No

In Switzerland, schoolchildren playing on the Lake of Constance can stare across the water at German soldiers on patrol. In Basel, citizens can see the Germans on the streets beyond the frontier line. Across the country near Geneva, pot-helmeted Wehrmacht troopers pace stolidly behind the barbed-wire barricade that blocks the road to France. On every side, beyond the narrow confines of their democracy, stands the German.

The Swiss have a law which concerns democracy and how to keep it against fifth-column work. It provides fines or imprisonment for anyone who tries to overthrow the Constitution, or disseminates propaganda endangering the Swiss Confederation, or ridicules democracy. On the basis of this law, Switzerland last week dissolved two political parties, the Rassemblement Federal and the Nationale Gemeinschaft Schaffhausen, both of which represented the Nazi movement in the country. The parties' newspapers were suppressed, and it was announced that the dissolution order applied to "other groups and newspapers that might . . . attempt to replace" the outlawed ones. Such attempts had been made before: It took a long time for the Nationale Front, Switzerland's strongest (about 2,000 members) Nazi party, to die after its leader was arrested three years ago for sending military information to Germany.

When the Swiss say no, they mean it.

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