# Irish/Swiss neutrality in WW2: any resentment in the rest of Europe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 19, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246 "2012-03-19T18:59:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/21 "2012-03-20T14:51:51Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I’m curious why Sweden got a free ride. The common wisdom is that mountainous Switzerland would be difficult to take, but if the Germans could take Norway, why was less challenging Sweden left alone? Or was that simply for later, when other things had been settled? Besides, Norway was IIRC a former province or dependency of Sweden, wasn’t there some resentment that Germany was encroaching on Swedish homeground with their takeover? Norway and Sweden shared the same king at one time but it was not a happy union. Most Norwegians felt the Swedish monarchy had been forced on them and there was a resistance movement which led to Norwegian independence in 1905. So I don’t think there was too much sense of Scandinavian solidarity going on. The big reason why Norway was invaded and Sweden wasn’t, was because Sweden wasn’t “less challenging”. The Swedes realized they were close to Germany (and the Soviet Union) and were vulnerable to invasion. So they built up their military and prepared to resist an invasion. They wouldn’t have been able to fight off a determined German or Soviet invasion but they were strong enough to make it not worth the effort while other more vulnerable targets were available. Norway, for example. Norway made a big mistake. They figured they were relatively safe because they thought the only practical means of invading Norway would be via invading Sweden first. So they were counting on the Swedish military to slow down any invading force long enough for the Norwegians to prepare their defense. Germany had other plans. They saw that Norway wasn’t prepared to resist an invasion and also figured they could sneak an amphibious landing in before the British navy could detect them. And they were right. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/22 "2012-03-20T15:37:47Z")
> [@benbo1](#): > > 1. Ireland was a schizophrenic case. On the 1 hand, there were the Irish Guards, who served heroically on the Allied side (notably in _Operation Market-Garden_, the ‘A Bridge Too Far’ story). They were unequivocally fighting the Nazis, Ireland’s official neutrality notwithstanding. > On the other hand, the IRA threw in with the Nazis, not out of anti-Semitism or support of Fascism, but to seize the opportunity to get the British out. IRA members were accepted to have taken part in sabotage operations in Allied ports, including New York. Companies of foreign volunteers to the German Army included Irish. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Ireland was a haven for German spies, or that their government was actively plotting an invasion of England, but they couldn’t be counted on as truly ‘neutral’. The Nazis absolutely did plan to invade England, and had they done so (as someone alluded to _Operation SeaLion_), there’s little doubt Ireland would’ve seized the moment to declare its independence. A provision of the plan was to send arms to the IRA, and administer Northern England with Irish collaborators, much like the Vichy in France. > So between the 2, it’s not that the Irish were truly ‘neutral’. However, they were certainly less obviously allied with the Nazis than the Swiss. Most of your post is patent nonsense. Not only did thousands of Irish people fight in the British Army, the UK benefited from an influx of Irish migrants during the war that helped fill the labour gap in construction and essential services while so many of its own citizens were in the army. The IRA _did_ support the Nazis but they were hardly representative of the majority of people in the country or the government at the time. It was and had been an illegal organisation for nearly 20 years at the start of the war. A handful of Irish idiots did wind up volunteering for the Nazis, as did a small smattering of British idiots. These few crackpots were hardly representative of the majority of people on either island. If anything the Irish government was secretly pro-Britain, with collaborative plans made for a Nazi invasion of Britain. As to your point that Ireland would have declared independence if Sealion had been successful, the 26 counties were already at that point for most intents and purposes independent, so I don’t get your point. Do you mean there would have been a landgrab for Northern Ireland? ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/23 "2012-03-20T16:03:00Z")
Up to 60000 Southern Irish volunteered to fight in WWII, my grandfather included. While we were neutral, it was a tad lobsided. We sent fire brigades across the border when Belfast was bombed. We sent downed allied pilots and crew back over the border but we locked up any German who crashed. We didn’t ship any goods to Germany during the war not true for the UK. De Valera had a very difficult field to plough. We had fought a war against Britain not two decades before and were still trying to bed in a new Republic. Ireland joining Britain in a war could well have kicked off another civil war. Let’s also remember that the UK and her Allies, Canada, India etc stood against the Axis basically on their own for a long time. America sat back and watched this until they themselves were attacked. If we were attacked things may have