The Origin of the Swiss Cross

This article appeared in The Swiss American in the September 1978 edition. Thank you to the Rutz' for sharing it!

    The White Cross on a Red Ground can today look back upon 700 years of history; to trace its origin, one must go right back to the very beginning of the Confederation. Already in the early Middle Ages the Cross was, more or less, the common device for coins and seals and, as a symbol of the Christian Faith, it was borne in to battle on the banners of the various hosts.

    Documents and records show that this device, which appeared on the banner of Schwyz in the year 1240, had been bestowed upon the Canton by the Emperor Frederick II as a token of its freedom. And from that time onwards, the Confederates used a white cross, made of long strips of linen, as their common sign in battle, every man in the army bearing it either on his tunic or on his armour. Although each Canton had its own flag in battle, every Swiss carried the White Cross as his battle-standard.

    Then in the fifteenth Century, the White Cross was applied to each of the Cantonal flags, this version becoming the Canton's Standard of war. Thus one might have encountered the White Cross superimposed upon the black and red striped banner of Berne.

    As the national flag, the White Cross first appeared on a red ground on the Confederation's Seal in 1814. This was the first official Swiss flag. The State Seal, cut at the time by the engraver Johann Aeberli of Winterthur, is still in use at the present day. It is also since 1815 that the Federal arm-band of red with a white cross, has been worn by all national forces in the field.

    In 1848 a Federal law was passed, introducing a Federal Flag which bore a different white cross, made up of four equal squares on a red ground. Later on, this was modified and became an equilateral white cross, each arm being one sixth longer than its width. And so it has remained. It is under this flag that all Swiss troops take the field today.

    The Red Cross on a White Ground, which is really the Swiss flag reversed, was granted to the International Red Cross in memory of the organization founded by the Genevese citizen Henri Dunant. From this, there gradually evolved a misuse of the Swiss flag, which was sometimes used abroad in place of the Red Cross by doctors, chemists, druggists, etc. Fortunately this misuse of the Swiss flag has of late been considerably less frequent than in former years.