How did Switzerland remain neutral throughout WW2?
First the time before ww2 is very important… most people simply don’t know why Switzerland is neutral anyway. The country was formed in 1291 (by 3 of its states) as defence alliance – as the territory was occupied by the Earls of Habsburg (let’s say Austrians) and german power houses. After that the now defined swiss troops fought their way up… until swiss mercenaries were known everywhere in Europe for the rest of medieval times. This only ended when in 1515 in the battle of Marignano both sides were literally having their own "swiss troops". Later Napoleon’s France invaded Switzerland (consisting of more states now) in 1798 and forced them again to give troops supporting the russian war. In 1815, after Napoleon’s final defeat, the now ruling power nations in Europe told Switzerland to get neutral and form a pillow between them. This situation remained for 1870 french-german war and the first world war – but swiss army responsibles had realised the country had no effective military force and therefore improved it (after an international air meeting in Switzerland in 1937 this included the purchase of new german fighter planes). Most people have already heard of swiss factories selling military equipment to Germany in ww2. In fact they sold it to both, axis AND allies. Some bankers made dealings with Germany and received money or gold (a lot of that taken from murdered jews) – but it’s not quite clear if the banker knew about the origin. Germany and Italy were the main sponsors for the north-south tunnel constructions before 1900… and had still their transport privileges during war. But this is the relation and situation between Germany and Switzerland the germans could live with in late years of war – at the beginning the situation looked completely different…Germany had been preparing war for long (including the support of Franco during the spanish civil war against the liberals/communists, where in fact a lot of swiss served for the liberals). The germans easily conquered Poland in late 1939 and annexed Austria. Don’t forget that Russia had signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, the USA didn’t enter war before 1941 and Mussolini’s Italy was cleary on german side. About 450’000 swiss soldiers were guarding the border in these days… as germans obviously intended to take Switzerland, too (today’s proofs are i.e. the different german invasion plans). It looked like France would easily fall to Germany in mid 1940 (and it did so), when german Luftwaffe intensively engaged the swiss air force over Switzerland – surprisingly the underestimated air force outshot the Luftwaffe. In the mean time the réduit defence plans were dressed up – including a possible withdraw of all swiss troops into the alpine area. All bridges and tunnels were armed with explosives to be blown up before the germans could control them if they would attack (a few years ago a traffic accident in St. Gotthard almost blew up the mountain-tunnel, because the charges were extremely near to the crash).This shown defensive attitude just postponed german plans. And after the battle of britain and the russian war Germany never again had the possibility to concentrate enough troops – having taken Norway with 6 divisions, the plans for Switzerland included 15 tank and 15 infantry divisions. So war went on… and ended in this mutual "draw" including bank and military equipment dealings. Beside this Switzerland had independent newspapers and radio stations – informing on war situations. About 1’000 US airmen were interned in Switzerland after their damaged bombers landed there. Switzerland (and a lot of other countries) limited the number of refugees coming in – this way still about 30’000 jews could be saved from nazi terror. As swiss government doesn’t allow swiss citizens to do military service for other countries, the persons doing so usually have hidden their nationality. This is in some way the same for i.e. the pilots flying for RAF in ww2 – one example would be the ace Jan Zumbach, who in fact could go back to the roots of his father and just served in a polish squadron in England (having both nationalities). There might be an ace of german Luftwaffe also having swiss roots (but I didn’t have enough time to verify this so far – so just consider this as an idea).
When Switzerland removed itself from the Holy Roman Empire, they did so with the assumption that they would never again fight a foriegn war and would remain entirely neutral through one of the most extensive and developed miitia programs the world has ever seen. At first this meant all the farmers and craftsmen went out into the field and drilled with spears. By the time of the Second World War however, that meant EVERYONE had a military weapon and knew how to use it. Coupled with the government’s investment in larger scale weapons for their active military and extensive militia planning for a Nazi invasion (Things like plans for when the word went out the Nazis were invading there wouldn’t be single bridge in place for the Nazis to use) they were ready for the Nazis. There would have been no way for Wehrmacht to get in and even less ability for them and the Gestapo to control the territory they did manage to take. It had nothing to do with “collaboration”. It was armed neutrality and
