Approach
The commission did not set out to write a general history of Switzerland during the Nazi era, rather it took as its task "to shed light upon certain controversial or insufficiently analyzed aspects of this history, aspects in which it appeared that Switzerland, that is to say its political authorities and economic decision-makers, had perhaps been derelict in assuming their responsibilities."
The commission was given unprecedented powers and resources by the Swiss Parliament:
- it was to have unimpeded access to the archives held by Swiss private companies including banks, insurance companies, and enterprises;
- the companies were prohibited from destroying any files relating to the period being examined by the commission;
- the initial budget of 5 million Swiss Francs was increased to a total of 22 million francs.
Read more about this topic: Bergier Commission
Famous quotes containing the word approach:
“Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
In simple childhood something of the base
On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. The days gone by
Return upon me almost from the dawn
Of life: the hiding-places of man’s power
Open; I would approach them, but they close.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“There is no calm philosophy of life here, such as you might put at the end of the Almanac, to hang over the farmer’s hearth,—how men shall live in these winter, in these summer days. No philosophy, properly speaking, of love, or friendship, or religion, or politics, or education, or nature, or spirit; perhaps a nearer approach to a philosophy of kingship, and of the place of the literary man, than of anything else.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)