The Evolution of Historical Memory of World War Two in Switzerland

The subject of the diploma thesis is an analysis of how the official Swiss institutions worked with the reference of World War II, thus contributing to the formation of collective memory of the Second World War in Switzerland. World War II and, above all, Switzerland's role in it, was covered in myths by official institutions in order to maintain a positive attitude towards the actions of Switzerland during the Second World War until the second half of the 1990s. For this purpose, three major myths were made during the war and post-war years in Switzerland around which the official remembrance of World War II was build - the myth of Réduit Alpin, the myth of neutrality and the myth of Swiss solidarity. Main institutions that influenced collective memory in Switzerland during World War II and subsequently in the post-war years were the army headed by General Henri Guisan and the Swiss government. This diploma thesis analyzes the evolution of the perception of the legacy of World War II in Switzerland in two periods. The first one is the period of the Second World War and immediately afterwards. The second one is the period from the second half of the 1990s, when the International Commission of Experts was established which was an important milestone in the debate on the Swiss role in the Second..