been different. Here’s Dev in 1939 > [@](#): > > The desire of the Irish people and the desire of the Irish Government is to keep our nation out of war. The aim of Government policy is to maintain and to preserve our neutrality in the event of war. The best way and the only way to secure our aim is to put ourselves in the best position possible to defend ourselves so that no one can hope to attack us or violate our territory with impunity. We know, of course, that should attack come from a power other than Great Britain, Great Britain in her own interest must help us to repel it. Each country makes their own foreign policy based on what’s best for **them**. The US did this when they help in material goods but didn’t join the war when Britain was in great need and danger for Gernamy. The policy changed when it was changed for them. Ireland’s leaders made their own decision about what was best for Ireland and it’s people. That’s why we fought for self determination. ---
**Author:** ![kombatminipig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5ac83/32.png) [@kombatminipig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kombatminipig)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/24 "2012-03-20T16:35:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Norway and Sweden shared the same king at one time but it was not a happy union. Most Norwegians felt the Swedish monarchy had been forced on them and there was a resistance movement which led to Norwegian independence in 1905. So I don’t think there was too much sense of Scandinavian solidarity going on. > > The big reason why Norway was invaded and Sweden wasn’t, was because Sweden wasn’t “less challenging”. The Swedes realized they were close to Germany (and the Soviet Union) and were vulnerable to invasion. So they built up their military and prepared to resist an invasion. They wouldn’t have been able to fight off a determined German or Soviet invasion but they were strong enough to make it not worth the effort while other more vulnerable targets were available. > > Norway, for example. Norway made a big mistake. They figured they were relatively safe because they thought the only practical means of invading Norway would be via invading Sweden first. So they were counting on the Swedish military to slow down any invading force long enough for the Norwegians to prepare their defense. > > Germany had other plans. They saw that Norway wasn’t prepared to resist an invasion and also figured they could sneak an amphibious landing in before the British navy could detect them. And they were right. I hate to disagree with you, but in this case I do. In 1940 the Swedish army could at best mobilise some 230,000 soldiers of questionable quality and training and no combat experience. The armor corps was no more than 10 outdated tankettes, and the airforce pathetic. While there was some strength in the Navy, the German navy at the time could have blow it out of the water without much thought. Germany would have cut through Sweden like a hot knife through butter. Per-Albin Hansson, Swedish Prime Minster at the time, said: “Vår beredskap är god” (_“Our readiness is good”_). Today this is mostly regarded as an amusing piece of self delusion. The main reason why Germany didn’t invade though was that the Swedes were already supplying them with all they really wanted: Swedish iron ore from Kiruna. That supply line came with one catch, though: the Swedish port of Luleå on the Baltic freezes during winter. Instead, a year round port on the North Atlantic was required and the only available option was Narvik in Norway. Additionally the Norwegian coast would provide Atlantic bases for the German navy and would deny the Allies a beachhead from which to launch an invasion to occupy the Swedish mines. The Swedes were at the time not entirely unsympathetic to Germany, so anything more than token resistance would likely have lacked popular support. While able to stand on the side during most of the invasion, when the Germans started to lose Narvik to local resistance the Swedes were forced to choose sides. Allowing Germany to transfer reinforcements via Swedish rail would allow continued trade, and would nullify the threat of an Allied invasion. I don’t think the Norwegians were planning on being a part of the war at all, but keeping out of the whole affair as they did in WWI. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/25 "2012-03-20T18:52:50Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I’m curious why Sweden got a free ride. The common wisdom is that mountainous Switzerland would be difficult to take, but if the Germans could take Norway, why was less challenging Sweden left alone? Or was that simply for later, when other things had been settled? Besides, Norway was IIRC a former province or dependency of Sweden, wasn’t there some resentment that Germany was encroaching on Swedish homeground with their takeover? Germany didn’t just invade any place they could or thought they could take and hold. Norway was a necessary invasion to secure the supply of iron ore. If they hadn’t invaded when they did, Brittain would have nibbled at Norway’s neutrality until Germany was provoked to do what they did. Plans for this were in place as early as November '39. > [@](#): > > Toward the end of November, Winston Churchill—as a new member of the British War Cabinet—proposed the mining of Norwegian waters in Operation Wilfred. This would force the ore transports to travel through