The Centre Général Guisan is located in Pully near Lausanne, in a one-hectare park on the banks of the Leman River. It is a privileged place for meetings, study and remembrance.

Under the name of Verte Rive, the property was the home, until his death in 1960, of General Guisan, Commander-in-Chief of the Swiss Army during the Second World War 1939-1945.

Owned by the Swiss Confederation since 1971, Verte Rive is today a center managed by a private-law association.

Centre Général Guisan - history

history of the General

Origin

The Guisan family can be traced back to the 15th century in the canton of Vaud. The Guisans, lords of Avenches, Donatyre and Oleyres, had to cede their property and offices to Their Excellencies in Berne when the Pays de Vaud was occupied. Through his mother, Henri Guisan descends from the lords of Beaufort in France, a Huguenot family who emigrated to Switzerland when the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685. Family motto of Henri Guisan, bourgeois of Avenches: "It recte nihil timet" (The righteous have nothing to fear).

Youth

Henri Guisan was born on October 21, 1874 in Mézières, Vaud, where his father worked as a country doctor.

In 1893, he obtained his baccalauréat ès lettres after attending the cantonal classical college and gymnasium in Lausanne. A member of the Zofingen Student Society, he began medical studies, but soon abandoned them in favor of agronomy. By 1897, he was running an agricultural estate in Chesalles sur Oron and starting a family by marrying Mary Doelker.

Military career

1894 Recruit school at Bière in the horse-drawn artillery (a weapon in which he could indulge his passion for horses).

1894 Lieutenant

1898 First lieutenant

1904 Captain, commander of field battery 6.

1908 Captain on the general staff (EMG)

1909 Major EMG

1913 Major infantry, commander of fusiliers battalion 2

1916 Lieutenant-colonel EMG then

1919 Commander ad interim of infantry regiment 9

1920 Colonel infantry, commander infantry brigade 5

1926 Divisional colonel*, commander of the 2nd division then

1931 Divisional colonel, commanding the 1st division

1932 Colonel commandant de corps d'armée, commandant du 2e corps d'armée puis

1933 Colonel commandant de corps, commander of the 1st army corps

1939 General, elected by the Federal Assembly on August 30, commander-in-chief of the army.

Until his appointment to the rank of divisional colonel, Henri Guisan retained his status as a militia officer while performing extensive service as a volunteer training officer.

* General officers then held the rank of colonel brigadier, colonel divisionnaire and colonel commandant de corps. The term "colonel" was removed in the 1960s.

The mission given to the army and its leader for the period of the Second World War 1939 - 1945 can be summed up in one sentence "Safeguarding the country's independence and maintaining territorial integrity."

This mission led General Guisan to make strategic decisions dictated by the situation and its evolution throughout his time in command. From a standby posture dictated by the country's neutral status after mobilization, the army gained the fighting posture of the Réduit in the Alpine sector while Switzerland was encircled by Axis Forces, to return, in the last phase of the war, to a border-covering posture.

The army's role in the Alps was to ensure that Switzerland was protected from the enemy.

On August 20, 1945, General Henri Guisan could leave his command with the feeling of having fulfilled the mission entrusted to him.

Until his death on April 7, 1960, General Henri Guisan was able to measure his popularity through the countless tokens of gratitude expressed by the Swiss people.

The General Guisan Centre

Under the name of Verte Rive, the property that today houses the CENTRE GENERAL GUISAN was the home of General Henri Guisan, Commander-in-Chief of the Swiss Army during the period 1939 - 1945. The buildings, constructed by the father of General Guisan's future wife Mary Doelker between 1867 and 1874, were designed for living and farming in an area devoted to agriculture and wine production. Henri Guisan moved here in 1902 and stayed until his death in 1960.

Bought by the Swiss Confederation in 1971, the Verte Rive property became the headquarters of the CENTRE D'HISTOIRE ET DE PROSPECTIVE MILITAIRES thanks to the SOCIETE VAUDOISE DES OFFICIERS (SVO), to which the Confederation granted a building lease on one of the pavilions. Since 1974, this pavilion has been used as a meeting place for numerous societies, particularly military ones. The general's son, Colonel Henry Guisan, occupied the villa until his death in 1990.