The Most Famous

MILITARY PERSONNELS from Switzerland

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This page contains a list of the greatest Swiss Military Personnels. The pantheon dataset contains 2,058 Military Personnels, 6 of which were born in Switzerland. This makes Switzerland the birth place of the 41st most number of Military Personnels behind Latvia, and Kazakhstan.

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Swiss Military Personnels of all time. This list of famous Swiss Military Personnels is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity.

Photo of Henri Guisan

1. Henri Guisan (1874 - 1960)

With an HPI of 67.91, Henri Guisan is the most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages on wikipedia.

Henri Guisan (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi ɡizɑ̃]; 21 October 1874 – 7 April 1960) was a Swiss military officer who held the office of General of the Swiss Armed Forces during the Second World War. He was the fourth and the most recent person to be appointed to the rarely used Swiss rank of general, and was possibly Switzerland's most famous soldier. He is best remembered for effectively mobilizing the Swiss military and population in order to prepare resistance against a possible invasion by Nazi Germany in 1940. Guisan was voted the fourth-greatest Swiss figure of all time in 2010.

Photo of Jean Reynier

2. Jean Reynier (1771 - 1814)

With an HPI of 58.62, Jean Reynier is the 2nd most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Jean Louis Ébénézer Reynier (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ lwi ebeneze ʁɛnje]; 14 January 1771 – 27 February 1814) was a Swiss-French military officer who served in the French Army under the First Republic and the First Empire. He rose in rank to become a general during the French Revolutionary Wars and led a division under Napoleon Bonaparte in the French campaign in Egypt and Syria. During the Napoleonic Wars, he continued to hold important combat commands, eventually leading an army corps during the Peninsular War in 1810–1811 and during the War of the Sixth Coalition in 1812–1813.

Photo of François Le Fort

3. François Le Fort (1656 - 1699)

With an HPI of 58.12, François Le Fort is the 3rd most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

François Jacques Le Fort also spelled Lefort (Russian: Франц Яковлевич Лефорт, romanized: Frants Yakovlevich Lefort; 12 January [O.S. 2 January] 1656 – 12 March [O.S. 2 March] 1699) was a Genevan-born Russian military leader of Huguenot origin. He served as general admiral (1695) and was a close associate of Tsar Peter the Great.

Photo of Lionel Dunsterville

4. Lionel Dunsterville (1865 - 1946)

With an HPI of 56.16, Lionel Dunsterville is the 4th most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Major General Lionel Charles Dunsterville (9 November 1865 – 18 March 1946) was a British Army officer, who led Dunsterforce across present-day Iraq and Iran towards the Caucasus and Baku during the First World War.

Photo of Franz von Werra

5. Franz von Werra (1914 - 1941)

With an HPI of 53.20, Franz von Werra is the 5th most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Franz Xaver Freiherr von Werra (13 July 1914 – 25 October 1941) was a German World War II fighter pilot and flying ace who was shot down over Britain and captured. He was the only Axis prisoner of war to escape from Canadian custody and return to Germany apart from a U-boat seaman, Walter Kurt Reich, said to have jumped from a Polish troopship into the St. Lawrence River in July 1940. Werra managed to return to Germany via the US, Mexico, South America and Spain, finally reaching Germany on 18 April 1941. Oberleutnant von Werra was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 14 December 1940. His story was told in the book The One That Got Away by Kendall Burt and James Leasor, which was made into a film of the same name, starring Hardy Krüger.

Photo of Henry Wirz

6. Henry Wirz (1823 - 1865)

With an HPI of 51.71, Henry Wirz is the 6th most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Henry Wirz (born Hartmann Heinrich Wirz; November 25, 1823 – November 10, 1865) was a Swiss-American convicted war criminal who served as a Confederate Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the commandant of Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 Union Army prisoners of war died as a result of inhumane conditions. After the war, Wirz was tried and executed for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp; this made the captain the highest-ranking soldier and only officer of the Confederate Army to be sentenced to death for crimes during their service. Since his execution, Wirz has become a controversial figure due to debate about his guilt and reputation, including criticism over his personal responsibility for Andersonville Prison's conditions and the quality of his post-war trial.

People

Pantheon has 6 people classified as Swiss military personnels born between 1656 and 1914. Of these 6, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Swiss military personnels include Henri Guisan, Jean Reynier, and François Le Fort. As of April 2024, 6 new Swiss military personnels have been added to Pantheon including Henri Guisan, Jean Reynier, and François Le Fort.

Deceased Swiss Military Personnels

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Newly Added Swiss Military Personnels (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Military Personnels were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Military Personnels since 1700.