Forgotten Forces Living History Association

Switzerland

The Swiss Army of the Cold War was an incredible force - peaking at 880,000 active members (plus reserves, home guard, civil defence, air defence, red cross and territorial service) in the mid-1960s, Swiss neutrality did not mean pacifism. Switzerland fully intended to protect herself, and had the means to do so, with a wide variety of domestically-designed and produced equipment: assault rifles, handguns, machine guns, all the way up to tanks and artillery pieces.

Organised on a militia structure, the Swiss Army pervaded Swiss society to a very significant extent, and military service was compulsory for all Swiss men - not just for the initial training period, but for most of the rest of their working lives, as well, with required numbers of days of annual service up until he reached the age of 50 (or, prior to 1961, 60). Most equipment would be kept at home (personliche Ausrüstung), with an emergency can of ammunition (Taschenmunition) being stored with the rifle to use in case of a war situation. In addition to a soldier's personal kit, Corps Material (Korpsmaterial) was held in bases to be issued out during mobilisation.

This page shows some of the uniforms and equipment used by Swiss soldiers in the period roughly 1926-1996.

Subsections:

Forgotten Forces Living History Association has a dedicated Cold War Swiss sub-group, representing a variety of Swiss units from 1926 to 1996. More information can be found here on our Facebook page.

Useful references:

Dale's YouTube channel, where he uploads translated training films in HD: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9zNvngfqqZIASarWVYvqyw
A channel with a treasure trove of old footage: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKTkDdaikJmBsRr2maqB9iQ
LLHG Playlist of various videos of the Swiss Army in the Cold War, excluding those of the above two channels: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnDLFOoAom8LXhdjwnLsbFa4tRNSVBXLd
The website of SRF, Swiss national broadcaster, where a large number of old documentaries have been archived (many cannot be watched outside Switzerland without usage of a VPN, sadly): https://www.srf.ch/play/tv
Small website on the subject of Swiss NBC equipment throughout history: http://chloramin.ch/
An article on the VSAM website detailing the various woolen uniforms used by the Swiss Army, with several handy downloadable PDFs: https://www.armeemuseum.ch/en/wissensdatenbank-only-in-german/ordonnanzen-ueber-uniformen-und-abzeichen-der-schweizer-armee/
An excellent site for info on Swiss military vehicles: https://militaerfahrzeuge.ch/
An SRF documentary on the Swiss weapons industry: https://srf.ch/play/tv/redirect/detail/1df38d84-7d55-4acc-92c5-1fcb15e9eb2c
The Swiss Federal Archives (hard to search but a goldmine of references): https://memobase.ch/de/search?filter[access][0]=Online
Archive of the Swiss Armeefilmdienst: https://www.historic.admin.ch/
Archive of Swiss Army newspapers: https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/volumes?UID=sol-001
Photo archive with enormous numbers of good reference photos: https://www.kimweb.ch/sammlungen?fbclid=IwAR2zESsivom8pz4xk8EZWkW_HES2XgC89HPNj0YdMp--p9PBJuX9ApTVqwo
Another photo archive with several Cold War photos: http://swissair00.ch/a_Armee/index.html
ETH Zürich Photo archive, a whole load of good stuff, including photos from inside the Thun tank plant: https://ba.e-pics.ethz.ch/#
Fribourg University's photo archive: https://www.fr.ch/bcu/app/fonds_photo?f_keyword=armee&page=1
A blog, detailing the author's time in the Swiss Army from 1962 to 1995: https://www.maxlehmann.ch/memoiren/memoiren-170-militaer.htm
Website of an association tracing the history of Swiss fortresses: https://www.fortlitroz.ch/
Regional archive for the Bernese Jura and Lake Biel, with some good Aktivdienst Army and Luftschutz references: https://www.memreg.ch/index.cfm
Journalistic stock image source, with a good number of Aktivdienst-era colour photos: https://visual.keystone-sda.ch/en/web/guest
Romansch-language community history website, with sections covering the Army in Aktivdienst and the Cold War: https://nossaistorgia.ch/
PDF version of the Zivilverteidigungsbuch, a beautifully-illustrated but controversial guide to civil protection and disaster planning which was distributed to every household in Switzerland during the Cold War: https://eu.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/delivery/41BIG_INST:OLD_ALEX/12373919930001791?lang=en&viewerServiceCode=AlmaViewer
An article from the Federal Archives covering the history of the Zivilverteidigungsbuch: https://www.bar.admin.ch/bar/de/home/service-publikationen/publikationen/geschichte-aktuell/geistige-landesverteidigung-im-kalten-krieg--das--zivilverteidig.html

Also, as always, if you spot any errors, grammatical or factual, please do get in touch!

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