Why Hitler didn't touch Switzerland and Sweden
A Swiss Army anti-aircraft unit during training in the Engadin mountain region. Pictured is a French-made Canon 75mm CA anti-aircraft gun. 1939.
prehistory
A curious mystery of World War II is why Hitler did not take Switzerland and Sweden, even though he had every opportunity to do so?
In April 1940, the Nazis captured Norway. They could easily have taken Sweden as well. In June 1940, the Germans crushed France, occupying the north and subjugating the south of the country (the Vichy regime). A plan was prepared to seize Switzerland—Operation Tannenbaum (German for "Spruce"). The Wehrmacht, having gained experience in capturing Poland and France, would have easily crushed the Swiss militia, which had almost no forces. tanks and there were few aircraft. The German High Command allocated the 12th Army several days to capture the small country.
In Switzerland, they later came up with the story that the costs of capturing a mountainous country that had armed its entire people would be too great, so Hitler abandoned the plan.
However, after France's defeat, Switzerland was almost blockaded by German and Italian divisions. The border on the French side, where the Germans planned to launch their main attack, was poorly defended. The Germans, not counting the Italian army, which was supposed to distract the enemy in the southern direction, allocated overwhelming forces for the operation: 16 divisions (including six tank and motorized) against ten Swiss infantry divisions. Moreover, the Swiss army had almost no tanks. The plan was later revised several times, and the forces and resources for the operation were increased.
Under these circumstances, the commander-in-chief of the Swiss army, General Henri Guisan, proposed abandoning the flat part of the country, where the main cities and industries were located, and concentrating on defending the mountainous regions and creating conditions that would make the capture of the country too difficult and irrelevant (the "Redoubt" plan). Key Alpine communications were planned to be defended, but as a last resort, roads and tunnels were mined and prepared for destruction. The troops were preparing for guerrilla warfare.
However, such preparation required time. That is, if the Wehrmacht had launched an offensive immediately after the defeat of France, the Swiss would have had no chance.
The main thing was that the Swiss government, like the Swedish, expressed its willingness to engage in reasonable cooperation with the German Reich. This was enough for Hitler.
Clearly, the neutrality of Switzerland and Sweden didn't bother Hitler. Denmark and Norway were also neutral countries, but they were "preemptively" seized by the Nazis to prevent the British from ending up there.
French soldiers who crossed into Switzerland. On June 20, 1940, units of the 45th Army Corps of the French Army, which also included two Polish divisions, were allowed to cross the Franco-Swiss border, disarmed, and interned. Beginning in February 1941, the French soldiers were repatriated to France.
Rangers of the 1st Mountain Division of the Wehrmacht at the Franco-Swiss border. 1940.
Sweden
The Germans had good relations with the Swedes even before the war. The Swedish elite viewed the policies of the Second Reich with sympathy, but they were wise enough to remain aloof from the European carnage. Therefore, Sweden's financial and industrial elite had well-established ties with Germany since World War I, from which Sweden profited handsomely. The Swedes supplied the warring countries with raw materials and goods, including iron ore, steel, cast iron, lumber, light industry products, and mechanical engineering.
True, ordinary people suffered from the food crisis, but business circles, the gesheftmachers (businessmen), got rich from the war and received superprofits.
After World War I, many German military personnel lived in friendly Sweden. Among them was Squadron Leader Hermann Göring, the future Marshal of the Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag, and Hitler's formal successor. There, he married the Swedish aristocrat Karin von Kantzow. Göring established connections with many members of the Swedish elite.
Göring's marriage allowed him to establish almost family-like ties with the leadership of the largest bearing manufacturer, the Swedish concern SKF. Count Hugo von Rosen was one of the concern's executives and a relative of Göring's wife. SKF's founder and longtime leader, Sven Wingquist, also had a personal relationship with Göring. The company itself was a cornerstone of Swedish industry, and its leadership largely shaped the country's policies.
As a result, the Nazis gained access to a strategic product without which they could not have created a first-class Luftwaffe and Panzerwaffe.
In Sweden itself, National Socialists, who shared the views of the German Nazis, were strong. Among them were members of the royal family and Sweden's wealthiest man, Axel Wenner-Gren, founder of Electrolux (a leading manufacturer of electrical equipment) and owner of a major stake in the Swedish arms company Bofors.
