, and Baron Schroeder, a senior official of the Ministry of Finance, were also senior officials of the SS and played an active role in the establishment of Hitler Administration,as in the case of Ribbentrop,would-be foreign minister of the Reich.Even from Japan, Kojiro Kitamura of Yokohama Shokin or species Bank, was a director, and Kan Yoshimura was a foreign exchange manager under the American President ,Thomas Mackitrick. In 1940, President McKittrick met Baron Schroeder in Germany and confirmed the survival of the BIS even after the war between Germany and America.It can be said that it was as Schacht expected, who had long predicted the isolation of Germany due to the establishment of the Hitler regime. It means weirdly that they worked together in the same place when each of their country was fighting to the death by dividing the Allies and Axis powers, and since its establishment, Germany's I.G. Farben has been under the umbrella of Anglo-American capital and the relationship continued during World War II, so it is the flow of reparations. Only the German inflow of British and American capital remained. For this reason, the dissolution of the BIS was decided at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, but it persistently continues to this day.