Total Resistance (book)

While popular in the militia officer corps, the book was not well received by senior Army leaders, who favored a defence policy based on conventional combined-arms and mechanized warfare rather than irregular warfare. In 1974, the Chief of the General Staff vetoed the publication of Total Resistance as an army manual, partly because of concerns that it advocated conduct that violated the laws of war. When the Swiss Army did establish a secret stay-behind organization, P-26, in the 1970s, it was conceived as a top-down, cadre-led structure rather than the broad, decentralized civilian resistance movement envisioned by von Dach.[1]

Nonetheless, the book remains part of the curriculum of the Swiss Army Military Academy at the ETH Zurich as one of the "classics of the history of strategy and the theory of war."[3]

The book soon found unexpected success abroad. In 1965, U.S. special forces published an unauthorized translation entitled Total Resistance – Swiss Army Guide to Guerilla Warfare and Underground Operations. Other pirated translations continued to be published in dozens of languages in countries ranging from Angola to Vietnam. In the Soviet Union, the book was derided as "nonsense" in a 1984 newspaper article.[1]

Total Resistance became notably popular as an instruction manual for several left-wing terror groups active in the 1960s and 70s. According to Swiss and European police reports of the time, it was widely disseminated in left-wing militant circles, and its tactics were used in bomb attacks in Southern Tyrol, New York and Frankfurt, as well as in unrests in Paris.[1] For instance, in Italy, the publisher Savelli included part of the book in a left-wing political guerrilla handbook, In caso di golpe. Manuale teorico-pratico per il cittadino di resistenza totale e di guerra di popolo di guerriglia e di controguerriglia, in 1975.[4]

In Finland, the book was translated as Vastarintaopas by Pertti Riutta of the right-wing Itsenäisyyden Puolesta organization in 1981. The book was intended to be handed out to trusted people to prepare for a possible Soviet invasion. The book was printed in secret by the French intelligence agency DGSE. Only ten were handed out before Finnish officials confiscated the books and Riutta and one of his associates was charged with espionage against the Soviet Union for France.[5]

In Germany, the book was often found in police searches, including with Red Army Faction members. Since 1988, Der totale Widerstand has been the only Swiss book whose distribution is restricted in Germany because it is indexed by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons as "conducive to confusing the social ethics of children and young people, and to promote their inclination to violence".[1]