During World War II, Switzerland maintained extensive and highly profitable economic ties with Nazi Germany — ties that its own parliament would eventually commission a landmark inquiry to investigate.
The Bergier Commission: The Swiss parliament's independent inquiry, the Bergier Commission, conducted the most comprehensive study of Swiss relations with Nazi Germany, documenting economic cooperation across banking, industry, transport, and insurance that went far deeper than Switzerland's carefully maintained image of neutrality suggested. Final Report – synthesis PDF
Banking and gold: The Swiss National Bank and commercial banks purchased large quantities of gold from the German Reichsbank — much of it looted from the treasuries of occupied nations and from victims of Nazi persecution. The scale was staggering: the U.S. government's Eizenstat report estimated Switzerland received as much as $414 million in gold from Nazi Germany during the war. The pattern was detailed in both the Eizenstat report and the SNB's own historical study. State Dept. summary; SNB report PDF
Industry and exports: Swiss firms supplied Germany with machinery, precision instruments, and war-relevant goods throughout the conflict. The numbers tell a stark story: the Bergier Commission found that from 1940 to 1944, 84% of Swiss munitions exports went to Germany and the Axis, with only 8% each reaching the Allies and neutral states. British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden complained in 1943 that every franc Switzerland earned from arms sent to Germany was prolonging the war. Bergier economic chapter – PDF; Swissinfo summary
Prefabricated barracks and espionage: Declassified U.S. intelligence records detail the activities of SS officer Hans Wilhelm Eggen, a close associate of SS General Walter Schellenberg, head of Nazi foreign intelligence. These documents show that Eggen arranged multi-million-franc purchases of prefabricated huts from Swiss suppliers — and used those transactions as cover for building an SS intelligence network and managing clandestine finances in Switzerland. Commerce and espionage, it turned out, were not always easy to tell apart. CIA Reading Room – doc 1; CIA Reading Room – doc 2
Whatever one calls Switzerland's political stance, the historical record — assembled painstakingly by the Bergier Commission and corroborated by American, British, and Swiss sources — shows that Swiss institutions and companies actively engaged in, and profited from, economic relationships with Nazi Germany across finance and industry. Bergier Commission portal