Roger Masson: Difference between revisions

Swiss military officer

Colonel-brigadier Roger Masson in 1931

Roger Masson (1 July 1894 in Zurich, 19 October 1967 in Chardonne), was a Swiss military officer who held the rank of Colonel-Brigadier. Masson joined the Swiss armed forces straight from university and rose rapidly through the ranks during the interwar period to become a member of the general staff. In 1931, he became co-editor and later editor of the “Swiss Military Review”, a position he held until 1967. In 1935, he became a lecturer at the ETH Zurich. In 1936, he was put in command of the “Nachrichtenzentrum Schweiz”, the military intelligence service of Switzerland. and was ordered to professionalise the service, in light of the approaching war between the Axis and the Allied powers.

Masson was the son of commercial director Jules Auguste and Eugénie Jeanneret. After completing his high school diploma and studying history at the University of Neuchâtel, Masson joined the Swiss Armed Forces, becoming an infantry soldier. In 1915 he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1922, Masson was promoted to Captain, becoming an infantry instructor and by 1927 had become a member of the general staff. In 1928, he attended ETH Zurich where he studied military science, before continuing study at the École supérieure de guerre (military education institute) in Paris. In 1931, Masson became a co-editor and later editor-in-chief of the Swiss Military Review (Revue militaire suisse), which is a Swiss publication devoted to security and defence policy issues,^[8] a position he held until 1967. In 1935, Masson became a lecturer in the ETH Zurich. At the same time, he was promoted Chief of Staff of Division 1.

Swiss military intelligence organisation[edit]

In 1936, Masson was put in charge of section 5 of General staff, which constituted the military intelligence service of the Swiss armed forces. In the years leading up to the war, he attempted to rebuild the section that had been virtually dissolved during the interwar period. This happened due to a number of complex reasons that included personal problems, lack of understanding, the general staff disliked having an intelligence agency and the false belief in the security provided by the League of Nations as well as the false belief that peace-time sources of information would be available during a time of war or crises. With the approach of war, Chief of the Army General Staff Jakob Labhart issued an order on 22 February 1938 that contained instructions to rebuild army intelligence. Combined with an increased budget, it authorised Masson to form a strategic intelligence service, known as “Id”. At the time, Masson recognised that Swiss Intelligence would no longer only offer intelligence on basic military facts but instead focus on all German operations. At the time that agency was still both underfunded and understaffed but it wasn’t until the Munich crisis of August 1938 and the agencies successful intelligence operation that the Swiss Government recognised that it needed a well-funded intelligence service. Masson was able to use the money to open field-offices on the northern, western, and southern front as well as fund training for new agents as well as recruit new informants.

On the 1 March 1942, Masson was promoted to Assistant Chief of Staff with the rank of colonel-brigadier. In January 1944, group Id was expanded to include the territorial service and renamed Group “Ib”. This resulted in Masson commanding a unit consisting of 300,000 men.

Masson’s contact with the German Reich[edit]

Origin of the Masson-Schellenberg contact[edit]

Wolfsberg Castle near Ermatingen, the residence of Paul Eduard Meyer from 1937 until his death in 1966

The first person who was directly involved in initiating the connection was Swiss lawyer and police fiction writer Paul Eduard Meyer [de]. On 23 March 1938, Meyer purchased Wolfsburg Castle near Ermatingen, that would eventually be used to host the meetings between Masson and Schellenberg. On 29 August 1939, Meyer joined the Army and on 7 November 1939, Meyer was transferred to the army staff in Interlaken at the request of Roger Masson and promoted to the rank of captain, effectively to work in the Swiss intelligence service. Meyer’s responsibility as a lawyer was to evaluate, view and forward the reports of the intelligence collection points as well as monitor the domestic political situation. One of these tasks was to observe the National Movement of Switzerland, a Nazi umbrella organization, which was to merge various Nazi organizations into a National Socialist Unity Party.

Business connections with Henry Guisan jr.[edit]

In 1941, Captain Meyer was best man to Lieutenant Colonel Henri Guisan Jr., the son of General Henri Guisan, a Swiss military officer who held the office of General of the Swiss Armed Forces. General Guisan was pleased that Meyer was looking after his son. On 23 August 1941, General Guisan, appointed Meyer as his personal…