WI Nazi Germany Invaded Switzerland

I know that a possible invasion of Britain by Nazi Germany in WW2 is the topic of debate. But what about Switzerland?

Hitler had been eyeballing Switzerland for ages and planned to invade the country once his mainland enemies were defeated. Apparently, he hated the country for being a decentralized democracy and for its multicultural, multilingual composition - a contrast to Nazi Germany. The original plan was to commence the attack on June 25, 1940 just after France's surrender. For reasons we don't know, the invasion was never carried out.

So let's get to the point of this thread:

1. Why didn't Hitler carry out his planned invasion of Switzerland?

2. What if the invasion went ahead? Would Nazi Germany and their allies have curbstomped Switzerland?
 
The Swiss sabotage the hydroelectric generators, and transmission line to Germany. Brandenbergers can interfere with some of this, but the nazis lose a bit of industrial production until the electrical supply is restored. I expect there are some other industrial items the Swiss can sabotage as well. In the longer run the disgruntled Swiss slack off on their small agricultural exports to the Reich.

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Hitler had been eyeballing Switzerland for ages and planned to invade the country once his mainland enemies were defeated. Apparently, he hated the country for being a decentralized democracy and for its multicultural, multilingual composition - a contrast to Nazi Germany. The original plan was to commence the attack on June 25, 1940 just after France's surrender. For reasons we don't know, the invasion was never carried out.

In part there was a significant cost, there were not many combat ready formations, Hitler assumed the Brits would offer armistice terms very soon & a set of peace treaties would give the Reich the ability to bully the Swiss without war.

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2. What if the invasion went ahead? Would Nazi Germany and their allies have curbstomped Switzerland?

If the attack is made in the late Summer or Autumn of 1940. As the months pass the Swiss were improving their defense and strategy & the German forces available declined.
 
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The reason he didn't invade is at least in part that Switzerland was more useful to Germany as a neutral country than as a conquered province. Its banks provided a financial link between Germany and the non-Axis world economy. And even if an invasion could succeed in a relatively short period of time, that would still give the Swiss enough time to blow up the tunnels through which railroads transported essential war goods from Germany to Italy. Sure, eventually the tunnels could be restored, but it was hardly worth the time and money that would take...
 
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I remember reading a book probably 15-20 years ago claiming Swiss defense plans were strong enough they could have repelled the invasion.

I am not so sure.

In any event, Switzerland wasn't really worth conquering, for the reasons given above. In terms of trade and finance, the Germans already enjoyed those benefits by trading with a neutral country, so invading wouldn't get them anything new there. Why spend blood and treasure to get something you already have?

They also didn't invade Sweden. The situation there was different but the themes were the same: given the arrangements already in place, it simply wouldn't have been worth invading.
 
have NY Times article from late 1939 and an offensive against Romania, Sweden, or Switzerland was speculated on (guess they missed France and Norway-Denmark?) for the "Spring"

in it the "riches" of Sweden and Switzerland were weighed "against the costs" so the calculus is much the same as is applied with hindsight. there were certainly riches in Switzerland, tangible gold equal to what they seized from all the other countries they invaded combined.

not sure the effects on invasion of France if Germany had invaded and occupied Switzerland prior?
 
Ahhh, Hitler. Thinking the Swiss were mostly weaklings who only had William Tell as a folk hero and little else in the way of legends. Possibly because, you know, the Swiss were such fierce mercenaries that the anti-Napoleonic Coalitions had them no longer hiring out people as mercenaries as one of the terms of their independence being agreed by all. Juuust after they helped them beat Napoleon. Honestly sometimes wonder if someone at dinner would put it into his head that the reason the Swiss became like how he saw they were was due to being extremely cramped, with their renouncing their Germaness due to the decadence of the Habsburgs. And then deciding they would be best settled in Ukraine or something. He has believed in stupider things before. Anyways, I can seethe Germans losing maybe a hundred thousand trying to invade. Even refugees will be able to pass themselves as Swiss due to the difference of Swiss German to other dialects. Franc tiers everywhere, everyone supporting Swiss democracy, foreign socialist creeds, so many people... Well, they would now be leaking through Germany as well. Imagine, Berlin declaring the Swiss weren't quite German enough. Well, Sudentlanders were basically treated the same due to their accents. Hell, even Himmler came up with numbers saying Bohemia-Moravia was more 'racially valuable' than the areas the Germans annexed. If you can get some more overt rebellions of Germans in the East against Berlin, then maybe people start seeing Germans in general as many different groups, and that they weren't loyal to Berlin simply by default.
 
Small but well trained and equipped army with a large pool of reservists defending largely mountainous terrain which cuts through German power stations and cuts off Germany's main supply routes to Italy. There was every reason not to invade Switzerland and every reason to keep them neutral. If the Axis had really been desperate to subjugate them then blockading the country would make more sense, although even that would be far more damaging to the Axis cause than any potential benefits it would bring.
 
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