Switzerland's Role in World War II

[@erik.cowell1277]

My favorite part about getting a military surplus rifle is getting into all of this history. I recently purchased a 1940 Swiss K31. Wonderful rifle, and I am very happy to see an in-depth look into Switzerland's politics and military preparations at the time my rifle was fielded. Wonderful. Thank you sir.

[@EmperorJavik]

The problem with Swiss AA guns was that they didn't have enough to be able to use them effectively. They were however pretty good. The 20mm Oerlikon AA gun was in fact so good that countries like for example Germany, France, the UK, Japan and the US all used variants of this AA gun during world war 2. They are in fact still used today on some naval units

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

Very cool, I didn't realize that.

[@АртемКасумян-р7ц]

Man, I really respect you for your work.

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

Thanks, I'm glad that you enjoyed the video.

[@potatius6421]

“If we run out of bullets we’ll fix bayonets” is the best citation to describe the Swiss attitude in ww2. They couldn’t change the world, but they were more than willing to die to save their country. They did more against the nazis than most european countries. Only respect.

[@stephenholmes1036]

A factual honest film

[@theomnissiah-9120]

28:30 to be fair the Swiss did need to keep a low profile or get obliterated

[@robinqual3569]

Well done! Balanced and comprehensive. However, there are two inaccuracies to mention: national redoubt did certainly not include Austrian territory Swiss Army strength during the war: 420.000 men (4.2 million was the population) plus 50.000 (not 500.000) local militiamen.

[@ethanwatkins6780]

I absolutely love this mini series, I wish you would do mire

[@BoundInChains]

Audio volume level- neutral.

[@pablopeter3564]

The Swiss were in an IMPOSSIBLE situation, some kind of a "Catch-22", at the end they came out well but I could have been the opposite: Invasion and lost their identity like Austria.

[@caseyjonessnr1200]

An excellent and concise video. Thank you.

[@MikeHaggarKJ]

Amazing video! Thank you.

[@noticiasbrasil1002]

If the population of Switzerland was 4,200,000 inhabitants in 1939, how could the country have the same number of armed men?

[@zexal4217]

Can you some more on Rome if possible? You seem to have a very in depth approach to these things that few others have :D Never mind, read your channel description but keep up the good work anyways.

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

I definitely plan on doing more ancient history videos going forward, but my immediate focus is finishing up my WWII neutrals series. Greek and Roman history is my passion/profession, but I sometimes find it more difficult to make videos on topics that I know really well than I do when I am talking about topics that I only know reasonably well.

[@zexal4217]

Ah coolio.

[@johnwilsonwsws]

Excellent video. I think the one thing you missed was the Swiss railways being used to transit sealed Nazi trains with goods (and troops?) through to Italy. While not strictly necessary as movement could have be made through the Austrian-Italy border, the Swiss extracted some consideration for the convenience afforded by the shorter route. I don't know any details, unfortunately.

[@fabianzimmermann5495]

Swiss joke about ww2 During the second world war, Germany had about 4 million soldiers, Switzerland had about 400'000. One day a German soldier at the border asks a Swiss soldier: „If we invade you, what are you gonna do?“ The Swiss soldier replies: „Shoot ten times and go back to the bunker.“

[@Doubleolick]

Great Video. There were a few things which were slightly inacurate but in general you did your research. About Wauwilermoos: The closest of a phonetical explanation I can give you would be Wow-Wi(Nintendo console)-ler (the e is spelled like ä. Like the A in anti. The r is a rolled r you do with your tongue)-moos(m like man, the oo is spelled like a longer single o but you exhalr instead of inhale while saying it and the s like in see without the ees). I'm not sure what Wau should be but I guess it's the name for an area. Wiler is a Swissgerman word for a really really small village. Moos is Moss. I guess this doesn't help you but hey, it's the best I can come up with.

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

Thanks. I tried to look up some of the proper pronunciations, but I didn't have a lot of success so this kind of does answer that question.

[@Doubleolick]

Thersites the Historian You're welcome. It's really hard to find proper Swissgerman pronounciations because it's not a written language. Still: You dod a good job.

[@mummonkan1]

4.2 million men under arm? The whole population was 4.2 million...

[@iconsumedmt1350]

Whats up with the volume here?

[@fabianzimmermann5495]

Thanks a lot for this video, especially for your last point. A lot of people seem to hate Switzerland, because we traded with Germany. What the fuck were we supposed to do? We were dependend on import and were surrounded by someone, we considered the enemy. We had no choice but to trade with them. We didn‘t like it, but also didn‘t have an alternative. We tried to stick out of the war, we succeded. Did we do some bad stuff? Yeah, but compare it to the stuff the countries at war pulled off. They did way worse things, why do we get so much hate in comparison? I don‘t get it.

[@marks_sparks1]

Welcome to our world - says neutral Éire

[@rafaellastracom6411]

BS Switzerland is the heart of the freemason beast system. YOU are the problem in Humanity.

[@davidkgreen]

I believe Schaffhausen made fleiger watches for the Luftwaffe and perhaps the Allies as well.

[@SwissMarksman]

Switches & Diffusors for bombs etc ..