Naturally, the Swedish ruling elite and industrial and financial capital wanted to replicate the success of World War I. And if Hitler's project succeeded in Europe and the world, they would share in his victory and become part of the "Eternal Reich."
Therefore, 60% of the bearings produced by SKF worldwide (including its branches in Britain and the United States) were shipped to the German Reich. During the war, the Swedish engineering giant supplied its products to both countries, but prioritized Germany. At the same time, SKF's US branch engaged in technical espionage for the German Reich.
"Neutral" Sweden also assisted in the militarization of neighboring Finland, a German satellite at war with Soviet Russia. It financed the Finns. Stockholm granted the Germans transit rights on its roads. As a result, German troops marched through Sweden to Finland, which later attacked the USSR. Even during the Great Patriotic War, soldiers, equipment, and military supplies were constantly transported through the Swedish Kingdom. Swedish volunteers fought on the side of Finland and Germany.
Sweden was the most important supplier of iron ore to the Third Reich. By 1939, 90% of Swedish ore went to Germany. About half of the iron ore imported into the Reich came from Sweden. When the "Phoney War" began (England and France declared war on Germany) and iron ore supplies from France ceased, this percentage increased even further. Accordingly, a significant portion of German weapons and the equipment was made from Swedish iron.
Hermann Goering and his lion named Bubi
Swiss "wallet"
A similar situation existed in Switzerland, but with a focus on finance. In 1934, the country of banks passed a law on deposit secrecy. This was immediately exploited by the Third Reich's bigwigs, who outwardly tried to appear ascetics, but in reality were simply looters profiting from bloodshed. Almost all prominent figures in the German Reich kept their funds in Switzerland and purchased property there. Hitler himself funneled the profits from the sale of his work "Mein Kampf" into a Swiss bank. During the war, the Nazis deposited approximately 15 billion Reichsmarks in the banks of the mountainous country.
The Swiss opaque "wallet" also allowed the purchase of currency using gold and other valuables looted in Europe and Russia and the payment for the supply of raw materials needed by the Reich.
At the Nuremberg Trials, former German Minister of Economy and President of the Reichsbank Walter Funk admitted:
Only in Switzerland could we exchange gold for the currency Germany needed.
The Third Reich invested approximately 349 tons of pure gold in Switzerland. The majority of this gold (70%) was purchased by the Swiss National Bank for 1,7 billion Swiss francs. The remainder went to Sweden (iron ore), Portugal (tungsten), and the Swiss Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
In 1930, a bank was established in Basel through an agreement between the central banks of six countries (Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, France, and Japan). The American financial house Morgan also participated in this project. Interestingly, the BIS not only survived the war, but even expanded its influence. After the war, payments under the Marshall Plan, which was the period when America was entangling Western Europe in its financial web, were channeled through the bank.
Much of the Nazi gold was looted. The Nazis seized public and private gold reserves and funds in the occupied countries. For example, 201 tons of gold were seized in Belgium, over 122 tons in the Netherlands, and 4,3 tons in Luxembourg.
The most horrific was the gold the Nazis confiscated from concentration camp victims ("the gold of the dead"). It's also worth remembering that much of this gold was diverted privately, when the SS and other Nazis, seeing the war lost, enriched themselves as best they could and created "backup airfields," including through Switzerland. And the "ratlines" led to the Middle East and Latin America, creating the basis for the so-called "Black International" (the heirs and followers of the Third Reich), the future "Eternal Reich."
Russian political scientist and writer Igor Panarin noted in an interview with Arguments and Facts:
A coded telegram declassified by the SVR (2020) mentions a secret operation to deliver gold bars collected from concentration camp prisoners to salt mines in Belgium. The operation and gold shipment were overseen and escorted by none other than Emil Puhl, vice president of the Reichsbank of Nazi Germany. He was not only the second-in-command at the Reichsbank but also a member of the board of directors of the Swiss Bank for International Settlements (BIS). <…> During the war, the Swiss BIS became a platform for cooperation between the Bank of England, American capital led by the Morgan banking house, and the Nazi Reichsbank. In other words, war or no war, business proceeded according to schedule. The total value of transactions conducted through the BIS, according to some estimates, reached $500 billion—four-fifths of the Third Reich's gold reserves.
