Sommerfeld Addendum: A Right-Wing Agitator and Suspicions of French Intelligence

This is the Addendum of a five-part series on the Sommerfeld family,
tracing the right-wing affiliations of Harald Tobler and hints of Yvonne’s involvement with the French military.
Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here. Part 5 is here.

I was sure that I had finished the Sommerfeld saga. But then I found one more file on Harald Tobler—a slim folder, a mere twelve pages of documents. Despite its size, it sheds an interesting light on the man. It also contains a couple of tantalizing nuggets on Yvonne Sommerfeld, and a measure of closure on my long-standing question of whether Josef Jakobs told the truth about her.

Harald Tobler: Right-Wing Agitator

This thin file on Harald Tobler contains a number of police documents dating from 1939 through the mid-1940s.

In February 1939, Tobler was spotted at a meeting of the BTE at a restaurant in Zuchwil. He was only nineteen years old at the time. A few months later, he initiated a leaflet campaign for the ESAP and later hung an ESAP flag at Thunplatz. Police noted that he was a member of the ESAP.

The BTE was likely the Bund Treuer Eidgenossen (League of Loyal Confederates), a nationalist/frontist movement of the era. The ESAP was the Eidgenössische Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei (Federal Socialist Workers’ Party), a Swiss far-right, pro-Nazi front organization active in the late 1930s. Whatever initially drew him in, Tobler’s association with these groups would haunt him for years.

In May 1940, a police report noted that Tobler had been reported to the Intelligence Service (Nachrichtendienst) by several private individuals. At the time, he was serving with a Guard Company in the Hilfsdienst (auxiliary service). He had been seen frequently entering the German consulate and was always well-dressed despite living on a very small income, suggesting he was living beyond his means—perhaps with an undisclosed source of income.

When questioned, Tobler stated that he had previously been stationed with a Guard Company in St. Gallen, but had been withdrawn after repeatedly interacting with German railway employees. He later found employment at the Bern District Command but was dismissed after four days because he was a National Socialist. His parents supported him financially and paid for his clothing.

Tobler admitted that he had entered the German legation and consulate several times because he was attempting to emigrate to Germany. He claimed to have heard that all National Socialists in Switzerland would be arrested—or shot—in the event of a national emergency. His efforts to emigrate had, so far, failed. At the time, he was selling fire extinguishers for a firm named Nilfisk.

Blacklisted

A document from 1943 records that Harald Tobler-Schlup (now married) was under consideration for employment by the Bern police. He is described as a “well-known right-wing extremist,” married to Mina Schlup, and living in Bern. In March 1943, Tobler was investigated on suspicion of espionage, primarily due to his lack of visible, stable employment. His mail was monitored but revealed nothing incriminating.

Tobler worked as a sales representative in the chemical-technical field, but without success. He was often seen at his wife’s hairdressing salon—another unsuccessful venture—where he performed menial tasks. The couple had significant debts, and Mina’s parents had repeatedly assisted them financially, despite their own meagre means. The report concluded that Tobler was unlikely to alter his political views. Neighbours described him as a “friend of Hitler” who regularly listened to German radio broadcasts.

The Swiss Office of the Attorney General also weighed in, noting Tobler’s former membership in the BTE and ESAP, both banned right-wing organizations. “We cannot recommend Tobler for employment in the police department.”

A year later, the Federal Tax Administration contacted the Bern police to inquire about hiring Tobler. They sought confirmation that he was of impeccable reputation and that his political background posed no concern. The Swiss Office of the Attorney General responded that Tobler was a right-wing extremist, lacked permanent employment, and “is said to lack the will to work.” The conclusion was clear: “Based on these statements, we cannot recommend Tobler for employment in the federal service.”

In neither case was Tobler informed of the reasons for his rejection. He was, in effect, blacklisted due to his political affiliations. Tobler emerges as a marginal and increasingly isolated figure. His political commitments were not youthful hijinks. Even in the middle of the war, he continued to profess admiration for the Nazi regime and to listen to German radio broadcasts.

It is therefore striking to see him form a relationship with Yvonne Sommerfeld in the early postwar years. Tobler abandoned his wife and his debts and took up with Yvonne, travelling throughout Switzerland and eventually into Italy.