the open waters of the North Sea, where the Royal Navy could intercept them. Churchill assumed that Wilfred would provoke a German response in Norway. When that occurred, the Allies would implement Plan R 4 and occupy Norway. Though later implemented, Operation Wilfred was initially rejected by Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, due to fear of an adverse reaction among neutral nations such as the United States > **[Operation Weserübung](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Weser%C3%BCbung)** > > Asia-Pacific > Mediterranean and Middle East > Other campaigns Hitler’s “We’re just occupying you to save you from the nasty Brits.” may have been a poor excuse for an invasion, but it wasn’t a complete fiction. As long as the Swedes were cooperating, Germany had no reason to invade Sweden, and with the German occupation of Norway a British invasion of a resisting Sweden would have been lunacy. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/26 "2012-03-20T23:58:21Z")
> [@naita](#): > > but this is mostly outweighed by the support for refugees and concessions and neutrality breaches benefiting the allies closer to the end of the war. > [@alphaboi867](#): > > Sweden did sell raw materials to Germany and allowed German troops to transit from Norway to Finland via Swedish territory, but it also served as a haven to thousands of Jewish refugees (includes almost all of Denmark’s Jews). This is the explanation I have heard many a time in Sweden and frankly I just don’t accept it. Yes, a few thousand Jews were saved, but how many thousands died due to their actions, due to the weapons that were created using the raw materials that the Swedes supplied the Nazis with? How many died due to the easy movement of troops through Sweden? I admit that this isn’t all black and white, one could easily argue that if Sweden put up a fight even more would have died, but that is a big “what if?” I guess I’ve seen a nonchalant “yes, but we were a safe haven for some Jews” excuse enough times without people really thinking about the consequences of Sweden’s other actions. ---
**Author:** ![Woodenspoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bc79bd/32.png) [@Woodenspoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woodenspoon)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/27 "2012-03-21T01:21:44Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > First, Hitler never even TRIED to invade England, and knew perfectly well that he COULDN’T have launched such an invasion successfully. > > So, it was FAR from inevitable that Ireland would have been conquered by Hitler. Napoleon never tried to conquer Ireland, so why would Hitler? What did Ireland have that Hitler wanted or needed? > > In any case, while the Republic of Ireland was officially neutral, there were a LOT of Irish citizens serving in the British armed forces during World War 2. He could have. He didn’t because he didn’t view the uk as an immediate threat so he turned eastward, you can starve an island nation into submission before you invade it, if his invasion of russia had succeeded he could have realistically begun plans to invade the uk, cut off all trade with the world and the uk and just dead meat, the brits relied on supples/equipment and even food from their colonies, never mind america. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/28 "2012-03-21T01:38:33Z")
> [@Woodenspoon](#): > > He could have. He didn’t because he didn’t view the uk as an immediate threat so he turned eastward, you can starve an island nation into submission before you invade it, if his invasion of russia had succeeded he could have realistically begun plans to invade the uk, cut off all trade with the world and the uk and just dead meat, the brits relied on supples/equipment and even food from their colonies, never mind america. I dunno, I thought it was wargamed afterwards and shown that the Germans couldn’t have implemented a sustained invasion of Britain. I mean Operation Overlord was a success but only just and the Allies at that point had far more resources to call upon than the Germans were ever able to muster. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/29 "2012-03-21T01:55:36Z")
> [@benbo1](#): > > . . . 2. Ireland was a schizophrenic case. On the 1 hand, there were the Irish Guards, who served heroically on the Allied side (notably in _Operation Market-Garden_, the ‘A Bridge Too Far’ story). They were unequivocally fighting the Nazis, Ireland’s official neutrality notwithstanding. > On the other hand, the IRA threw in with the Nazis, not out of anti-Semitism or support of Fascism, but to seize the opportunity to get the British out. IRA members were accepted to have taken part in sabotage operations in Allied ports, including New York. Companies of foreign volunteers to the German Army included Irish. