Swiss watch supply during WW2.......

Hi -

Basically, the Swiss and the Swedes in WW2 were neutrals that supplied to anyone buying. Trade for both countries was not a problem as long as they used their own national flag carriers or transshipped to a neutral third country.

Hence many watch movements went by Swiss airplanes to Portugal or Spain for further transport.

The rules of war (aka Geneva Conventions) are quite clear on the role of neutral shipping. Such a ship may be stopped and searched for war materials, and if it defends itself in may be sunk. Of course, the ocean is a large place, and Swedish shipping, for instance, was rarely stopped except on the high seas, so that the Swedish sale of iron ore to the Germans was largely without interdiction.

Watch movements were generally so small that they could be easily transported by air.

Watches were generally not considered to be war-critical supplies as well: while it was important to have good watches, there were enough options open. It's all a question of priorities: generally speaking, military action was taken against military targets, and inspection of neutral shipping was fairly rare (but did happen).

Commerce did not cease with the war. It was just made much more difficult.

JohnF

Rolex sold thousands to watches to Allied POWs

From:
http://www.timezone.com/library/extras/200704246126

Swiss watch sales were badly hit by the war, especially after Germany invaded unoccupied Vichy France in November 1942, and neutral Switzerland found itself completely encircled by Axis powers. Watch companies were cut off from their best customers, the British and Americans.
Rolex, however, discovered that there were plenty of British and Americans right on Switzerland's doorstep - literally a captive market - in German prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag Luft III, for example, housed up to 10,000 Allied airmen, shot down in operations over occupied Europe. Thousands more Allied officers were interned in the various Oflag (officer's POW camps) scattered throughout the German Reich.

This was evidently a booming market, judging from Rolex's confirmation of an order for one of its more expensive watches received from prisoner No. 738 in Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Germany (now part of Poland). Hans Wilsdorf, founding director of Rolex who took personal charge of sales to POWs, warned Clive Nutting of "an unavoidable delay in the execution of your order." The delay was due, not to wartime restrictions, "but to a large number of orders in hand for officers."

The large number of orders is explained by the incredible offer Rolex was making to POWs. Underlined in Wilsdorf's letter to Nutting are the words, "…but you must not even think of settlement during the war." The news that Rolex was offering watches on a buy-now- pay-whenever" basis must have spread through the camps like wildfire. More than 3,000 Rolex watches were reportedly ordered by British officers in the Oflag VII B POW camp in Bavaria alone.