The newly published fifth volume of the series «Quaderni di Dodis» centres on Switzerland's foreign relations in the context of the Nigerian civil war, 1967–1970. «SOS Biafra» was the International Committee of the Red Cross's appeal to the public, in May 1968, to support the relief mission in the secessionist area, which was completely isolated.

Dodis is returning to its past so as to make its way into the future. The complete first series of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland's (DDS) print publication, covering a period from the founding of the Swiss Confederation in 1848 up to the end of World War II in 1945, has been incorporated in Dodis, indexed, and given searchable keywords.

Browse the Database with iOS and Android wherever and whenever you like: The Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland’s app allows you to access the database wherever and whenever you like. Available in four languages, the Dodis app enables a direct access both to the database and to the e-book series «Quaderni di Dodis», whilst also keeping you up to date with the DDS’s news and activities. Moreover, a consistent geotagging makes it now possible to have documents displayed from places nearby.The completely revised version can be downloaded for free as of now. The DDS hope you’ll enjoy it!

Il gruppo di ricerca dei DDS ha appreso con rammarico la recente scomparsa della professoressa Beatrix Mesmer. In qualità di professoressa di storia svizzera presso l'università di Berna, di presidentessa della Società svizzera di storia, di membro del Consiglio svizzero della scienza e del Consiglio nazionale della ricerca, ha segnato in modo importante lo sviluppo delle scienze storiche in Svizzera.

50 years ago, on August 30 1965, a glacial slide of the Allalin-glacier near Mattmark in the Valais buried and killed 88 mostly Italian construction workers under 500 000 m3 of ice. While the migration treaty of 1964 had helped to ease relations between Italy and Switzerland, the catastrophe of Mattmark led to their renewed deterioration. Cf. dodis.ch/G9174.

2015 truly is the «ultimate year of jubilees»: In April, the research group of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland celebrated the 20th anniversary of the data base Dodis and, on June 7, the research project of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland turned 40!On June 7 1975, the constitutive meeting of the «National Commission for the Publication of Diplomatic Documents», founded by the Swiss Society for History, took place at the station buffet in Berne (dodis.ch/40828). Professor Jacques Freymond from Geneva was elected as the first president of the commission; Antoine Fleury was named the secretary. The emergence of the research group can be seen in context of the rising interest in contemporary history at the beginning of the 1970s. Further essential achievements of the dedication to research in contemporary history are the founding of the Archives of Contemporary History in Zurich (1973) and the petition of historians issued in January 1972 concerning the release of federal records until 1945, which resulted in the decrease of the retention period of archival records to 35 years (dodis.ch/39940 and dodis.ch/40616).Preparatory works for the large-scale research project were mostly conducted by Antoine Fleury and Georg Kreis at the beginning of the 1970s (dodis.ch/37041). Already in autumn of 1972, the Swiss Society for History organized a meeting of all interested institutions to discuss the way forward (dodis.ch/37044). At this meeting, representatives of the administration were present, and while they subsequently also took part at the meetings of the commission, they largely remained skeptical towards the project: «I fear this whole thing will lead to nothing!», a worried diplomat wrote on February 16, 1974 to Rudolf Bindschedler, the legal adviser of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (dodis.ch/P1396). The fears, however, were obviously unfounded and the research project has been running successfully ever since.During the 40 years since its founding, the research project of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland with its data base Dodis has become one of the leading competence centers of the science of history in Switzerland and has, due to pioneer work in different areas, already been called the «flagship of digital humanities».A compilation of documents concerned with the history of the DDS is available here: dodis.ch/T1341.

Today, everyday life without the Internet is hardly conceivable. In 1995, however, not even half a percent of the world’s population was using the World Wide Web. Twenty years ago, on March 11, 1995, when the world was constituted in such a manner, the first document was integrated in the Dodis database. Thus, Dodis celebrates its 20th birthday today.Online since 1997Although young in years, the database has since developed rapidly. Initially planned to serve the DDS research group as a tool for internal use, Dodis went online in 1997 and thus helped writing a part of the pioneering history of the Internet. Among the first Dodis documents are dodis.ch/3 and dodis.ch/4 as well as dodis.ch/20 and dodis.ch/21, regarding the history of Switzerland's international relations in the immediate postwar period.  

