WI: Germany cancelled Operation Barbarossa and attacked the remaining neutral countries?

Bleed dry in Switzerland, thus having to cancel Barbarossa permanently.

You know this anecdote? Göring went to the Swiss and threatened that they might attack them. The Swiss guy said they could mobilize 500k men. Göring stated they could attack with a million men. Swiss guy: "Then we'll shoot twice."

that is an oft repeated funny joke but the mountain fortress really going to last longer than France (with its Maginot Line and modern air force)?? that the Swiss are well trained is not in dispute but they have no experience with modern warfare.

there is also frankly a lot of revisionist books published to offset fact they got rich(er) trading with Nazi regime during WWII. (not saying they had much choice but the facts remain.)
 

Deleted member 1487

And in the meantime the Italian economy grinds to a halt due to a lack of coal.
What proportion of coal ran through Switzerland on the way to Italy?

Besides that it seems Switzerland is largely giving up it's major cities per their defense plan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Redoubt_(Switzerland)
hese fortresses primarily defended the alpine crossings between Germany and Italy and excluded the industrialized and populated heart of Switzerland.

ReduitSchweiz.gif
 
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The Swiss would have dynamited the tunnels with the major rail lines. Good luck fixing those in any reasonable time span. For all intents and purposes all traffic between Italy and Germany economic and military comes to a screeching halt. Going through France to the southern coast and then to Italy - very limited rail capacity, going through Austria and then through occupied Yugoslavia to Italy, even less capacity. If you can't invade Gibraltar through a cooperating Spain due to the mess that Spain is after the Civil War, actually invading Spain?? Or cooperating with Spain to Invade Portugal?? Germany was getting pretty much everything it wanted from Sweden - transit rights, iron ore, ball bearings, etc - until very late in the war when the Germans were losing and losing badly, so why invade? Hungary was a friendly neutral and became a co-belligerent, same with Romania. None of these invasions make either ideological, military, or economic sense. Invading the USSR is "Lebensraum" and destruction of Bolshevism, there are lots of potential resources, so invading is not totally insane and had it been done differently might have succeeded in at least a Brest-Litovsk type settlement.

The issue of Sweden allowing Danish and other Jews to get sanctuary is irrelevant, after all the Finns refused to hand over their Jews, and while Horthy was not a "friend" of the Jews he did not hand over the bulk of Hungarian Jews to the Nazis, it was only after the Arrow Cross took power and actively assisted the Germans that the mass deportations occurred. Had the Germans won the war, the fate of the Jews of Sweden, Hungary, Finland, etc could have been "dealt" with. First a demand for refugee Jews from occupied countries, then the demand for "your" Jews. It was one thing to exterminate Jews in Nazi occupied territory, another to invade neutrals or Allies/co-belligerents who were reluctant to turn them over.
 
What if Operation Barbarossa was cancelled in 1941, and instead, Germany invaded, partitioned or conquered the remaining neutral countries in mainland Europe?
  • Sweden
  • Spain
  • Portugal
  • Turkey
  • Switzerland
How long would the Soviets play along?

If the Soviets partitioned Turkey with Germany, would the Western Allies be more suspicious of Soviet Union later on?

"Sweden had long been Germany's main source of high quality iron ore and ball bearings"

Spain was in a disastrous economic situation (was on a verge of starvation) and not hostile to Germany (IIRC, it even provided division of volunteers) so its occupation would not make too much of a practical sense except for a possibility of capturing Gibraltar but even this goal would require a big logistic effort. In OTL "Spanish companies did important aircraft work for the Germans, Spanish merchants furnished Germany with industrial diamonds and platinum, and war materials, among them mercury and tungsten. Spain, the world's second-largest producer of tungsten after Portugal, provided Germany with 1,100 metric tons of the ore per year between 1941 and 1943 (between them Spain and Portugal provided 90% of Germany's annual 3500 tons requirement)". IIRC, the US managed (or at least tried) to exercise some influence by food supply program.

"Portugal provided Germany with direct overland exports of a wide range of commodities including rice, sugar, tobacco, wheat, potassium chlorate, inflammable liquids and yellow pitch, and Portuguese merchants were also known to be sending industrial diamonds and platinumvia Africa and South America. But by far the most important material Portugal had to offer was tungsten. Portugal was Europe's leading supplier of tungsten (and scheelite, another member of the wolframite series of tungsten ore minerals), annually providing Germany with at least 2,000 metric tons between 1941 and mid-1944, about 60 percent of her total requirement."

"Turkey, who in October 1941 began selling Germany large quantities of chromite ore for the production of chromium. The Turkish chromite ore, which like tungsten was an irreplaceable and essential war material, was the only supply available to Germany".

"Switzerland was of no strategic importance to Germany, and of far more use to her as a workshop.... Oerlikon-Bührle provided guns, Autophon A.G. provided transmitting apparatus, and other companies exported coal-gas generators, ball bearings, bomb sights, ammunition, carbon black, timepieces and rayon for parachutes.... she remained able to move imports and other exports such as sugar and benzene overland, mainly to Germany and other countries in the neutral zone.... Swiss were, and continue to be, criticised for the way they aided the shipment of Nazi funds abroad and provided banking facilities for the concealment of looted art treasures and gold, much of it stolen from Jews."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany_(1939-1945)


In other words, what would be a practical sense in occupation (which would take a considerable effort to accomplish and maintain) if there was a cooperation (does not matter, volunteer or not)?

