[Masculinity, nationhood and a body fit for the Swiss army in 1875].

The article looks at the model of the male body, as it emerged in Switzerland in the second half of the 19th century, an era of military centralization and the establishment of the national state (Nationalstaat). Focusing on different conceptions of fitness for military service, Rychner discusses how masculinity is reduced to physical attributes, and thereby objectified and reified. The context is the prevailing gender discourse which (while reducing women to little more than their bodily functions), positioned men as representatives of general human qualities, such as individuality and autonomy. Against this background and somewhat in opposition to it, for the Swiss republican army and its compulsory military service, the issue of each soldier's free will is a crucial issue - an issue that also informs the various conceptions of military fitness.