bigger germany today

Why everyone assumes armed conquests of Swiss? With german ruling all over Europe, they can be pressured economically to join, perhaps on some kind of protectorate status. They may be all well trained soldiers, but they surely can't eat rocks.
 
Why everyone assumes armed conquests of Swiss? With german ruling all over Europe, they can be pressured economically to join, perhaps on some kind of protectorate status. They may be all well trained soldiers, but they surely can't eat rocks.

I bow to your connivingness. However, I must point out that the Swiss funded the Nazi's, especially early on (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3003923), so attacking them, even with economic sanctions would be financial stupidity. Let's suppose that doesn't stop Hitler, he was after all the world's most successful sociopath; Hitler imposes sanctions once he has the Swiss surrounded and starves them till they submit. Nazi German troops occupy Switzerland, now the surviving populace's hatred of Nazi Germany shall reach a fever pitch. The Swiss would fight to the last man.
Also, I don't think Hitler would want to starve the Swiss as they are mostly German "Aryans" and he liked that.
 
I bow to your connivingness. However, I must point out that the Swiss funded the Nazi's, especially early on (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3003923), so attacking them, even with economic sanctions would be financial stupidity. Let's suppose that doesn't stop Hitler, he was after all the world's most successful sociopath; Hitler imposes sanctions once he has the Swiss surrounded and starves them till they submit. Nazi German troops occupy Switzerland, now the surviving populace's hatred of Nazi Germany shall reach a fever pitch. The Swiss would fight to the last man.
Also, I don't think Hitler would want to starve the Swiss as they are mostly German "Aryans" and he liked that.

What is all this "Swiss will fight to the last man" wanking coming from? They didn't when Napoleon invaded. They're not Afghans: most can't make a living off subsistence agriculture after the economy collapses, they might actually care if their country is reduced to smouldering, corpse-covered ruin if that's what it takes to drive the Germans out, and in Nazi Europe, they don't have an unpoliceably long border with a "Pakistan" through which the US (or USSR?) can smuggle loads of weapons.

As for the Aryan bit, Hitler could be very vindictive when "Aryans" failed to agree with him: he had thought quite highly of the British Empire, but when they defied him, the Nazis made up plans, IIRC, to draft most of the adult British male population as slave labor once the place fell...

Bruce
 

CalBear

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Most of Switzerland spoke german, North and East did.
I don't think it is unreasonable to assume victory over the Swiss. They were isolated and the population centers to the north were vulnerable. It's far from ASB.

Do you think it possible Hitler could have changed his mind about Barbarossa?

Victory? Maybe, if you endorse the concept of occupying a ruined wasteland populated by sullen rebellion people as a victory after suffering somewhere north of 200,000 casualties for the privilege of claiming victory.

Switzerland is a hedgehog that was and is armed to the teeth and accessible only through easy to defend and difficult to take mountain passes. Picture what the Allies went through in Italy, but with every civilian around simply itching to put a knife into the back of an unwary invader at every turn.

Simply not worth the effort.

Barbarossa was the entire point of the War as far as Hitler was concerned. Destruction of "the Slav" was central to his vision of the expanded Reich, as was destruction of the Bolsheviks root and branch. Defeat of the French was nice, since it put paid to the defeat in WW I. Hitler never really wanted to fight the English, who he mainly admired, and he saw the U.S. as work for later decades. But the Slavs? They were a half step above the Jews and a step and a half below actual Honest to God human beings.

A Greater Germany that is both stable and at peace is damned near ASB.
 

Adler

Banned
German Speaking Switzerland isn't happening, EVER, the Swiss would fight it to the last man (and likely the last woman too), if Hitler stopped in 1938, maybe he keeps Austria and the Sudetenland, the Polish lands is a no go, he does that its war with France and the UK and he can't win, though maybe if we get the war up to Operation Barbarossa a stale mate with the UK drags out into a cease fire like the Korean War, but thats as far as it goes, the Germans never wanted Luxembourg as far as I can tell, Switzerland would be like Vietnam, only 100 worse, and any attack on Poland likely leads to our WWII.

For Hitler it is impossible to win a war over Poland against France and England. For anyone else not. In the case of a French desaster like in 1940 and another man ruling, NOT this Austrian, they might come to an agreement.

Adler
 
What is all this "Swiss will fight to the last man" wanking coming from? They didn't when Napoleon invaded. They're not Afghans: most can't make a living off subsistence agriculture after the economy collapses, they might actually care if their country is reduced to smouldering, corpse-covered ruin if that's what it takes to drive the Germans out, and in Nazi Europe, they don't have an unpoliceably long border with a "Pakistan" through which the US (or USSR?) can smuggle loads of weapons.

As for the Aryan bit, Hitler could be very vindictive when "Aryans" failed to agree with him: he had thought quite highly of the British Empire, but when they defied him, the Nazis made up plans, IIRC, to draft most of the adult British male population as slave labor once the place fell...

Bruce

The situation with Napoleon was a LOT different. I also want to point out that no one would have to smuggle weapons to the Swiss, the country is literally littered with them (ok maybe not LITERALLY). We are talking about a nation where every male is trained for the army and the government actually told people not to surrender, and that any calls for surrender (from the Swiss government) in the case of a nazi invasion were to be considered coerced and not valid. That's not even to address the Swiss geography, which is mountainous and easily defensible.
Also, I think you would be surprised what people can live off of if they need too. Consider the contemporary case of Jewish partisans living in the forest in Poland so they can take pot-shots are Germans. Don't mistake me, obviously the Jews had a bit more of a reason to fight than the Swiss, but my point is that people will do what they have too.
 
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