BTW, would not occupation of Spain and Portugal more or less imply the end of Vichy France just to simplify military operations? Or do you consider a joined German-Vichy campaign?

But if we assume your scenario, then, with a possible exception of Turkey, the SU, as long as MR Pact holds, would be mostly irrelevant even simply because it did not have common borders with the rest of the countries on your list. Predicting short- and long-term Stalin's attitudes is a waste of time but it is probably reasonable to assume that Soviet military reform would keep going on and the same applies to their military industry. Possibility of an aggressive action would be probably based on the balance of the following:
(a) Further German military successes - a deterrent.
(b) Growing German industrial/material base - a deterrent.
(c) If occupation of the new territories involves considerable permanent German presence all over the map at the expense of their "mobile" force and if there are noticeable problems with keeping all these territories under control, then there may be a temptation, especially if by that time a meaningful participation of the British and US forces became a reality (and there is a possibility of a big-scale US/UK help along the OTL LL lines).



As for the US/UK being suspicious, why would Turkey cause more awareness than Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia? Of course, Soviet annexation of some Turkish territory would move their border closer to the British-controlled Middle East but after Hitler's attack, the Brits were OK about the joined occupation of Iran. Also, I don't think that WC had any illusions about Stalin while FDR was seemingly looking at the situation from a perspective of defeating Germany ASAP and then leaving the European issues to the Europeans making US presence there as short as possible. Why would he bother about post-WWII Turkey more than about post-WWII Eastern Europe?
 

iVC

Donor
Bleed dry in Switzerland, thus having to cancel Barbarossa permanently.

You know this anecdote? Göring went to the Swiss and threatened that they might attack them. The Swiss guy said they could mobilize 500k men. Göring stated they could attack with a million men. Swiss guy: "Then we'll shoot twice."

Well said, but taking into the consideration the ill-famous Reich punitive policies, Hitler can just declare the Swiss civil population as hostages and continue with the blockade of alpine fortresses until their defenders withers out from starvation (remember Leningrad IOTL).
 
If Gemany does not do Barbarossa and is engaged in a long attritional struggle with Britain, then it needs any blockade holes it can get. It also needs to focus its attrition on Britain and not get involved in any stupid Spanish peninsular partisan 1808 style conflicts.

Britain+Commonwealth+USA Lend Lease+access to world markets > Germany and its occupied territories in terms of production, the only advantage Germany has in a long war is better basing (occupied territories close to Britain it doesn't really have to defend too hard, Germany is further away from British bases). Best thing to do is minimize all conflicts, try not to antagonize USA or USSR, keep Japan neutral (perhaps by supporting Vichy in Indochina) and hoping Britain just gets bored and war weary after a while.

But if Germany has to attack somebody, Turkey seems the best choice, They need to get the Soviets to go in on it with them. At least there is some good strategic results that can be achieved.
 
What point would be invading Sweden and Spain when them had good relationships with Germany? And invading of fascist Spain would enforce Mussolini thinking if buddying with Hitler is good idea. How he could trust Hitler when he is invading fascist nations? And invading of Portugal would be too totally pointless. With Switzerland Germans would just stuck long guerilla war and what idea would be invading of the country anyway? Swiss banks storaged much of property of Jews so if Germany would invade they surely would stop that. I don't know then about Turkey but even on that not seems being much of idea.

And invasion to USSR was already very inevitable. Hitler had already long time ago stated that Germans need lebensraum in the East. It might be later but that will happen if then Soviets not attack firstly what they would do if Hitler waits too long.
Well, maybe after the failed negotiations at Hendaye Hitler decides that taking Gibraltar and closing the Mediterranean to the Royal Navy was worth invading Spain. Norway was invaded for strategic reasons too, so it may be doable.
Of course, after taking Gibraltar Hitler will see that fighting fascist, anarchist, communist, nationalist, independentist, monarchist, etc. militias in Spain is a massive pain in the ass (think the ocuppation of Greece on steroids), but by then it would be too late.
And Portugal was pretty much pro-British, so invading doesn't seem to far-fetched.
 
If Gemany does not do Barbarossa and is engaged in a long attritional struggle with Britain, then it needs any blockade holes it can get. It also needs to focus its attrition on Britain and not get involved in any stupid Spanish peninsular partisan 1808 style conflicts.

Britain+Commonwealth+USA Lend Lease+access to world markets > Germany and its occupied territories in terms of production, the only advantage Germany has in a long war is better basing (occupied territories close to Britain it doesn't really have to defend too hard, Germany is further away from British bases). Best thing to do is minimize all conflicts, try not to antagonize USA or USSR, keep Japan neutral (perhaps by supporting Vichy in Indochina) and hoping Britain just gets bored and war weary after a while.

But if Germany has to attack somebody, Turkey seems the best choice, They need to get the Soviets to go in on it with them. At least there is some good strategic results that can be achieved.

the best possible scenario (IMO) for Germany would be to retain their little trading bloc of Finland and the Baltics, minus Poland which was basis of their collaboration with USSR. instead direct the Soviets south with a division of Romania (after all they were in a defensive alliance with Poland)

the only invasion of Turkey that makes sense to me is if Germany was able to move into Syria (rather than Iraq folly) and establish a Nationalist regime, they could reclaim Hatay with the Syrians (it's near the largest chrome mine) while Soviets regained Kars?
 
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