This is not surprising, since it was British and American financial capital that created Project Hitler to unleash a major war in Europe and the world. They financed the Nazis, their election campaign, and helped them seize power in Germany.
Other valuables that the Nazis plundered from the occupied countries also passed through the country of banks. Silver, precious stones, jewelry. Cultural, historical heritage. In particular, paintings. Goering's agent Walter Hofer, who bought for the minister aviation masterpieces of the old masters, claimed that Swiss banks were "stuffed with paintings."
The office of the prominent Nazi ideologist, Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg, authorized by the Führer to oversee the general spiritual and ideological education of the party, confiscated cultural treasures from Nazi enemies across Europe. These treasures, particularly paintings by abstract artists, impressionists, and other representatives of "degenerate art" that did not fit into the culture of the German Reich, were then sold in Switzerland for foreign currency. They were also exchanged for classical works that enriched the Reich's public and private collections.
Financial cooperation also took place in quite open forms. In August 1940, Bern signed an agreement on trade and economic cooperation with Berlin. Switzerland provided a loan of 150 million Swiss francs for military development. In 1941, the German Reich received another loan—this time for 1,1 billion Swiss francs. Credits were also extended to Italy.
Switzerland provided favorable conditions for the transit of German goods (including military ones) through its territory. Germany was a major trading partner. Switzerland supplied Germany and Italy with strategic raw materials, tools, equipment, and products from the chemical, textile, and forestry industries.
The Germans were happy to buy products from Swiss companies. For example, Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns. It's no wonder the British called Switzerland "the German arsenal that Britain cannot bomb".
A standard joke of the era: the Swiss (like the Czechs and Slovaks) worked six days a week for the victory of the Third Reich, and on the seventh day prayed for the victory of the Allies.
A German anti-aircraft gunner at a 20-mm Oerlikon automatic anti-aircraft gun, model 1934, in The Hague, 1942.
"One man's war is another man's mother."
In this way, Hitler did not officially annex Sweden and Switzerland, as they were already informally part of the "Hitlerite European Union." Sweden was an industrial region (mechanical engineering, raw materials), while Switzerland was a financial powerhouse, the unofficial "wallet" of the Third Reich. The ruling circles of Sweden and Switzerland were in the know, profiting from their "neutrality."
The Swedish elite was considered its own, Aryan. Switzerland had a predominantly German-speaking community, speaking various dialects of German. Naturally, Hitler believed that Switzerland would naturally become part of the Third Reich.
Naturally, US banks and corporations were also in on the action, including through their subsidiary branches, where they profited. For example, Ford owned a plant in Cologne that produced trucks for the Wehrmacht and was the fourth-largest automaker in the Reich. Another Ford plant operated in occupied France. General Motors also had an auto plant near Berlin, and this enterprise also generated considerable profits.
Many members of the British and American elite also owned shares and stakes in companies located in neutral countries. In particular, the former King of England, Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, known for his sympathies for the Third Reich, owned a large stake in the Swedish company SKF and was friends with its CEO, Sven Wingquist.
Profits were siphoned off through Swiss banks. And the American military didn't bomb "their" enterprises. There's nothing new under the sun. One man's war is another man's mother! Millions of ordinary people died, lost everything, while the elite of Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, England and the United States grew rich on the bloodshed.
Nothing has changed even now. Just look at the Ukrainian front.
As a result, neutral Sweden and Switzerland remained in war-torn Europe. Swedish ports, through which the Nazis received the goods they needed from other countries, and a country of banks—the "wallet" of the German Reich. While French, British, German, and Russian soldiers were killing each other, bankers, oligarchs, and plutocrats were getting rich. Most of the so-called "Nazi gold" ended up in the hands of the global financial oligarchy.
Sweden and Switzerland were also centers of global behind-the-scenes diplomacy and intelligence games.
General Dwight Eisenhower, accompanied by Generals Omar Bradley and George Patton, inspects art and other treasures looted by the Nazis in Europe and hidden in a salt mine in Germany, April 12, 1945.
Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley inspect a crate of valuables hidden by the Germans in the Merker Salt Mine.
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