After reading an answer in this thread, I wondered (strangely enough) for the first time why Hitler didn’t take Switzerland ? The Germans could have taken it by assault in a minute, couldn’ they? And it would have been easy, and plenty, prey.
So, what’s the dope?
(1) Neutral countries have their uses in wartime.
(2) It is doubtful if he could have taken it in a minute, partly because the Swiss terrain was not suited to tank warfare, and partly because the Swiss had organised the whole adult male population as an armed militia.
IIRC Switzerland’s defense has always rested on the premise of “not being worth it”. They know they cannot muster a big enough military to stop an enemy such as Germany in the 1940’s. The goal was more porcupine like. You may be BIGGER but it is gonna hurt a lot to kill them. The pain you suffer will be more than the end result will net you.
Switzerland is very mountainous and, IIRC, they have made sure they are experts in mountain fighting. I also think they have tunnels and bridges mined so can close off routes in pretty quickly (or at least have plans to do so should the need arise). Everyone in Switzerland also serves in the military so, in a pinch, the whole population could be roused to fight if they have to.
In short, look elsewhere. Just not worth the trouble (not rich in the way of natural resources and so on).
I suppose had Germany consolidated most of Europe under their rule eventually the Swiss would probably get an ultimatum and a puppet government.
I also want to say there was some advantage to have access to the Swiss banks in a time of war which capturing them would negate but I’d need to look that up.
Maybe I’m a bit naive, but couldn’t the Germans have made all these banks into the Reichsbank, subsidiary Switzerland? ( I certainly know almost nothing about financial politics)?
I don’t know that Germany could take Switzerland “in a minute.” It’s a mostly mountainous terrain, so the Germans would have to march up a hill, fight their way into a city, then march up another hill and do it again. Plus, unlike every other country in Europe, Switzerland wasn’t exhausted from fighting World War I and was less likely to yield to the series of promises and threats that Austria and Czechoslovakia had fallen to.
Third, I don’t think Switzerland offered the material advantages that Hitler saw in France, Poland, the Low Countries and Russia. Finally, there were some advantages to being next-door to a neutral, but non-threatening, land-locked country: back channel diplomacy, for one.
I won’t say that if Hitler had succeeded in capturing everything else he wouldn’t have turned his attention to Switzerland, but I think it was pretty low on his list of objectives.
One should keep in mind that Hitler didn’t invade countries just for the sake of it. He had strong reason to attack the countries he did attack. (Was is justified etc, of course not.) He had no reason to attack Switzerland, or Sweden for that matter. Note that he never wanted a war with England for instance, and some other western countries in particular, but was dragged or forced into it. - As you understand, but being a sensitive subject for good reasons, I’m not saying this to defend Hitler’s choices in any way, naturally, but he wasn’t a brainless warmongerer; there was some inner Nazi logic in what he did. So the question should be not why he didn’t attack Switzerland, as much as why he should have?
I see all points made in all of the answers above, but Switzerland is and was a very rich country, and the Nazis were greedy bastards.
This isn’t really true. Hitler didn’t particularly want to fight the UK in 1939, it is true, but that is a tactical thing.
Hitler could have coexisted with the UK and certain Western nations, but only on his terms, with those nations essentially subservient vassal states of the new Germany.
As for Switzerland, they were useful as a neutral, no threat to Germany, provided an outlet for German gold, and were seemingly significantly closer to the Axis than the Allies. Spain wasn’t invaded either, though the Wehrmacht could have rolled through that far quicker. And Germany had good strategic reasons to want to invade Spain, unlike Switzerland.
He wasn’t ready to take on the Swiss Army, because the German army’s knives had inferior toothpicks and corkscrews.
The things that make Switzerland a rich country would be destroyed if they were invaded, though. Switzerland is rich because of its neutrality and the banking industry that developed there.
Don’t underestimate a knife made of Kruppstahl. 
This is pretty much it. Switzerland has a long and proud tradition of an armed population; there’s a tale of a German general (sometimes the Kaiser) asking what the Swiss would do if half a million Germans invaded, to which a militiaman responds “Shoot twice and go home.”
There’s a number of other reasons, economically and politically, which Switzerland was not attacked, outlined here.
Technically, Germany would have had to march through Vichy France to invade Spain, but Spain was pretty much a German lapdog. Franco fawned over Hitler (so much so that Hitler found it distasteful) and would have done anything Hitler asked at any time. Why invade and set up a puppet government if that’s what you had to begin with?
Oh I agree. But invading Spain would have taken Gibraltar, and would have been much easier than invading Switzerland, which had NO strategic benefit. And was also pretty close to being a German lapdog too.
Hi, I’m from the Netherlands. We were neutral during WWI. As were Sweden and Spain (and of course, Switzerland).
Thank you very much for this informative link. Great!
Actually, Reality Chuch, I do not think Franco fawned on Hitler at all. From what I’ve read in William Shirer’s *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich *and other sources, El Caudillo felt contempt for Hitler (after all, Franco was an officer and Hitler was only a corporal). Shirer describes the aftermath of one meeting in which Hitler tried to get Spain to come in on the Axis side: Hitler remarked to some of his subordinates that he would rather have all his teeth pulled than endure a similar meeting again.
This has been discussed a lot at the Axis Forums and the consensus basically comes to he could’ve done it, and without much problem. The Swiss terrain is rough and they are well armed, but it wouldn’t have been much of a problem, between the German rule of the air and the ability to starve the Swiss out, it wouldn’t have stood a chance.
The Swiss co-operated a lot with the Germans and this was why Hitler didn’t bother.
If the Swiss put up any sort of resistance, other than token, Hitler would’ve wiped them out as he did in Lidice. But what was south of the Swiss? Italy, which was an Axis partner. So there was no need to bother with the Swiss when the co-operated.
This is much like the Sweden. They co-operated with the Germans. Although the Danes were occupied by the Nazis, the Danes pretty much were left to run themselves as they too co-operated.
Spain was hardly a willing German ally. Hitler said he’d rather have a tooth pulled than deal with Franco again. Franco proved to be an ungrateful ally to German and Italy who helped him win the Civil War in Spain. Franco was totally out for himself and had no issues or qualms about dumping Hitler once he started to lose and moving over toward the Allied camp.
Hitler was more concerned about the Soviet Union and Britian than his southern front which was only an issue because of Italy’s inability to do anything on its own.
I think the effectiveness of this is over-stated. The Swiss decided at the beginning of the war to basically give up all low-laying land to the Germans and conduct a guerilla-style resistance if attacked. The mountains played a much bigger role than any armed tradition.
Agreed. This is a decent starting point. Spain was pretty devastated following their civil war and all Hitler could get out of Franco without formally becoming a belligerent was the Spanish volunteer Blue Division to fight on the Eastern Front.