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Ireland was a haven for German spies, or that their government was actively plotting an invasion of England, but they couldn’t be counted on as truly ‘neutral’. The Nazis absolutely did plan to invade England, and had they done so (as someone alluded to _Operation SeaLion_), there’s little doubt Ireland would’ve seized the moment to declare its independence. A provision of the plan was to send arms to the IRA, and administer Northern England with Irish collaborators, much like the Vichy in France. > So between the 2, it’s not that the Irish were truly ‘neutral’. However, they were certainly less obviously allied with the Nazis than the Swiss. As others have pointed out, the most charitable explanation of this stuff is that you are making it up as you go along. Irish neutrality during WWII is generally regarded as having been heavily slanted towards the Allies. The notion of Ireland “declaring it’s independence” in the event of a Nazi invasion of England is just bizarre; Ireland had declared its independence in 1919, and fought a largely successful war of independence from 1919 to 1921. Nazi invasion plans for Britain were not well developed, but FWIW they included the military occupation of Ireland as well as Britain. We don’t know if they Irish government knew that at the time, but it certainly wouldn’t have come as any surprise to them. And, as Irish nationalists and republicans, it certainly would not have been welcome to them. It’s possible that the Nazi government hoped to find Vichy-type volunteers from within the IRA to enforce this occupation, but the Nazi government’s hopes are hardly evidence against Irish neutrality. They also hoped - and with more reason, it has to be said - to find Vichy-type collaborators in Britain from among British Fascists; does that mean that Britain should be regarded as aligned with the Nazis? As for “companies of foreign volunteers” in the Nazi forces including Irish people, there are somewhere between 10 and 15 _possible_ cases of Irish volunteers in German forces, and most of these were British POWs of Irish birth - that is to say, Irish people who had volunteered for the _British_ forces - whose change of allegiance was extremely doubtful. Pro rata, far more _British_ people volunteered for the Nazis than did Irish people. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/30 "2012-03-21T03:31:01Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > If anything the Irish government was secretly pro-Britain, with collaborative plans made for a Nazi invasion of Britain. I have to disagree with this here. These days it seems as one writer put it, everyone was either anti-Nazi, in the resistance or holidaying in South America during the war. The Irish government was not secretly pro-Britain. The Irish Government was (surprise, surprise) pro-Ireland and many of them at the time thought that that was equivalent to being anti-British. During the first two years of the war, the Irish did as much as they could to thumb their noses at Britain and some of the things (such as refusal of overflights at least initially) very clearly hurt the British war effort. The only reasons the Irish did not have a British invasion force with a tourist map show up (like Iceland) was that DeValera managed to do just enough to ensure that an invasion did not happen and also as Churchill needed the US, he did not want Ireland to be a stumbling block on that. Post war we know, that if the British had invaded, the US Government would have “understood”, like they did elsewhere. But at the time Churchill did not know that. When the US entered the war (and worse from an Irish prospective, American soldiers started being garrisoned in N Ireland, along with rather open rumblings of Irish “cowardice” coming out of the US establishment) that the Irish began some cooperation; once again only to do just enough to forestall any invasion plans. Post war Ireland was isolated for several years mainly because of its perceived pro-Nazi sympathies. In the same way, Switzerland and Sweden and also Spain kept their neutrality during the war years by saying “how high, O’great Fuhrer” whenever the Germans asked them to jump, not due to any great love of the Nazis, but because of compulsions. Heroic sacrifices on the matter of principal seem a lot less attractive when you have Guderians Panzers at your doorstep. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/31 "2012-03-21T03:37:56Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > No, that’s how we could have helped the French. For the Germans we would have opened their beer bottles. Luckily, a Swiss soldier is always well equipped for either task. HAHAHAHAH. Awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/32 "2012-03-21T03:59:50Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > In the same way, Switzerland and Sweden and also Spain kept their neutrality during the war years by saying “how high, O’great Fuhrer” whenever the Germans asked them to jump, not due to any great love of the Nazis, but because of compulsions. Heroic sacrifices on the matter of principal seem a lot less attractive when you have Guderians Panzers at your doorstep. True for Switzerland and Sweden but not so much for Spain. Franco really did like Hitler and they saw eye to eye on ideological issues. But Franco was smart enough to look out for number one and realized keeping a certain distance from Germany would be a smarter plan in the long run. If Mussolini had been equally smart, he’d have lived past 1945. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/33 "2012-03-21T04:23:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > True for Switzerland and Sweden but not so much for Spain. Franco really did like Hitler and they saw eye to eye on ideological issues. But Franco was smart enough to look out for number one and realized keeping a certain distance from Germany would be a smarter plan in the long run. If Mussolini had been equally smart, he’d have lived past 1945. Well Franco did not try to invade French Morrocco as the Italians did with British Egypt. If he had, then he might have needed assistance. ---