Yvonne Sommerfeld: Connections to the French Military

In July 1948, Harald Tobler and Yvonne Sommerfeld were questioned by the Lucerne police after checking into the Hotel Gotthard. Tobler had been declared “missing” several months previously, probably by his jilted and furious wife. Tobler freely admitted that he and Yvonne had been in an intimate relationship for the past six months, and that he intended to divorce his wife. As for Yvonne, she painted their relationship as more business-like.

During a detailed interrogation, Yvonne gave a brief history of her life. As a child, she had attended the private Zurlinden school on Effingerstrasse for nine years. After leaving school, she worked in her parents’ book-selling business. From 1922 to 1932, she lived with her parents in Geneva at Moillebeau 51.

From 1932 to 1936, she worked in Nice as a translator for French military authorities under Major Michel. She then travelled abroad with her parents, living in Vienna for about half a year and briefly in Innsbruck, assisting her father in the book trade. Due to her mother’s illness, the family moved to San Remo, Italy, where they remained until the spring of 1939.

As their overseas business activities declined, Yvonne returned to Switzerland and settled in Oerlikon, where she operated a wholesale stationery business. Toward the end of July 1939, she moved to Zurich and lived with her parents, working as a sales representative for Mova A.G., a paper-goods company. At Easter 1945, she relocated to Montreux (Villa Dubochet), where she worked independently in the wholesale paper-goods trade until July 1947. She then moved to Geneva, remaining there until the end of March 1948, before returning to Bern to live with her father at the Hotel National. She stated that she now intended to settle in Lugano.

Yvonne reported that she had met Tobler by chance at a social event in Bern in January 1948. Since then, she had worked for him as a translator. Tobler sold chemical cleaning-agent formulations on his own account and planned to travel to Italy on business. Because Yvonne was fluent in Italian, he asked her to accompany him.

Yvonne stated that she spoke German, French, and Italian, with some English and Spanish.

The Lucerne police had heard that Yvonne was married to a Frenchman. She explained that this was a falsehood she had told Mrs. Tobler in order to conceal the illegitimacy of her son. Harald’s wife knew of the child, and Yvonne had claimed she had been married in France to avoid further complications. After Yvonne and Tobler left the Tobler household, Mrs. Tobler allegedly threatened to report her to the police—possibly giving rise to the Comtesse de Perrier accusation.

Yvonne also named contacts, stating that she was known to Messrs. Chaffard and Favre of the intelligence service in Geneva. Chaffard was now a police officer in Geneva, and, she said, both men “should be able to provide impeccable information about my person here.”

The Lucerne police considered it unlikely that she was the Comtesse Ignes de Perrier, a woman suspected of espionage. They also judged it unlikely that she had served as a secretary for the French Deuxième Bureau.

Conclusion

During his interrogations by MI5 in the spring of 1941, Josef Jakobs recounted his Swiss adventures beginning in 1934. He and his associate, Werner Goldstein, had ultimately been arrested for fraudulent gold transactions. Josef also told MI5 about Yvonne Sommerfeld and her family, whom he believed to be connected to French intelligence. He claimed that he and Goldstein had initially been arrested because of their association with Yvonne, who was under suspicion by the Swiss police.

Over the course of this long examination of the Sommerfeld clan, I have been able to confirm many aspects of Josef’s account. Yvonne and her family were real people. Her father was indeed a bookseller. She lived in Geneva and spent significant time in Nice. Josef’s claim that she was involved with French intelligence, however, long seemed impossible to substantiate.

Until now.

By her own admission to the Lucerne police, Yvonne had worked in Nice from 1932 to 1936 as a translator for the French military, under a Major Michel. While the Lucerne police did not believe she had served as a secretary for the French Deuxième Bureau, the connection is nonetheless striking. Yvonne also stated that two intelligence officers in Geneva—Chaffard and Favre—could vouch for her character. The fact that she knew and named these men raises unavoidable questions. Was there more to her story than she was willing, or able, to say? Was her work for the French military conducted with the knowledge of Swiss intelligence authorities? Or was “French military” simply a convenient euphemism for intelligence work? While the Lucerne police may not have believed that she worked for French intelligence, were they simply not in the know?

We are also left wondering, was the father of her son, Edgar, a French officer?

While Yvonne Sommerfeld remains an elusive figure, one conclusion now seems unavoidable. Josef Jakobs did not invent her role. She was, in some capacity, affiliated with the French military apparatus. Whether she served as an intelligence operative—French, Swiss, or otherwise—remains unknowable. But Josef was telling the truth about Yvonne Sommerfeld. That much, at least, can now be said with confidence.