Thread by @alexandreafonso

A thread about why Germany did not invade Switzerland during World War 2.

The "heroic" explanation is that Switzerland was too tough: This 1942 article says that "Man for man, Switzerland probably has the second best army in Europe today,” The Swiss Army can be mobilized in half an hour” trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti…

There was for instance a strategy to withdraw in the mountains in a chain of fortresses and wage a guerilla war while abandoning the plains to the enemy spiegel.de/fotostrecke/sc…

It is difficult to believe that this would have dissuaded the Germans. Neither did neutrality. Belgium was also neutral, yet invaded. A much more convincing explanation is that Switzerland was more useful to the Nazis as an independent nation than as a colony.

First, Swiss neutrality was very relative. Swiss exports to Germany increased from 15% of total exports in 1938 to 41% in 1942. Switzerland exported 40 times more strategic military material to Germany than to allied powers. memorialdelashoah.org/wp-content/upl…

But again, the fact that the Swiss and German economy got more entangled during the war is not a sufficient argument not to invade. What was really useful was the Swiss Franc, the only freely convertible currency linked to gold beside the dollar snb.ch/en/mmr/referen…

The Nazis would plunder gold in conquered territories but because of the restrictions on the Mark, it couldn't be used to purchase important resources abroad, for instance tungsten (wolfram) from Portugal, vital for the war machine jstor.org/stable/3513391…

The Swiss National Bank would buy that Gold in exchange of freely convertible Swiss Francs, or other currencies like the escudo. Germany would then use it to buy Portuguese tungsten.
snb.ch/en/mmr/referen…

Switzerland was much more useful as an independent (yet collaborative) nation with its own convertible currency giving access to international markets and resources than as a conquered territory.

Yes to all this. Switzerland also didn't have any useful natural resources. It was actually very dependent on German coal.

https://twitter.com/PurpleHatKid/status/1215342526468710400

Note that Hitler didn't have a particular liking for the Swiss...
books.google.nl/books?id=147g7…

Ernst von Weizsäcker, German State Secretary at the Foreign Office, told a Swiss businessman that Switzerland was "only interesting to us from an economic point of view, not politically and not militarily" (thanks to the person who linked to this) books.google.nl/books?id=JiP12…

There is also a related myth that Swiss banking secrecy came about to protect the accounts of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. This is essentially a lie. jstor.org/stable/3116693

In fact, banking secrecy was introduced after a huge tax evasion scandal in France in 1932: prominent French elites (even bishops!) had hidden their money in Swiss banks, and French authorities were pressuring Switzerland to deliver names.
jstor.org/stable/3116693

Here's a good documentary (in French) on Switzerland during World War 2, based on the work of a number of respected historians. Fun fact: it was forbidden, only to be re-authorised 9 years later after a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights
rts.ch/archives/dossi…

The documentary was forbidden after a series of complaints from viewers who objected to the image it gave of Switzerland, considering it to be biased.
letempsarchives.ch/page/LNQ_1997_…

After the war, there had been a strong ideological effort to convince the population that military courage, not economic cooperation with Germany, had spared Switzerland from the war (this is from the attic of the house where I grew up)

This effort was quite successful also internationally. This was Winston Churchill to Anthony Eden in 1944:
winstonchurchill.org/publications/f…

Thanks, and indeed. I didn't know the full final report was available online in English here: uek.ch/en/schlussberi…

https://twitter.com/vanessahistory/status/1215564130305871872

The story that banking secrecy was born to protect Jews from Nazi persecution is regularly mentioned to this day in the "serious" press, for instance in this Forbes article forbes.com/sites/danielfi…

The historian Peter Hug has shown that this myth was actually invented in the 1960s as part of a PR-operation to fend off US efforts against tax evasion
spiegel.de/geschichte/ban…
letemps.ch/opinions/eclai…

This is a 1940 speech by Swiss President Pilet-Golaz after France was defeated and signed an armistice with Germany collegedesaussure.ch/espacepedagogi…