[@alexrosenthal2887]

I think they made the best of a really bad situation. They had no choice in a lot of these matters. cooperate or get steam-rolled (as was obviously planned).

[@Vergoso_42]

Low volume but great video

[@cyrusaugustus4640]

Your number at 14:37 is wrong, 4.2 million was the population of Switzerland at the moment. I think you mean 430,000

[@mummonkan1]

Oh boy, this is full of mistakes. Wrong maps (Redoubt map, which shows the German Alpenfestung map, and there was no Redoubt Plan, but there was a Reduit plan, etc.

[@alexandriariley5209]

This video is way too quiet. I have my computer's and the video's volume at max, and can barely hear it.

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

Sorry about that. I just recently figured out how to increase my mic volume, so my last three videos and all of my future videos have louder sound. I will be posting two more WWII neutral videos on Sweden and Ireland in the near future.

[@alexandriariley5209]

It's just really disappointing. I was interested in finding out Switzerland's role, since what I know of it is minimal. Could you reupload this with the volume fixed?

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

I will certainly look into it and see if there is anything that I can do with the file or through KZbin.

[@RoyalAnarchist]

Do you have any interest in doing episodes on other countries like Spain and Saudi Arabia?

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

Maybe. I don't know anything about Saudi Arabia's role during the war, but Spain would certainly make for an interesting video topic.

[@Paraculissimo]

Oh no, your geography is totally wrong. The Redoubt Plan you are showing has its Northwestern corner at the Konstanz Lake and its Southwestern corner and ends West of Graz, Austria. That means that according to your drawing about 80% of the Redoubt Plan would be located in neighboring Austria, which, during World War II was part of the Third Reich. You might want to review your self-appointed title of "historian".

[@LukasJampen]

Good video but one correction. At 14 minutes you say and write that 4.2 million men were in the army but that's impossible simce today we have a pop of 8 million and back then about half so the entire population would have been in the army.

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

Ah, I see how that could be a bit of a problem. Thanks for the info. I must have confused the overall population numbers with the size of the military. That makes a lot more sense. Do you happen to know the size of the Swiss army during that period?

[@LukasJampen]

Thersites the Historian No sorry. I'm not that familiar with the whole subject, I'd say it was about 500'000 to a million but that is an uneducated guess.

[@Hellebarde1351]

Thersites the Historian in terms of population, switzerland had more soldiers than any other country in the world and after the war there were even more. in 1962, switzerland had about 5.5 million inhabitants and a 880,000 strong army

[@octoberpunk3123]

Rote Kapelle, the Soviet spy ring operated from Switzerland.

[@Idahoguy10157]

American bomber crews sought sanctuary in Switzerland and Sweden.

[@cambodiaremyzero]

how did Switzerland become synonymous with `neutrality` and banking ? maybe you address it here. just starting.... ;)

[@sentinel7672]

Swiss Neutrality goes back to the 1500's. Before that they were infamous as the home of the most efficient and feared mercenaries in all of Europe (I've actually heard people refer to the Swiss as "Merchants of Death" because of this) and were known to repel the armies of the Holy Roman Empire, the French, and Burgundy (I think) using just unarmored pikemen before the European powers learned to respect their independence. After that, the Swiss gained a reputation for being able to destroy almost any other military force they encountered and slaughtered any other mercenaries they captured in battle to reduce competition. When gunpowder was invented, the Swiss adapted and were able to continue using their dreaded pike square to great effect until guns improved a bit. After a battle with the French, the Swiss just turned inward and refused to involve themselves in the conflicts of the continent until Napoleon invaded and conquered them. After that, the larger countries of the world decided to officially recognize Swiss Neutrality and agreed to leave them in peace. The fact they were able to cause problem for Germany and the Allies, even slightly, in defense of that neutrality should go a long way in saying they haven't lost that element that once made them infamous as merchants of death.

[@cambodiaremyzero]

wow, thanxxxx for that info.... i was expecting snarkiness as youtusual ;) you should do a show,too( maybe you already do ;) i didn`t realize that`s how they went `neutral`... usually change seems to occur with a defeat...wow...

[@sentinel7672]

The change isn't quite as big as it seems. The Swiss gained their independence by devastating a larger army sent by the Holy Roman Emperor and then spent the next fifty years or so crushing larger armies into paste, but between their independence in 1291 or so to their defeat (which happened long after most other nations considered the pike obsolete) they didn't many efforts to expand and their military activities were mostly limited to mercenary work, bodyguards for various nobles, and defending their land. In their mercenary work and in defense of their homeland, the Swiss had a "give no quarter" approach; if Switzerland was attacked, they would fight to the death and were known to kill any prisoners they captured (the common story is after the first battle they fought for independence, they cut a hole in the ice on top of a lake and threw the prisoners of the battle into it) while whenever they were working for another country as mercenaries, they'd give no quarter and would show no mercy to other mercenaries. The most famous example of the Swiss dedication to this "no surrender" policy is the 1527 sack of Rome by German mercenaries where 147 members of the 189-strong Swiss Papal Guard fought to the death in the Vatican against a vastly superior foe to buy the other 42 time to escort the Pope to safety... And the Swiss Papal Guard were mercenaries as well. Look at the Redoubt plan; the Swiss would withdraw to an easily defensible position in the mountains and fight to the death to defend their homeland. No surrender, no mercy, until Switzerland was free or their defenders were dead. On top of that, while the Swiss were occupied by Napoleon, he confiscated their guns and they had a civil war with STICKS. Remember both these lessons: that little beacon of peace and neutrality in the middle of Europe still holds a bit of the bloodlust that allowed it to exist in the heart of the continent, even if they don't show it.

