Last modified: 2013-04-05 by rob raeside
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League of Loyal Confederates
Bund treuer Eidgenossen (BTE)
The full
name of this Swiss extremist party was "Bund treuer Eidgenossen
nationalsozialistischer Weltanschauung", which translates into something like
the "League of Loyal Confederates of National Socialist ideology." It was
founded in March of 1938 by former members of the National Front, who thought
that their old party was no longer following the true Nazi ideology. It was led
by Alfred Zander, who in September of 1938 attended the Nuremberg Rally (the
annual convention of the Nazi party) and spoke in favor of Switzerland joining
the German Reich. Other founding members of BTE included Hans Oehler, Wolf Wirz,
Hans Robert Jenny and Benno Schaeppi. Zander himself was arrested on his return
from Germany and sentenced to jail, together with his fellow BTE leaders and
several other party members in July of 1939. In October of 1940, the party was
disbanded and most of its remaining members joined the National Movement of
Germany (Nationale Bewegung der Schweiz), another similar group which hoped to
become a unified Swiss Nazi party. The Swiss Government banned the NBS the next
month. In May of 1938 Bruno Oswald had founded the first local chapter of the
BTE in Berne with about 25 members, and the "national" membership of BTE never
reached more than a total of 175 members in its short existence.
Their
flag was derived from that of the National Front by
adding black party name initials BTE to the center of the cross, thus employing
the full color set of colors used on the NSDAP flag.
- from "Historical Flags
of Our Ancestors"
Sources:
[1] Political Flags of Extremism - Part 1 (a-m):
http://www.loeser.us/flags/hate.html
[2] League of True Confederates at
Wikipedia (in German):
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bund_treuer_Eidgenossen_nationalsozialistischer_Weltanschauung
[3] Gentleman's Military Interest Club forum - topic about the League of
True Confederates:
http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/23774-bund-treuer-eidgenossen-bte
[4]
Gentleman's Military Interest Club forum - photo of the flag of the League of
True Confederates:
http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=attach%A7ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=108090
Pete Loeser and Tomislav Todorovic, 10 February 2013