Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Why Switzerland has low crime

no but they had millions of soldiers and thousands of tanks....that tradition of liberty business doesn't make a lot of impression on armored divisions that have already conquered Poland and France.


and it assumes the Swiss would actually fight and have their country destroyed if push came to shove....I doubt they would have. a relatively benign occupation like Denmark had, with the money continuing to flow, would have looked pretty good to the fat burghers in their cantons, compared to becoming tank tread lubricant.

but that misses the point, the value of Switzerland was its "neutrality" and the access it gave the Nazis to the outside world. if they occupied it, their only remaining contiguous contact with the outside would have been the unreliable General Franco.

And if they occupied it, the Swiss factories making war material for Germany could have been bombed by the Allies. By leaving Switzerland alone, they got the best of both worlds.

Here's the Swiss take on why the Nazi's did not invade Switzerland: see: http://switzerland.isyours.com/e/swiss-business-guide/wwii.html

No European country remained truly neutral during WWII. Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland all worked to some extent with the Axis. In Switzerland, the people who lived through the war wanted to believe that it was their army and fortifications that kept the Nazis out. Historical research and documents clearly show that if the Nazis wanted to invade Switzerland, it would have been quick and relatively easy. The reason Germany spared its tiny neighbor to the south was because Switzerland proved much more useful as an independent state than as a satellite. The Swiss made many useful weapon components (aluminium for the Luftwaffe, spark plugs for jeeps taken from the Russians, timing devices for bombs, among other things), and thus their factories were not bombed every night. The Swiss National bank bought gold from the Reichsbank, the Reichsbank was given Swiss francs in exchange, and used them to buy cobalt, nickel and tungsten from the other �neutral� countries. The Turks, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish, who were all under heavy pressure from the Allies not to accept direct gold payment from the Reichsbank, then exchanged the Swiss francs for gold. The problem was that the German gold came from the Belgian National bank reserves (not from concentration camps as some sensationalists would have it) and the neutrals knew it. Finally, the Swiss allowed trains to carry food and non-weapon supplies from Germany to Italy, with dozens of trains every day on their way to Africa. But did Switzerland have any other choice? Probably not. Totally surrounded by the Axis, most of its coal supply came from Germany every week, and all of its exports had to go through Axis controlled territory. For a landlocked country with no natural resources, this meant the Swiss had to work out some form of accomodation with their neighbors. The problem is that the postwar generations have been raised to believe that it was the Swiss army, and not the country�s usefulness to the Germans, that protected it from the wrath of war. The Swiss are now coming to terms with this part of their history, as for example the people of France and Japan have. As a foreigner, it is best to avoid passing judgment on them and giving lessons, at the risk of offending your hosts.

that's a pretty fair summary

Steve,

I agee...Plus with the Swiss officially neutral, it gave the Nazi's access to a banking system beyond the reach of the Allies. To this day, I don't think anybody truely knows the amount of cash/gold the Germans secreted away in Swiss banks especially towards the end of the war when both the German Government/Military and individuals could see the writing on the wall so to speak..

Regards,

Peter

Agree with you Steve and would like to add some additional points.

The Allies also supported a neutral Switzerland since it provided them with a "listening post" in the middle of Axis controlled territory. Allen Dulles (head of the OSS in Switzerland and later CIA Director) lived in the country and ran the OSS from there. Several damaged US B-17's landed in Switzerland and were interred (see: http://www.jmi.com/WWII/page_one.html for one story).

In the mid-1960's, I worked for Mobil Oil in NY with a fellow employee who flew P-51's in WW2. He parachuted from his plane near the Swiss border and tried to make his way into Switzerland to avoid capture. He was held at the border by the Swiss guards until German soldiers arrived and he was turned over to them - Ken was certainly no friend of Switzerland!

Over handguns, or the fact everyone has a military rifle in their home? If it is true the Swiss have a very low crime rate, what is the anti over there basing his argument on?

