science

Oil soldiers

Oil soldiers is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Oil soldiers rather than just read about it. In short: Oil soldiers (German Ölsoldaten) is the name given to soldiers of the Swiss Army poisoned by accident in 1940, when they were served Käseschnitten (fried bread with cheese) in which mineral oil mixed with tricresyl phosphate, intended as a coolant for machine guns, was mistakenly used for the preparation of the dish. Course of events On July 29, 1940, peanut oil, used in the preparation of food for a company (Mitr K…

Key takeaways

Oil soldiers belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Oil soldiers to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Oil soldiers from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Oil soldiers (German Ölsoldaten) is the name given to soldiers of the Swiss Army poisoned by accident in 1940, when they were served Käseschnitten (fried bread with cheese) in which mineral oil mixed with tricresyl phosphate, intended as a coolant for machine guns, was mistakenly used for the preparation of the dish.

Course of events On July 29, 1940, peanut oil, used in the preparation of food for a company (Mitr Kp IV/52) in Ramiswil, canton of Solothurn, was mixed with machine gun cooling oil by mistake and used to make a cheese dish (Käseschnitten). That happened because, after a drill, the coolant was stored in cooking oil cans that were not marked properly, and the oil was indistinguishable from cooking oil by taste or appearance. That led to 74 soldiers and 10 to 12 civilians suffering from tricresyl phosphate poisoning, causing paralysis of the legs which in some cases was grave and irreversible. There were civilians, including children, among the victims of the poisoning because some of the soldiers had shared their rations. 32 of the cases were registered as "grave", 20 of them as "total invalidity". Later the same year, a similar incident affected the Schwyz Gebirgsmitrailleurkompanie IV/72 where at least 17 soldiers suffered permanent health damage after a salad was prepared with cooling oil.

Impact The case of the "oil soldiers" was widely publicised and discussed in Switzerland. In 1947, the first broadcast of Swiss Solidarity in the German-speaking part of Switzerland was used for a fundraising campaign to help them. A foundation ("Stiftung Vergiftungspatienten") was created to support the disabled. The incidents triggered a revision of the Swiss military insurance law. Swiss military insurance had paid a total of 46.1 million Swiss Francs to the "oil soldiers" by 2015. Legally, the incident was treated as an accident, and only the battalion doctor was convicted, being sentenced to 45 days in prison for negligence of duty. He had repeatedly refused to visit the sick soldiers on the evening of the poisoning because he did not think it was a serious matter. The last surviving "oil soldier" was Christoph von Blarer, who died on April 8, 2014, in Aesch, Basel-Landschaft, aged 98.

References

Sources Balz Ruchti: Das Gift von 1940, in: Der Beobachter, 16. Dezember 2011 Franziska Gebel, Alois Fässler: Ölsoldaten. Statistik der Militärversicherung 2016, p. 53–59. Online (PDF) Archived 2019-05-27 at the Wayback Machine

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Oil soldiers

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Oil soldiers claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Oil soldiers before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Oil soldiers ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Oil soldiers

In research: Oil soldiers appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Oil soldiers in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Oil soldiers is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 in Switzerland, Food safety scandals, Mass poisonings, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Oil soldiers outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Oil soldiers in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Oil soldiers means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Oil soldiers out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oil soldiers in simple terms?

Why does Oil soldiers matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Oil soldiers?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Oil soldiers.