Seventy-five years ago yesterday, on 11 August 1943, Jean Weidner crossed the border from France to Switzerland and announced himself to a Swiss border guard. He filled out the usual form for people who crossed the border without going through an official crossing point and surrendered the cash in his pocket. Then he went off to the quarantine camp outside of Geneva like all the rest of the day’s refugees. None of this sounds at all out of the ordinary – except perhaps that he was carrying American dollars and British pounds sterling in occupied Europe – until you remember that Weidner went in and out of Switzerland on a regular basis on business or to visit his mother-in-law without ever alerting the Swiss authorities to his presence.

So why go through the official procedures this time? This time Weidner was there at the request of the Dutch embassy in Bern. The ambassador was keen to stay on the good side of the Swiss, who had, after all, allowed a number of Dutch refugees into their country. At this time Weidner was unofficially representing the Dutch government in exile in Vichy when it came to matters regarding the welfare and support of Dutch citizens in Vichy France. By unofficial, I mean unofficial in Switzerland and illegal and unofficial in Vichy France. Weidner was in the quarantine camp for only a matter of hours (rather than days) before a car came to pick him up.

For reasons that remain obscure, the Swiss authorities and the Dutch embassy decided that it would be best if Weidner was affiliated with the Swiss intelligence service. The specifics of that affiliation are unclear. Weidner thought he belonged to the intelligence service, but I can’t say whether they agreed with that or not. It is clear, however, that after mid-August 1943 Weidner came in and out of Switzerland with the knowledge of the Swiss intelligence service.

Weidner’s name was on a list of people who should be allowed in the country, followed by a phone number that appears to have belonged to a particular officer at the intelligence service. When he left the country that officer escorted him to the border and held the barbed wire up while Weidner crossed into France. When Weidner brought another resister in or out of the country (as opposed to a refugee who intended to stay there), he always introduced that resister to the Swiss officer.

This lasted until June 1944 when a series of cleverly written letters of denunciation sowed enough unfounded suspicions in the minds of the Swiss authorities that they revoked Weidner’s border crossing privileges.  He left the country illegally one last time, in August 1944 a few days after the Liberation of France.