**Author:** ![benbo1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@benbo1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/benbo1)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/34 "2012-03-21T09:04:21Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > As others have pointed out, the most charitable explanation of this stuff is that you are making it up as you go along. Irish neutrality during WWII is generally regarded as having been heavily slanted towards the Allies. The notion of Ireland “declaring it’s independence” in the event of a Nazi invasion of England is just bizarre; Ireland had declared its independence in 1919, and fought a largely successful war of independence from 1919 to 1921. > > Nazi invasion plans for Britain were not well developed, but FWIW they included the military occupation of Ireland as well as Britain. We don’t know if they Irish government knew that at the time, but it certainly wouldn’t have come as any surprise to them. And, as Irish nationalists and republicans, it certainly would not have been welcome to them. > > It’s possible that the Nazi government hoped to find Vichy-type volunteers from within the IRA to enforce this occupation, but the Nazi government’s hopes are hardly evidence against Irish neutrality. They also hoped - and with more reason, it has to be said - to find Vichy-type collaborators in Britain from among British Fascists; does that mean that Britain should be regarded as aligned with the Nazis? > > As for “companies of foreign volunteers” in the Nazi forces including Irish people, there are somewhere between 10 and 15 _possible_ cases of Irish volunteers in German forces, and most of these were British POWs of Irish birth - that is to say, Irish people who had volunteered for the _British_ forces - whose change of allegiance was extremely doubtful. Pro rata, far more _British_ people volunteered for the Nazis than did Irish people. The truth hurts, Revisionist! Truth medicine goes down bitter! Much as apologists would love to spread the myth of ‘neutrality’, fact of the matter is that the government in general and a good number of individuals were Nazi sympathizers, and many did more than just wag their tongues over Guinness in the pub. While not condemning the Irish people as a whole, in more recent years more documentation has surfaced showing the overall disgraceful role of many Irish (excluding the previously-accoladed Guards). We can be charitable and paint it as anti-British mania, but facts are facts. They sabotaged Allied shipping, engaged in bombing campaigns in England during the war (for Christsakes, the ‘patriot poet’ Brendan Behan even bragged about it in a book) , and Just a quick Google on ‘Irish Nazi war’ yields these: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish\_Nazi\_collaborators](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_Nazi_collaborators) > **[Ireland 'welcomed Hitler's henchmen'](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1538969/Ireland-welcomed-Hitlers-henchmen.html)** [http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did\_the\_Irish\_government\_support\_the\_Nazis\_during\_World\_War\_2](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_the_Irish_government_support_the_Nazis_during_World_War_2) [http://www.victims.org.uk/nazi.html](http://www.victims.org.uk/nazi.html) most damning, > **[Irish Republican Army–Abwehr collaboration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army_%E2%80%93_Abwehr_collaboration_in_World_War_II)** > > The Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group seeking to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and unify Ireland, shared intelligence with the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of Nazi Germany, during the Second World War. > Conquest of Ireland was not a strategic goal for Nazi Germany before or during World War II. A plan existed for a potential invasion of Ireland, Operation Green, but it was more a diversionary tactic than an actual plot to take over the territory. THEY FUCKING COLLABORATED WITH ENEMY INTELLIGENCE!!! Come on already! Even the Germans admitted they were Nazis, and even the Swiss have paid financial penalties for their wartime treachery. It’s fine to be a chauvinist for your country, but own up to its crimes as well! No one is condemning the Irish people as a whole: on the contrary, the Irish Guards and other nationals who unofficially joined the Allies deserve special commendation. But that’s because their official government stance was pronouncedly the other way, favoring the Nazis - if not in word, then in deed. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/35 "2012-03-21T09:53:16Z")
> [@benbo1](#): > > The truth hurts, Revisionist! Truth medicine goes down bitter! Much as apologists would love to spread the myth of ‘neutrality’, fact of the matter is that the government in general and a good number of individuals were Nazi sympathizers, and many did more than just wag their tongues over Guinness in the pub. While not condemning the Irish people as a whole, in more recent years more documentation has surfaced showing the overall disgraceful role of many Irish (excluding the previously-accoladed Guards). We can be charitable and paint it as anti-British mania, but facts are facts. They sabotaged Allied shipping, engaged in bombing campaigns in England during the war (for Christsakes, the ‘patriot poet’ Brendan Behan even bragged about it in a book) , and Just a quick Google on ‘Irish Nazi war’ yields these: > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish\_Nazi\_collaborators](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_Nazi_collaborators) > > [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1538969/Ireland-welcomed-Hitlers-henchmen.