Oil soldiers
Swiss soldiers poisoned by machine gun coolant in cheese dish.
Oil soldiers (German Ölsoldaten) refers to Swiss Army soldiers accidentally poisoned in 1940 when a cheese dish was prepared with mineral oil mixed with tricresyl phosphate, a machine gun coolant. The incident caused paralysis and lasting disability among soldiers and civilians.
Quick Facts
- Date of incident
- July 29, 1940
- Location
- Ramiswil, canton of Solothurn
- Number of soldiers poisoned
- 74
- Number of civilians poisoned
- 10 to 12
- Number of grave cases
- 32
Facts from the source article.
Course of events
On July 29, 1940, peanut oil used for cooking a company (Mitr Kp IV/52) in Ramiswil was accidentally mixed with machine gun cooling oil. The coolant had been stored in unmarked cooking oil cans after a drill and was indistinguishable from cooking oil by taste or appearance. The contaminated oil was used to prepare Käseschnitten, a fried bread with cheese dish. This caused tricresyl phosphate poisoning in 74 soldiers and 10 to 12 civilians, including children who had received shared rations. Paralysis of the legs resulted, with 32 cases classified as grave and 20 as total invalidity. Later that year, a similar incident affected the Schwyz Gebirgsmitrailleurkompanie IV/72, where at least 17 soldiers suffered permanent health damage after a salad was prepared with cooling oil.
Impact
The story of the "oil soldiers" sparked widespread debate across Switzerland. In 1947, the very first broadcast of Swiss Solidarity in the German-speaking region launched a fundraising drive for them. A foundation, Stiftung Vergiftungspatienten, was set up to aid the disabled. The events forced a change to Swiss military insurance law. By 2015, that insurance had paid out 46.1 million Swiss Francs to these soldiers. The law treated the poisoning as an accident, and only the battalion doctor was punished. He got a 45-day prison term for neglecting his duty, having repeatedly refused to check on the sick soldiers the evening of the poisoning because he didn't take it seriously. The last surviving oil soldier, Christoph von Blarer, passed away on April 8, 2014, in Aesch, Basel-Landschaft, at age 98.
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