On February 27 and 28, the first Cultural Hackathon of Switzerland was held at the Swiss National Library. The DDS are pleased with the interest in their data and would like to thank all who have participated in this project.

Commissioned by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHS), the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (DDS) were thoroughly evaluated by an external authority in 2014. The evaluation fully confirmed the positive developments of the last few years, especially attesting a «high frequency of book publishing», a «high quality» of the DDS products, «high standardization» and...

«Alas! Do you think, that the Great Powers will fight each other because of this local question?» This was the reply the Undersecretary of State of the German Foreign ministry, Arthur Zimmermann, gave the Swiss envoy Alfred de Claparède on July 20, 1914 to the question of an eventual outbreak of the war.

«Storie della diplomazia svizzera» ist eine Serie, welche die Forschungsstelle der DDS zusammen mit Radiotelevisione Svizzera RSI realisiert hat. Die zehn Radiosendungen greifen zeitgeschichtliche Themen der nationalen und internationalen Politik auf und illustrieren diese mit Dokumenten aus der Online-Datenbank Dodis.

Mit «Die Geschichte der Schweiz» erschien im April 2014 nach über dreissig Jahren ein neues Standardwerk zur Schweizergeschichte. Sacha Zala, Direktor der Forschungsgruppe der DDS, hat als Mitglied des Autor/innenkollektivs an der Entstehhung des Sammelbandes mitgewirkt.

«The attempt to establish a newer and more suitable type of conditions for cooperation requires a fertile imagination, as well as sufficient time». These were the words of Paul R. Jolles, Head of the Division of Trade, on the upcoming negotiations with the EEC. «The trickiest problem will no doubt be the organising of Switzerland’s institutional collaboration in the integration process»

The decisive step towards «Dodis 2.0» has been taken: in its continual efforts to renew the database, the research group of the DDS has brought together its front and back end technologies. Whereas so far, users only perceived small changes, «Dodis Reloaded» represents a definite milestone for the work of the research group.

The Digital Humanities Summer School in Switzerland took place for the first time in Berne from June 26th until June 29th. Over the course of these three days, over 100 delegates from more than 20 countries convened in order to discuss the newest trends in Digital Humanities, participate in numerous lectures and workshops, a “project slam,” and an “unconference.”

The renowned Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung, also known as the FAZ, has published a review of volume 24 of the DDS, which covers the years 1967-1969. Its author, Horst Möller, was the Director of the Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin up to 2011, and Professor for Modern and Contemporary History at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich."a wealth of views"At the end of his review from 19 June, Möller states that the volume offers "a wealth of views, not only into the history of Swiss neutrality and its pragmatic foreign policy under changed conditions, but also into essential European and worldwide political developments at the end of the 1960s" (translation from German). The full text can be found here.

Mit Betroffenheit hat die Forschungsgruppe der DDS vom kürzlichen Tod von Prof. Dr. em. Walther Hofer erfahren. Durch seine Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus und des Zweiten Weltkriegs fand der Ordinarius für Neuere Allgemeine Geschichte an der Universität Bern weit über die Landesgrenzen hinaus Beachtung und Anerkennung.

Mit Betroffenheit hat die Forschungsgruppe der DDS vom kürzlichen Tod von Prof. Dr. em. Walther Hofer erfahren. Durch seine Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus und des Zweiten Weltkriegs fand der Ordinarius für Neuere Allgemeine Geschichte an der Universität Bern weit über die Landesgrenzen hinaus Beachtung und Anerkennung. Walther Hofer war 1975 Gründungsmitglied der Nationalen Kommission für die Veröffentlichung diplomatischer Dokumente der Schweiz. Zusammen mit Beatrix Mesmer war er auch für die Publikation von Band 9 der DDS (1925-1929) verantwortlich. Der Historiker Hofer war auch eine bedeutsame politische Figur. Von 1963 bis 1979 vertrat er die BGB (die spätere SVP) im Nationalrat, 1968 bis 1980 war Hofer Mitglied der Parlamentarischen Versammlung des Europarats. Als massgeblicher Akteur der Schweizer Zeitgeschichte ist Hofer auch auf der Datenbank Dodis präsent (dodis.ch/P24640). Die DDS sind Professor Walther Hofer für seine historischen Beiträge und Impulse sowie sein  Engagement für das Forschungsprojekt zu grossem Dank verpflichtet.