Medal ribbon with the colours of the Spanish Republic

This medal ribbon with the colours of the Spanish Republic belonged to Hans Hutter, a Swiss volunteer in the International Brigades.

Following the military uprising against the government of the Spanish Republic, the Swiss Federal Council prohibited Swiss citizens from going to Spain to take part in the conflict. The official reason was that the participation of Swiss volunteers would constitute a violation of the country’s neutrality, but the driving force behind this policy was Foreign Minister Giuseppe Motta, a conservative and fervent anti-Communist who sympathized with fascism.

Despite this prohibition, some 800 Swiss men and women went to Spain to defend the Republic, fighting in the International Brigades and workers' militias or serving as medical personnel at the front. A number of Swiss were part of the first Brigades in 1936: in the XI with the Germans and Austrians, the XII with the Italians, and the XIII. In per capita terms, Switzerland’s contribution to the defence of the Republic was one of the most significant.

The average age of the volunteers was 28. All but 28 were men. More than half were Communists and about 12 per cent were Socialists. A much smaller number, around 4 per cent, were anarchists. Their motivations varied, from anti-fascist solidarity and the desire to defend democracy to escape from unemployment and abandonment at home. Some 200 Swiss volunteers died or disappeared in Spain.

There was also a much smaller number of Swiss, between 30 and 40, who served on the rebel side.

Hans Hutter (1913-2006), from Oberwinterthur, was one of the pro-Republican volunteers. His diaries and collection of photographs are a valuable source for the memory and history of the Swiss engagement with the Spanish Civil War. In September 1936, Hutter decided to go to Spain to put his experience as an auto mechanic at the service of the Republic, but he wound up in the Thälmann Centuria of the XI Brigade. He fought on the Aragón front, in the defence of Madrid, and in the battles of the Jarama and Guadalajara in 1937. He was wounded during the battle of Teruel in January 1938. When the Francoist troops advanced on the Mediterranean, Hutter participated in the evacuation of the IB base in Albacete and then with security for the Barcelona arsenal. He was arrested as soon as he returned to Switzerland and condemned to six months conditional imprisonment and the loss of his political rights for two years.