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1538969/Ireland-welcomed-Hitlers-henchmen.html) > > [Did Ireland work with the Nazis during World War 2? - Answers](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_the_Irish_government_support_the_Nazis_during_World_War_2) > > [http://www.victims.org.uk/nazi.html](http://www.victims.org.uk/nazi.html) > > most damning, > [Irish Republican Army–Abwehr collaboration - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army_%E2%80%93_Abwehr_collaboration_in_World_War_II) > > THEY FUCKING COLLABORATED WITH ENEMY INTELLIGENCE!!! > Come on already! Even the Germans admitted they were Nazis, and even the Swiss have paid financial penalties for their wartime treachery. It’s fine to be a chauvinist for your country, but own up to its crimes as well! No one is condemning the Irish people as a whole: on the contrary, the Irish Guards and other nationals who unofficially joined the Allies deserve special commendation. But that’s because their official government stance was pronouncedly the other way, favoring the Nazis - if not in word, then in deed. You’re citing evidence of IRA activists collaborating with Nazi Germany, and using this to bolster an argument that the Irish government favoured the Nazis. This is the same Irish government that banned the IRA and hanged its members. You will appreciate, this is not a convincing argument. There were instances of individual Irish people collaborating with Nazi Germany, and some of them - but probably a minority - did so because they were pro-Nazi. The IRA co-operated with the government of Nazi Germany, but this was not mainly because they were pro-Nazi; it was mostly an opportunistic collaboration. More to the point, the IRA was a proscribed organization in Ireland at the time, of little influence and with little support. Even supporters of the IRA will concede that the 1940s was something of a low point in the organizations relevance to Ireland. The notion that the activities of the IRA at this period characterize the attitude of the Irish nation is too silly to spend much time refuting it. Your claim that the “official government stance was pronouncedly the other way, favoring the Nazis” is simply not supported by the evidence that you offer. Most of your links relate to the IRA, a declared opponent of the Irish government. The Wiki Answers article to which you link flatly contradicts your claim, asserting that the Irish government “asserted its right to remain neutral in the wider conflict and clung tenaciously to that policy”. From that article, the worst the Irish government stands accuse of is not permitting its territory to be used by the belligerents. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of neutrality? Are you operating out of a paradigm in which “neutral” = “pro-Nazi”? When Irish neutrality was compromised in World War II - and it was - this was invariably in favour of the Allies - assisting with air raid defences in Belfast, permitting overflights by Allied aircraft to bases in Northern Ireland, co-ordination with British military officials of plans for British troops to enter Ireland in the event of a German invasion, supply of Irish military intelligence and meteorological reports to the Allies and not to the Axis, facilitating the return to Britain of soldiers, sailors and airment crashing or landing in the Republic while interning Axis forces, returning to Northern Ireland any interned Axis forces escaping from there, and so forth. If the Irish government was tacitly favouring either side, it was certainly the Allies. Truth hurts, but it’s not hurting me! ---
**Author:** ![kombatminipig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5ac83/32.png) [@kombatminipig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kombatminipig)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/36 "2012-03-21T10:07:46Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > This is the explanation I have heard many a time in Sweden and frankly I just don’t accept it. Yes, a few thousand Jews were saved, but how many thousands died due to their actions, due to the weapons that were created using the raw materials that the Swedes supplied the Nazis with? How many died due to the easy movement of troops through Sweden? > > I admit that this isn’t all black and white, one could easily argue that if Sweden put up a fight even more would have died, but that is a big “what if?” I guess I’ve seen a nonchalant “yes, but we were a safe haven for some Jews” excuse enough times without people really thinking about the consequences of Sweden’s other actions. I’m a Swede myself, and I don’t even agree with it. Largely as a result of popular opinion (protests were held against any potential Jewish immigration during the 30s), Jews were categorically denied entry and shipped back to Germany. This didn’t change until the beginning of 1943 when Denmark’s Jewish population were smuggled across the channel as German plans for deportation were made public. Yet even after that, humanitarian help was mostly the result of private individuals such as Raoul Wallenberg and not