And many of the Nazi bigwigs had their own private Swiss bank accounts, which they preferred that the ReichsBank not know about. They were probably all helping to persuade Hitler that Switzerland wasn’t worth invading at this time.
It’s just as well he never tried to take on The Falkland Islands.
Those penguins are mean mothers when riled
Are you Swiss? Having a “never surrender” policy is much different than actually putting it into practice when faced with a far more powerful neighbor.
The Swiss just surrendered to the US Justice Department, giving up a big chunk of their tax-haven status.
The Nazis crushed France in the space of two months, then one of the largest militaries in Europe. The idea that the Swiss would have provided any sort of effective resistance against the German army is laughable. In the face of air superiority, mining tunnels isn’t going to be that effective. Similarly, the Swiss tactic of taking to the mountains isn’t going to be that effective against a German army with extensive experience in mountain warfare (here’s a declassified document outlining German mountain warfare tactics in WW2; the Germans relied on small groups of skirmishers armed with mortars and other light weaponry).
Further, I’m always surprised at how much faith is put into the Swiss militia. How much training do Swissmen get? Compared to a professional soldier, I’m guessing, “very little”, and certainly not enough to see off the Germans.
Well, the main reason Switzerland didn’t surrender is that, you know, they weren’t at war, and weren’t attacked with nuclear weapons.
Had Germany invaded Switzerland and nuked Geneva, I am not at all confident the proud “No surrender” talk would have lasted very long. Everyone talks big when there’s no reason not to.
You seem very defensive of Switzerland. Great country and I admire their dedication to national defense, but give me a break. There was, not long ago, a day when the French were considered the greatest military power in Europe - as is often pointed out, there’s a reason so many military terms are French. The Swiss are not invincible superheroes and if the Nazis had felt Switzerland would have been better off invaded, they would have invaded and they would have won, and Switzerland would have been occupied. Sure, there would have been ongoing resistance - just as there was in France, Norway, the Netherlands, and so on.
The Swiss were not invincible – no nation is – but the Germans decided that the benefits were not worth the effort.
Comparing Japan with Switzerland is a bit silly. No one really considered invading Japan, except to end the war in the Pacific, during which Japan had invaded many countries and attacked the U.S. and Australia. However, no invasion of Japan would have worked except that by 1945 Japan had exhausted its military resources and its population was slowly starving. Even then, it was expected that invading the Japanese main islands would cost millions of lives: hundreds of thousands of lives were lost (including those of civilians) when the allies invaded Okinawa in April to June of 1945.
Also relevant, there would have been ongoing collaboration - just as there was in France, Norway, the Netherlands, and so on.
Switzerland wasn’t invaded because there was need to invade it. I doubt Germany would have gotten its grubby little paws on the gold, and the banking system only worked because of the neutrality. Even if a bloodless victory could have been guaranteed, it would have been a politically stupid decision to invade.
I think you are wrong on this point. Hitler felt that Germany and England should be allies, and seemed surprised that England didn’t feel the same way.
There is a school of though that Hitler let the English off the hook at Dunkirk on purpose, because he didn’t want to antagonize his future ally.
I don’t think our views are incompatible. To Hitler ally and subservient vassal state were not particularly different concepts.
Sorry, my mistake. Tried for a new thread.
I think the point about the Swiss militia and guerilla capability is not that they would have made invasion impossible, but rather that they would have made the occupation of Switzerland simply more trouble than it was worth.
There’s also the point that although Hitler didn’t like the Swiss, from a practical point of view it was infinitely preferable in the National Socialist ideology to put manpower and resources into fighting ‘inferior’ Slavic peoples and Russians than trying to kill the Swiss, many of whom were ethnically German.
Well, the Swiss do have a reputation for bravery and even ferocity.
The most dramatic example was the “Mad Battle” of Saint Jakob an der Birs – 1,500 Swiss pike took on 20,000 Burgundians armed with cavalry, cannon, and infantry.
The Swiss died to a man, but inflicted 4,000 casualties on the Burgundians, and Charles the Bold turned back and settled for peace.
Historian John Keegan notes that the traditional Swiss refusal to offer quarter (they would kill everyone and not take prisoners) maybe be viewed sympathetically when they were outnumbered and desperately struggling for national survival against great powers, but is less endearing during their later long period of service as commercial mercenaries.
I doubt Switzerland would have been quite as easy to overrun as some have depicted in this thread, but I don’t think they could have held out indefinitely against any serious German effort. It might have turned out much like Finland’s two wars against the Soviet Union – the larger power, ill-prepared for serious resistance, at first suffers an embarrassing defeat; it later returns with overwhelming force, provoking a distasteful but ultimately necessary conditional surrender.
Of course.
By defeating them the same way you defeat any other country.
There is no nation on the planet that won’t surrender if it is in its best interests to do so.
Middle Ages.
Napoleon took Switzerland quite handily.
A rather more similar situation.
Hardly, whatever idiocies Hitler engaged in relative to mad war strategy, the Wehrmacht was always left operationally and tactically intact at the officer level. The reason Old Joe Stalin couldn’t take Finland was the Sovs had liquidated their officer class and had a command and control structure worth shit.
The Germans would have been prepared for Swiss resistance, had a far better tactical command, and much better - vastly better - command of joint air-land operations.
In the end, Switzerland, contra Sue’s fantasy, was not invaded as a neutral banking centre was of no small utility, and it simply wasn’t worth the cost to invade (given yes, the national militia system and the terrain). The No Surrender stuff is sheer mythology and hype.
Indeed.
Really, it’s like this: if you had a goose which laid golden eggs, would you promptly turn it into Pâté de Foie Gras?
Right. While it’s certainly true that Switzerland was no push over, and the terrain and people would make it impossible to do a one-week Blitzkrieg, the main reason was it simply wasn;t worth taking.
Absolutely. The Vatican City is defended by Swiss Guards, who must be some of the bravest men around. It takes some mighty big cojones to wear uniforms like that in public.
Hey – they were designed by Michelangelo !
It’d take more courage to walk around in the uniform Michelangelo put on his statue of David.
Especially if you have similarly scaled equipment.