You are right - the "Russkis didn't have a tradition of liberty to defend." but, riflemen armed with Swiss K-31's would be a poor match for the Wehrmacht�s tanks, artillery and planes. They would have lost. It was certainly in Switzerland's interest to avoid being conquered by Germany and then bombed by the Allies.

They did give us swiss cheese, let's not forget that.

Plus, they had used up all their ammo making holes in the cheese and couldn't fight.

Hey JohnMoses - I forgot that little-known historical fact. Maybe the Swiss could not get paper for targets and had to use their cheese!

"During World War II 166 USAAF aircraft and crews opted to fly to Switzerland. Forty-one were totally destroyed in crashes, thirty-nine were badly damaged and eighty-six were repairable. Of the 166 interned USAAF aircraft 76 were B-17s: 65 - 8th AF; 2 - 12th AF; 9 - 15th AF.
Three 303rd BG(H) B-17s and crews were interned. "

See: http://www.303rdbg.com/intern.html

Germany v Switzerland?

Like crap through a goose. Terrain was the main logistical argument. It would have slowed them down somewhat. If the Nazis had wanted Switzerland, it would have been another sad goodbye.

They could have blocked the passes with cheese and held off the germans for years, unless they figured out they could crawl thru the holes.

But I'm sure the Swiss would have put rat traps in the holes to prevent this.

The German army was not quite the invincible machine that some people think. It took them two months to conquer Norway that had a tiny reserve based army. Norway lost most of its heavy equipment in the initial suprise attack so the army was almost totally rifle armed. The Norwegian forces actually held out to cover the evacuation of the French and British forces who made a muddled and halfhearted attempt to help Norway. The Norwegians did not have the heavily fortified mountain passes to aid their defenses that the Swiss have and the Swiss would not have been suprised.

Norway is not a very good analogy. It shares no border with Germany, it required an amphibious assault by a nation with zero experience in littoral warfare, most of it was out of reach of air power based in Germany, and it had a crappy road net...plus weather.

Switzerland, on the other hand, is next door to Germany, has a wonderful road and rail net to facilitate invasion, and is in spitting distance of scores of German air bases, making the passes irrelevant when a division or two of Fallschirmjaeger seize the command, control and communications centers. Speed bump for the Wehrmacht...and again, very doubtful if the Swiss would have decided to have their country destroyed under any circumstances. Their post-war revisionism referred to in the article above, is very like that of the French, who after liberation all claimed to have been in the Resistance.

Norway was also a sideshow, to which the Germans devoted very few resources, since it was happening at the same time the Wehrmacht was gearing up for the invasion of France.

Just for scale....the Germans used nine divisions in the two month Norway operation. They used 205 divisions a year later to invade Russia.

If they had a reason to devote more troops, they could have done it faster, but their motivation at that time was really just protection of their iron ore shipments out of Narvik from Sweden. Norway, of course, became strategically significant in the battle of the Atlantic and in the interdiction of the Murmansk convoys, after the invasion of Russia.

They had plans to deal with tanks that didn't involve rifles. They were trained in strategies for taking them out in various ways, and in stopping their progress over rough terrain, blowing bridges and the like.

yeah, yeah, yeah.....so was the Red Army, and we saw how that worked out.


what was their strategy for dealing with the Stukas and the paratroopers? sing "Adelweiss" real loud and annoy them?

And while singing "Adelweiss", make a movie that Ameicans would watch for 10 cents per show (movie price in 1941 or so) and pay for the war?

In the end the Russians beat the Germans. The Swiss military and the civilian Swiss government are two different kettle of fish. But the point is the Germans knew they could take the Swiss but at a cost that was too great. The German high command knew they couldn't they could take Russia either at least not frontal but Hitler so hated the Russians he would not listen. And we all know the outcome.

But hey Steve, being anti-gun the way you are I can see why you would favor the Nazis.

Well that settles it. Militias are useless, therefore, so is the 2nd Amendment. Time to repeal the 2nd Amendment. It's all over but the shouting. Long live Obama!