Consequences of Swiss Voralberg

At the end of WWI, there was a poll held in Voralberg that indicated the majority of the population would have liked to join Switzerland. What would have been the effects of this going ahead?
 
Well, Vorarlberg at the time held a significant part of Austria's textile industry, and still had until some 30-20 years ago when importing became a lot cheaper. Some small remains (for example Wolford) are still there.
Now I don't know just how much of an impact that made, but it could make the supply situation of the Wehrmacht in Russia even worse.
I doubt that Hitler would consider such a small part worth a war with Switzerland.

Going ahead is however difficult, there was a lot of political resistance on Swiss side, centering around the shift of demographics due to adding a German speaking catholic population.
Also, Austrian politicans at the time weren't really happy about the plans, having already lost several German speaking corelands.
 
It was'nt just a majority, it was over 80% of the population.

The consequences would be Switzerland having a slightly larger Catholic Plurality ans slightly larger German Majority.

Incidentally, this would leave Liechtenstein completely surrounded by Switzerland, which may very wel lead to it choosing to join Switzerland itself (especially if the dick head 'Prince' of OTL is still around).
 
Last edited:
The consequences would be Switzerlandhaving a slightly larger Catholic Plurality ans lightly larger German majority.

Indeed the problem would be more on the Swiss side than on the Voralberger side. The Swiss Germans don't like the fact that Voralberg was Catholic, while the Swiss French and Italians don't like the fact that Voralgerg was German.
 
Indeed the problem would be more on the Swiss side than on the Voralberger side. The Swiss Germans don't like the fact that Voralberg was Catholic, while the Swiss French and Italians don't like the fact that Voralgerg was German.

I'm not so sure the Swiss Germans would have an issue with it considering that not only are they split between Protestants and Catholics themselves, but Voralberg itself would have a Protestant minority.
 
Last edited:
I'm not so sure the Swiss Germans would have an issue with it consider that not only are they split between Protestants and Catholics themselves, but Voralberg itself would have a Protestant minority.
It was an issue, but I'm not too sure what other problems were there in the background.
Also, the I don't have specific numbers, but protestants in Vorarlberg would be less than 5% of the population.
 
It was an issue, but I'm not too sure what other problems were there in the background.

As far as I know it was the Swiss-Italians, Swiss-French and some Liberals who opposed it, the former two for obvuious reasons, the latter for reasons I don't know.


Also, the I don't have specific numbers, but protestants in Vorarlberg would be less than 5% of the population.

Assuming numbers have'nt changed drastically between now and then, it'd be something like 3% (presently it's 2%, but I think that's a result of immigration; 8% of Voralbergs population is Muslim), so yeah, not huge, but like all things it's about spin, simply saying that Voralberg would be a Catholic Canton would lead to more opposition than saying it would be Majority Catholic with a Protestant Minority.
 
Aside from the consequences of integration, this would be a perfect recipe for Hitler to put Operation Tannenbaum into place and invade Switzerland. AFAIK he had his heart set on doing so (claiming it was a "pimple on the face of Europe" and needed to be brought into the Reich) but was constantly diverted by practical considerations. If Switzerland was seen to have stolen German territory he would likely jump at the chance, and invade just after the fall of France.

The defense of Switzerland would tie up large numbers of German troops and become a running sore for the Axis all throughout the war, potentially delaying or hampering the Balkan campaign, which could in turn delay Barbarossa...

Basically, a Swiss Voralberg seems pretty irrelevant at first but could have massive butterflies once the war begins.
 
Hitler tries to "regain" that province for the Reich?

Unlikely. Hitler wrote off the South Tyrol - not something very many on the nationalist right would have done - and I don't see why he wouldn't have done the same with another piece of even smaller former Austrian territory. Hitler's real interest was in the east, not the more traditional German western/southern border revisionism.
 
Unlikely. Hitler wrote off the South Tyrol - not something very many on the nationalist right would have done - and I don't see why he wouldn't have done the same with another piece of even smaller former Austrian territory. Hitler's real interest was in the east, not the more traditional German western/southern border revisionism.

But the South Tyrol was part of an ally, not part of a neutral state that Hitler saw as offensive and disgusting by the very fact of its existence.

I think it would be easy for an incident such as this to prompt Hitler into invading Switzerland. He had a track record of underestimating his opponents and might assume it would be as much of a pushover as Denmark or the Low Countries.
 
But the South Tyrol was part of an ally, not part of a neutral state that Hitler saw as offensive and disgusting by the very fact of its existence.

I think it would be easy for an incident such as this to prompt Hitler into invading Switzerland. He had a track record of underestimating his opponents and might assume it would be as much of a pushover as Denmark or the Low Countries.

Even Hitler knew invading Switzerland was a bad idea unless you had the right troops and no other commitements; Denrmark and the Low countries were easily invdaded because their geography makes them easy to do so, where as Switzerland is basically all mountains, as can be seen below.

Grm-Cnt-Geo-Erp.png
 
But the South Tyrol was part of an ally, not part of a neutral state that Hitler saw as offensive and disgusting by the very fact of its existence.

I'm pretty sure Hitler wrote it off before the post-Dolfuss rapprochment with Mussolini. It wasn't just politic, it was indicative of Hitler's lack of general interest in standard revisionism.

I think you're suffering from distortion of perspective here. The Voralberg is a pretty tiny territory. Twenty years later, I doubt anybody is going to even much remember it going to Switzerland, much less care.

Hitler didn't need causus bellis - if he wanted to conquer a place, he did it. If he was as interested in dismembering Switzerland as you suggest, he would have done it IOTL.
 
I think you're suffering from distortion of perspective here. The Voralberg is a pretty tiny territory. Twenty years later, I doubt anybody is going to even much remember it going to Switzerland, much less care.

Hitler didn't need causus bellis - if he wanted to conquer a place, he did it. If he was as interested in dismembering Switzerland as you suggest, he would have done it IOTL.

You might be right about the relative unimportance of the Voralberg, but he did come very close to ordering the invasion, and even a small provocation such as this might have pushed him over the edge.

But I think we might just agree to disagree here.
 
You might be right about the relative unimportance of the Voralberg, but he did come very close to ordering the invasion, and even a small provocation such as this might have pushed him over the edge.

The only thing I can assume you're talking about there when you say it came 'very close' to being executed is:

Franz Halder, the head of OKH, recalled: "I was constantly hearing of outbursts of Hitler’s fury against Switzerland, which, given his mentality, might have led at any minute to military activities for the army."
Which is very, very thin gruel considering how this is potentially being coloured by the whole 'post-war German generals inflating Hitler's instability and military incompetence' tendency. Without more background, this looks to me like standard military planning being inflated by excitable wikipedia editors.
 
Top