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Swiss assistance to the German Fascists (and the Italian Fascists) happened earlier than you may think:

Inspired by Tirpitz, [Ulrich Wille, Jr.] decided to visit Munich in the middle of December 1922 in order to gauge the extraordinary activity of the Bavarian antirepublican groups under Kahr and Hitler. Tirpitz provided Wille with a letter of recommendation, which gave him access to Tirpitz’s political friends in Munich, including Kahr and retired General Erich Ludendorff; but Wille also sought out Hitler, who was not highly regarded by Tirpitz.⁴⁰ Wille attended a [Fascist] rally, heard Hitler speak, and was invited to two private discussions with him. These experiences must have softened Wille’s reservations toward the [Fascists].

Implying that Hitler, not Kahr, deserved a key rôle in uniting the German right and establishing a German dictatorship, he wrote to Tirpitz that “H. made a good impression on me” and that “his person and work are of great importance for the future.”⁴¹

Wille later denied in court that he had given Hitler any money, but there is evidence to the contrary: one of Tirpitz’s friends wrote him that Wille had donated 2,000 Swiss francs to Hitler, and Hitler’s secretary, Dr. Emil Ganßer, deposited almost exactly that sum in two installments into his account shortly after Wille had left.⁴²

That Wille would have made such a large donation is puzzling, since only a few weeks earlier he had written to the secretary of the VUS that he was in no financial shape to make a contribution higher than Fr 100. Yet there is no indication that he got money from others in Switzerland.

In a letter from 1934, Wille mentioned his meetings with Hitler and claimed to have admonished him to tone down his antisemitism and to refrain from a putsch.⁴³ This warning echoed Tirpitz’s own concerns, but Tirpitz still could not share Wille’s sudden enthusiasm for Hitler. Their original plan for a Kahr dictatorship, moreover, found little resonance in Germany’s rightist circles. Tirpitz and Wille continued political correspondence throughout the 1920s but undertook no further steps for their plan.⁴⁴

In the spring of 1923, when the German mark lost value at a dizzying rate, the [Fascists] made intense efforts to raise Swiss francs from German residents in Switzerland and from Swiss citizens who were known to be pro-German. For this purpose, Ganßer made several trips to Switzerland from April to December 1923, presenting [German Fascism’s] movement as a safeguard against an impending Bolshevist revolution in Germany and appealing to the antisemitic and anti-Catholic feelings of some of his contacts.⁴⁵

On August 25, Hitler himself applied for a visa at the Swiss Consulate General in Munich. He declared that he would visit Switzerland for study purposes and promised to abstain from political activity. The consul general promptly granted the visa, and Hitler arrived in Zürich a few days later.⁴⁶ In his hotel, he discussed Germany’s political situation with several Swiss citizens, among them Oehler, members of the Zürich chapter of the Pan-German League, and representatives of the Kreuzwehr, a paramilitary group linked to Bircher’s home guard organization.

Hitler also met Wille, Sr., but made no good impression on the old man. Wille, Sr., is said to have warned him that his antisemitism would lead to political failure.⁴⁷ Most important, Hitler was invited to give a private talk on his program at the residence of Wille, Jr., in Zürich (Villa Schönberg) in front of thirty to forty guests.

Rumors about the visit circulated in the German and Swiss press after the Putsch, but even Gautschi, drawing on private disclosures by one of the younger Wille’s sons, Dr. Jürg Wille, could not determine who was present and how much money Hitler received on this occasion. The Bavarian police report suggests that VUS members attended the talk and donated money, and Meienberg suspects that wealthy members and relatives of the Wille family were also present. Both propositions seem plausible, all the more so because several members of the extended Wille family also belonged to the VUS.

The younger Wille’s sister, Renée Schwarzenbach, and his brother-in-law, Dr. Fritz Rieter, an instruction officer of the Swiss army and VUS member, were both politically interested, although Jürg Wille claims that Rieter early on rejected Hitler and was not present at his talk. Who among the audience funded Hitler has proven impossible to determine. Police reports mention only that Oehler was among the contributors.

Oehler admitted to having discussed [German Fascism’s] program with Ganßer several times after Hitler’s visit but claimed in 1945 to have been critical of Ganßer and, in particular, the antisemitism of the [German Fascists].⁴⁸ The VUS secretary Hektor Ammann, who had visited Hitler in Munich in 1920, was considered by the Bavarian police to have helped organize Hitler’s visit to Zürich, but he was probably not present at the talk.⁴⁹

According to various German reports, Hitler left Zürich for Aarau, where he is said to have met Bircher, and then traveled to Bern, but no evidence has ever been found for this part of his trip. Hitler himself denied his Swiss journey in court but mentioned in 1942 that he had once visited Zürich and received a luscious meal that filled him with contempt for a country that could afford such luxury.⁵⁰

These poorly appreciated culinary delights aside, Hitler definitely received money in Zürich. The highest figure named in the press for Hitler’s talk was about Fr 123,000, though this seems to represent the total raised by the [German Fascists] in Switzerland in 1923 and not what Hitler alone got on his trip or in response to his talk at the Wille residence. A lower figure was given later by Oehler and the VUS secretary Ammann. They claimed that Hitler had raised Fr 11,000 during his trip to Switzerland: 8,000 from Germans living in Zürich and 3,000 from Swiss citizens, mostly antisemites.

But Oehler and Ammann never disclosed how they had learned these figures, and their interest in revealing the full amount of Swiss support for Hitler may be doubted, particularly after the embarrassing failure of the Beer Hall Putsch. Various police reports mention a donation of Fr 20,000 from the sugar and mustard factory Frank in Basel, but it is unclear whether it was made during Hitler’s talk at the Wille residence or in response to Ganßer’s requests. The Bavarian police concluded in 1924 that Hitler had received about Fr 33,000 while in Switzerland.⁵¹

Jürg Wille claims that there are no documents on Hitler’s visit in the Wille family archive, and it is unlikely that the public records can establish anything more clearly.⁵² The French intelligence service, always concerned about pro-German groups in Switzerland, monitored the activities of the VUS and the Monatshefte, but Hitler’s trip and Ganßer’s fund-raising efforts escaped its agents.⁵³

How important to the NSDAP was the money from Switzerland? A budget of the NSDAP’s total expenses in 1923 does not exist,⁵⁴ but it is clear that the Swiss funds helped Hitler pay some of his higher officials during the German hyperinflation when foreign currency was the essential means of exchange.

(Emphasis added.)