Marcel Beck and his thoughts on the post-war order – Swiss National Museum

Between 1974 and 1976, Marcel Beck published several short extracts in the Badener Tagblatt newspaper from a diary he had kept during the Second World War, and which was subsequently believed to have gone missing. It was acquired from a private owner by Jakob Tanner a few years ago. The diary consists of a total of 9 journals, whose more than 1,100 pages are covered in dense writing.

Packed full of detailed descriptions and uncensored observations, this diary, which is being presented here for the first time, differs from the many surviving war diaries kept by military units and contains no trace of what Beck referred to in 1976 as the tendency to “see the past through rose-tinted spectacles”. It offers a fascinating insight into the world as experienced by a non-conformist conscript solider, who was always seeking to understand what was happening locally (in the “microcosm”) in terms of the broader horizons of interpretation of global politics (the “macrocosm”).

The first blog article reported on Beck’s everyday military life and his perception of the dramatic first year of the war. This second part deals with the period after Beck’s first discharge from active service at the end of 1940 and focuses on the political projects for the future in which he was involved.