What happened to Switzerland in World War 2?

Answer 1

Rather "what happened in Switzerland during ww2?"...

Germany had formed an axis alliance with Italy, Japan (and Spain)... and a non-aggression treaty with Russia. When Germany attacked Poland, France and England formed an allied alliance... USA didn't join war before the Japanese attack on pearl harbor what was much later. This means there was a rumour of war in the air short time before the attack on Poland and with exception of France Switzerland was already surrounded by axis powers.

Due to historic backgrounds Germany, Austria and main parts of Switzerland are culturally linked... but on the other hand Swiss consider Germans as not-that-much-liked bigger brothers. This is according the period when Switzerland was founded in 1291 as defence agreement and was long time occupied - mainly by forces with roots from Austria or Germany (and later France) until the year 1815 (and later) when the country was forced to declare itself as neutral to form a "pillow" between the big European forces.

Returning to ww2 Germany had indeed invasion plans for Switzerland (but most probably not with urgence) - later when Germany attacked Russia Hitler has been cited with "we hunt the little pig when we return home". In the mean time the Germans first tacking Poland and then France, before having an unsuccessful attempt of invading England... during those days, when war was close to Switzerland, Swiss troops guarded the borders with several hundreds of thousands of men (standing troops were first about 450'000). German Luftwaffe shortcut several times through Swiss airspace when bombing France - leading to clashes with Swiss airforce... and as the results were rather surprising (outshot 4:1, due to underestimation) Göring (German luftwaffe leader) ordered himself some planes to do a revenge mission provoking the Swiss resistance - with little success and some planes lost. This again led to a German pioneer mission to blow up Swiss airfields - but they never reached them beeing caught by guards near the border. On the other hand Swiss bridges and tunnels were all armed with dynamite (and they are still today), dropping the note in Berlin that Switzerland would blow up the connection in case of an invasion... and dressing up a crazy defence-plan called "reduced Switzerland", giving the Germans the impression they could have to pay a lot in case they entered... and they probably really would have, even if Germany would have won for sure at the end against tiny Switzerland...

All this at least deturned the focus during the first day of war... and later on, when Germany took on Russia there was the time when Swiss industry dealed with Germany (and USA, etc.) and Swiss bankers met obscure rich Germans (Jewish gold?) - in some way what the country has been blamed for afterwards...

In Switzerland itself food was rationalised and one of today's biggest nutrients suppliers started the "cultivation war". A lot of men left their families and joined the army... some not returning home due to bad conditions (or if they were unlucky enough to be part of the pilots beeing shot down by luftwaffe). Switzerland had one of the most famous free radio stations in Europe where people got informations on the real situations on the fronts... and the country was widely used as spy platform by axis and allies (headquaters of American OSS in Berne). And allied bomber squads were interned in Switzerland when landing after one of their missions - returning home when war ended.

Switzerland had mainly a good time compared to others... but with less luck it could have been much worse.

Answer 2

There are several reasons Switzerland was safe from Nazi invasion:

- The Germans considered them a valuable ally, even as an officially neutral country

- The Germans were able to use Switzerland and its banks as a safe haven for their money.

- Germany needed the industrial capacity of Switzerland, which was not subject to bombing.

- Germany needed access to the Swiss insurance system.

- All sides valued the long-standing Swiss neutrality and wished to preserve Switzerland as a avenue for negotiations.

Near the end of the war, the United States and France threatened to invade Switzerland if the Swiss kept supplying certain war materials to Germany. The Swiss were in much more danger from American invasion than German.

Answer 3

No, Switzerland was not invaded in either of the World Wars.