A misapprehension several people seem to have is that Switzerland was a German ally during the war. This is not true. Switzerland has maintained its strict policy of neutrality for centuries and never allied with any foreign country, much less the Third Reich.
Switzerland maintained diplomatic and trade relations with Germany during the war, as did other neutral countries - including the United States prior to 1941.
Afraid of heights?
:dubious:
Why didn’t Hitler invade Switzerland?
He had a plan but it was full of holes.
Well, Poland wasn’t a sovereign country between 1795-1917, having been divided between Prussia, Austria, and Russia in 1795. There was a Russian established “Kingdom of Poland”, after the Treaty of Vienna, but it wasn’t anything like independent.
A Swiss friend of mine gave me the following explanation. The Germans were permitted to send trains through the Swiss tunnels and on Swiss tracks to and from Italy and this was of some importance to Germany. This was strict neutrality. The Germans were warned that if they invaded, the Swiss had mined every bridge and every tunnel and were prepared to destroy them. Moreover the Swiss army (which, with the reserves included every male between 18 and 45) was prepared to retreat into carefully prepared and provisioned mountain redoubts from which they could not feasibly dislodged.
Both before and after the war Switzerland imports a lot of food. My friend claimed that they were really a lot healthier during the war because they were basically limited to the food they grow themselves, which is a relatively meager supply. Even today, they keep Swiss farmers going by banning imports of fresh vegetables during a few weeks in the summer. The price goes up and the quality down, but it keeps the farmers in business. The rest of the time, the markets are overflowing with Italian and Spanish produce. Of course, they had no chocolate during the war either. (Chocolate is rightly considered a health food in Switzerland and is sold in “Reformhaeuser” or health food stores).
here is another view – he had half-ass plans to. From respected toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis
----------QUIOTE---------------------------------
A month after the fall of France, in June, 1940, Hitler’s and Mussolini’s high commands prepared plan `von Menges,’ under which Germany would seize the northern two thirds of Switzerland, while Fascist Italy annexed the portion south of the Alps.
Have you actually been to Switzerland? Chocolate is sold in kiosks, tobacco shops, vending machines, chocolate stores, groceries, just about everywhere. Maybe also health food stores, although I don’t recall ever seeing a health food store. And I don’t recall any weeks where only Swiss produce was available, at least not at the markets that I shopped. Of course the produce is so expensive in Switzerland that I don’t doubt that Swiss farmers could make some money regardless. Probably the best produce in the world, but very expensive.
I would really like to see a cite for that. While it is true that there are import tariffs on most imported foodstuff, as far as I know there are no ‘banned weeks’. And the claim that the imported food should be of better quality is utterly ridiculous. You only have to go to the ‘manor’ (very upmarket) supermarket and look at the produce. They make a very big deal of selling local produce (often produced within a couple of km), and the quality is very good. The price is very steep, of course, but they don’t cater for bargain hunters. (Of course, if you go to the ‘coop’ (more mainstream) supermarket you will find imported spanish brussel sprouts at a fraction of the price - but they’re nowhere near as nice.)
On the other hand, when it comes to poultry, you might be right. In my opinion French chicken are better than Swiss. (Which is probably the reason the Swiss slap on huge tariffs on import of poultry.)
If you want cites, I recommend looking at this page from WTO, where they try to explain the tariff system.
For an interresting subject, study Swiss dairy policy. According to one rumour (which unfortunately I have not been able to verify) Swiss mountain dairy farmers are given subsidies from the tourist budget, to ensure that the mountain pastures remain green and covered in cowpats.
That’s a joke, right? The Swiss eat about twice as much chocolate as americans, and it’s not considered health-food. (Although I don’t doubt that you can find chocolate in health food stores as well, it’s sold pretty much everywhere, just like ShibbOleth pointed out.)
That’s simplyfying to several degrees. Sweden was, inofficially, very German friendly adn quite pro-nazi. The ruling class supported the Germans and Swedish young men enlisted in Waffen-SS to help the war effort. Had Sweden entered WWII, it would have done as the Finnish - sided with Germany.
Always opportunistic, Sweden adopted an official stance of neutrality, while quietly aiding Germany, at least until Stalingrad, when the wind changed. The aid included troup transits on Swedish railroads and of course selling raw material to the German war industry. Most of Hitlert’s monuments in Berlin (pre-WWII) were built using Swedish granit.
Keeping the neutral stance at the end of the war and after, the biggest shame is that we sent back thousands of Baltic refugees to the Soviets. People from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania scrambled across the Baltic sea to escape the communist, but fearing the wrath of the Russian Bear, we sent them right back.
Of course, later we enriched ourselves by bagging the money from the Marshall aid when we sold raw material to re-build Germany. No wonder Sweden was the richest country in the world in the 50’s & 60’s and could start reforms to build the perfect welfare state. :snorts:
Recently revealed top secret documents show that Switzerland had multiple 1920’s style Death Rays ready to deploy against a German invasion.
this may be a good thread to ask for some recommendations on books discussing history of WWII. Some of the questions I am thinking about are of an Economic Historical type: In general, who in Germany benefitted and how much from invading an additional country. Take Denmark. Did taxes from Den. go back to Ger.? To who? Did they think they could get more by taxing Danes than just killing them and giving Danish land to Germans? Why did part of France become Vichy; what was different there than occupied France? Why did the Germans move so fast rather than consolidating new conquests to create more war industries? I understand that a detailed examination of these types of questions could fill many books. I was wondering if there was a book used in a college course on WWII history that might briefly discuss these issues with references to more detailed exploration.