Why Switzerland Remained Neutral in World War II

Why was Switzerland never involved in WW2 while there was war in all of its neighboring countries? Were they funding Hitler for the war?


Switzerland was, and to a certain extent still is, a fortress disguised as a nation.

During WWII, the Swiss army counted 500,000 men. Nearly every man in the country was in possession of a firearm and had experience with it. The Germans would need at least twice that number to defeat the Swiss army and would have to station a lot of forces in the country to keep the local populace in control. The army could've grown significantly in size if it came to war, as a lot of Swiss would volunteer to protect their country, making life even worse for the Germans.

Switzerland had many fortifications throughout the country, and the southern part of the country, which is positioned in the Alps, would be incredibly hard to take. The Swiss were prepared for war and they were not going to back off if it came to battle. The Swiss had already announced that under no condition would they surrender, so the Germans knew it would be a tough battle.

The Germans were using Swiss railways through the Alps to reach Italy, which were very valuable. If they would attack Switzerland the Swiss would blow them all up, and it would take years to repair them, which would be disastrous.

Switzerland also lacked the natural resources that made countries like France and Romania attractive to capture. Hitler needed resources to keep his Reich going and attacking Switzerland would be wasting them.

It is said that Hitler did in fact have a plan to invade Switzerland due to ideological reasons (there were many Germans in Switzerland) but gave priority to other plans (for reasons mentioned above) and after he attacked the Soviet Union he could not afford to attack Switzerland anymore.

On top of that, Switzerland was frequently used by the Nazis to store their embezzled funds and art they had stolen from Holocaust victims. Towards the end of the war, as it was clear the Nazis were going to lose, Switzerland became the place to store everything Nazi officials might lose after Germany's defeat. It was also very useful as neutral ground to negotiate with the enemy.

So in short, it was not worth losing hundreds of thousands of men and dozens of critical railways to capture a tiny mountain-state while you have actually useful countries to capture.

Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Switze...er-for-the-war



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