Europe's first fascist government came to power in Switzerland's southern neighbour, Italy, in 1922.

In common with most European countries, right wing "fronts" sprang up in the Swiss cantons in the first half of the 1930s.

Their support came from the self employed middle class and from the peasantry, and their leaders were often young intellectuals.

The ideology of the fronts was threefold:
(i) they favoured authoritarian government, which would do away with parliamentary democracy;
(ii) they wanted to replace capitalism with corporatism, bringing workers and employers together in corporations, and thus ending the clash of interests between them;
(iii) they were highly nationalistic, harking back to the supposed virtues of the old Confederation, and condemning anything "international," from communism and free masonry, to pacifists and Jews.

Although at first some of the parties of the "bourgeois bloc" regarded the frontists as allies in the fight against socialism, it soon became apparent that they attracted votes away from main-stream conservatives. Their bully-boy tactics also alienated many people.

An initiative by the fronts to revise the constitution in order to implement their own political programme was defeated by more than 70% in 1935.

By the time war broke out, several currents of opinion had formed.

On the one side, some Swiss were looking for ways to adapt to the new Nazi order: a small number favoured joining the German Reich while others simply hoped to cooperate with the victorious Germans in accordance with the tradition of Swiss compromise.

On the other, groups sprang up dedicated to resisting totalitarianism and defending democratic values at any cost.