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League of Loyal Confederates, Switzerland

Bund treuer Eidgenossen

[League of Loyal Confederates, Switzerland]

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 12 February 2013

About the flag

See also:

About the Flag

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