official action. While Sweden can and should be blamed for not taking more Jewish refugees during the 30s, the same can be said about many nations. But yes, Narvik probably could have been held by the Norwegian resistance had Sweden not given the Germans access. The Royal Navy could effectively interdict troop transports by sea, and the only attempt to fly troops that far north failed badly. The Germans were preparing an evacuation when the finally got their reinforcements. Without Swedish steel I believe the war would have been far shorter. As an aside, Sweden has always had a bit of a double standard when it comes to international ethics. While on one side trumpeting itself as an international peace negotiator and upholder of humanistic values, the amount of study of racial biology prior to the war wad second only to Nazi Germany. Sweden had a policy of forced sterilization going until the 1970s aimed at Romani and promiscuous women. Sweden has also been an infamous arms exporter since WW2, often selling weapons to both sides of a conflict through third parties. With all this in mind, some Swedes tend to become a bit defensive when their actions in WW2 are questioned. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/37 "2012-03-21T10:30:38Z")
> [@kombatminipig](#): > > With all this in mind, some Swedes tend to become a bit defensive when their actions in WW2 are questioned. Indeed. I should point out that I’m not exactly wandering around discussing it with all and sundry. It is just I have been here long enough to have not only have other people brought it up in conversation around me but also seen it in the media etc. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/38 "2012-03-21T10:32:21Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > This is the explanation I have heard many a time in Sweden and frankly I just don’t accept it. Yes, a few thousand Jews were saved, but how many thousands died due to their actions, due to the weapons that were created using the raw materials that the Swedes supplied the Nazis with? How many died due to the easy movement of troops through Sweden? > > I admit that this isn’t all black and white, one could easily argue that if Sweden put up a fight even more would have died, but that is a big “what if?” I guess I’ve seen a nonchalant “yes, but we were a safe haven for some Jews” excuse enough times without people really thinking about the consequences of Sweden’s other actions. There’s very little resentment towards Sweden’s neutrality in Norway. The little there is is either context specific incidents or desultory and misinformed. Frankly, I think you’d have to stretch the war out for a lot longer than it went on for the Swedish neutrality to make a significant impact. And once Germany had Norway, they had the two things they wanted from Scandinavia anyway: Iron ore and aircraft bases that could cover the northern Atlantic. And it would have seemed frankly ruinously stupid by the leadership of Sweden at the time to provoke Germany into a fight. Want a funny fact? It took 62 days for Germany to conquer Norway, not a small country. Two months. That’s it. The period between Easter and the summer holidays. And that qualified us as a second place in the “keep the Germans at bay” World Championship that was going around, only beaten by the Soviet Union. And Germany didn’t even have a land connection to Norway. Once they’d taken and garrisoned Norway, they’d have an absolutely immense land border to cross into Sweden, let alone the brutally efficient tactics they used in Norway.Frankly, I don’t think there was a single competent Swedish commander who fancied their chances and I think even most of the Norwegians who bitched about the Swedes during the war came to recognize this very quickly. And so in the end, Sweden faced a bargain where they had very little chance of winning, very little to win by winning and a _lot_ to lose by playing a game where they actually had a realistic choice of not playing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/39 "2012-03-21T11:29:39Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Sweden did sell raw materials to Germany and allowed German troops to transit from Norway to Finland via Swedish territory, Mostly during the early phases of WW2 > [@alphaboi867](#): > > it also served as a haven to thousands of Jewish refugees (includes almost all of Denmark’s Jews). Mostly in the late phases of WW2. Sweden actually turned away quite a few Jewish refugees in 1940-41. Roughly speaking, 1942 and the battle of Stalingrad was a sort of a turning point for Swedish policy during the war. There was a notable sympathy for German culture and values, especially in the higher classes, and the prevalence of Nazi sympathies in Swedish society isn’t particularly well covered in school history curricula. Of course, turning to away from the dark side and being sympathetic to the Allies during the later phase of WW2 left Sweden with a mostly positive image in e.g. Norway after 1945. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246/40 "2012-03-21T12:16:13Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > There was resentment at Ireland’s neutrality - most memorably in Churchill’s notorious swipe in his VE Day speech, followed by De Valera’s famous reply. Do tell! (Yes, I’m too lazy/busy to look them up myself.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-swiss-neutrality-in-ww2-any-resentment-in-the-rest-of-europe/616246.md?page=3)