Ernst Cinceras nichtstaatlicher Staatsschutz im Zeichen von Gesamtverteidigung und Kaltem Krieg

This article analyses the activities and networks of Ernst Cincera, the owner of a private intelligence service in the 1960s and 70s, at the height of the Cold War. Fearing a communist subversion of Switzerland, Cincera built up his own widely-used private intelligence service. This article contextualises Cincera’s actions within the 1970s security discourse of «Total Defence» (Gesamtverteidigung). It analyses Cincera’s and his network’s motivations to ensure state security by themselves and examines why the state tolerated and at times even helped him.