[@Ryan_Winter]

@@cambodiaremyzero It did. The Battle of Marignano in 1515 ended "swiss expansion". Ulrich Zwingli, who led the church reformation in Zurich and was a former mercenary himself, despised the mercenarism, as it prompted swiss men to fight and die on behalf of foreign powers. He did what he could to end it. The Swiss mercenarism started to decline and at the start of the French Revolution only two commitments were still standing. The Swiss Papal Guard and the Royal French Swiss Guard. The latter was still maintained by the Swiss because after Marignano the French King sought a military alliance with the Swiss, as he wanted them to exclusively serve in France's army. Francis I "compensated" the Swiss Confederacy for the loss of the City of Milan with 700'000 Gold Crowns and offered an additional payment if they were willing to hand over the territory which is today the Canton of Ticino, but the Swiss refused the offer and France never contest this area, not even Napoleon did. As a matter of fact, Italy never contest Switzerland's sovereignty over its Italian speaking region either. Anyway, Swiss merencaries served France until the storming of the Tuileries Palace, most of the Swiss Guardsmen died during the attack, the rest was massacred after Louis XVI ordered them to stand down. The last Musketeers defending the French Royal Family were Swiss. The "Perpetual Peace", agreed upon in Fribourg 1516, had never been broken until Napoleon's invasion in 1798, in other words Napoleon had broken a peace treaty that had been honored for almost 300 years. When the modern Swiss nation state was founded in 1848 mercenarism was made illegal. The Papal Swiss Guard is the only exception, as a concession to the Catholic Cantons.

[@gringoloco5989]

Some big mistakes in your video ! Internees are not prisoners ! At all ! According to Geneva Convention the status of internees has nothing to do with prisoners. The officers of downed, crashed or searching safe haven planes were free in Switzerland but assigned to a certain place (mostly winter resorts) under the condition they didn't try to escape and many of them said they had a good time. The rest of the crewmen, always according to Geneva Convention, were obligated to perform utility works mainly in construction and agriculture, but nothing to do with forced labour and they even had, like all other internees, the possibility to study and many received an university degree. All those who landed in the famous (or infamous) Wauwilermoos camp tried to escape and so their status changed to prisoners. After the war the commander of Wauwilermoos camp, André Béguin, was condemned because he was robbing the detainees and the Red Cross parcels among other things and he landed in jail, during hearings it was revealed that he was nazi. Another strange thing is that you mention Schaffhausen bombed by US planes but don't say a word about the 69 other allied bombings over Switzerland. At chapter " espionage " you say that Soviet Union was not present in Switzerland, this is correct regarding diplomatic representation but one of the most efficient network of USSR spies acting in Switzerland named " l'orchestre rouge " in French (red orchester) or in German " Rote Kappelle " (red chapel) transmitted to Moscow (before Sorge from Japan) the Barbarossa plan for the invasion of USSR. At chapter " refugees " you mention the arrival of the French 45th army corps and talk about prisoners... again not true, they present themselves at Swiss border to be INTERNED, nothing else and, and you forget to mention that the French were accompanied by 12'000 Poles from the General Prugar-Ketling division. After discussion between Pétain and the Germans the french were allowed to leave for France were most had to go to Germany to work. The Poles stayed until the end of war but a secret deal was made between General Prugar-Ketling and Swiss authorities in case of a German aggression so that the Poles could fight beside the Swiss, many of these Poles remain in Switzerland after the arrival of communists at the head of Poland and became Swiss. During the war, Switzerland hosts in total 104'000 internees of various countries and the number of refugees was about 150'000, Jews included Regarding your chapter " Banking with nazis ", you are not presenting all elements of the problem. First thing to know is that the Swiss Francs was gold indexed and the reserve of the Swiss National Bank represented a huge quantity of gold. Before the war the Swiss government, due to European insecurity, moved the gold reserve to the USA, seen as a safe haven, but, but, but... in 1941, about 1 year before entering war, the US government seized the total of Swiss gold on US soil under the argument Switzerland was making business with Germany. Try to imagine what a government can do without the gold coverage of national money !!!!!!!! This is certainly one of the main reason why Switzerland was trading gold with the nazis... the way it was done is another question, As it's a little late, I will pursue later regarding other arguments..

[@redcapetimetraveler7688]

14:56 sorry but 4.2 mil troops it's impossible !!! it was the whole population !!! actually switzerland has 8.2 mil citizens ..no way they could have been 42 mil in 1940 's !! the number of troops was 420 000 not 4 200 000 comon ;p