THE SWISS MILITIA KEPT THEM NEUTRAL DURING WWII

Hitler hated the Swiss. In 1943 Hitler said that “all the rubbish of small nations existing in Europe must be liquidated,” even though that would earn him the title of ‘the butcher of the Swiss.’

But threatening liquidation and butchering is a far cry from delivering - especially since the Swiss since 1291 have been known as masters of the battlefield. In latter days they became renowned as expert riflemen and snipers. That, combined with the formidable barrier of the Swiss Alps and the incomparable Swiss Militia system, caused even Hitler to pause.




Swiss boys are inducted into the Militia and issued arms
and ammunition similar to that shown above when they
reach their 18th birthday. Their arms and ammunition
are kept in the home for near instant mobilization.
 They serve until they are 50 years old but retain
their arms for a lifetime.



In the days before World War II broke out, the Swiss government regarded a German invasion a realistic possibility. In view of the situation many Swiss were at a loss regarding what course to take. General Henri Guisan, Swiss commander-in-chief, rallied his country to support a policy of heavily “Armed Neutrality.”

Switzerland mobilized 850,000 men (out of a population of 4 million), prepared the Reduit (Alpine fortress), as a stronghold to defend even if the lowland cities fell. In the case of an invasion, streets, bridges and tunnels were to be destroyed and the occupation might have cost the Germans dearly.

German maps and documents seized after WWII showed that Hitler referred to a possible invasion as “Case Switzerland,” and on more than one occasion massed troops on the border to invade. But the invasion order never came.

Other European nations fell like dominoes under the onslaught of the German “blitzkreig.” Even the mighty French Army, which many believed was the strongest in Europe, and possibly the world, fell in a mere six weeks. Nazi troops marched proudly into Paris, yet Switzerland stood, like a tiny island in a sea of her enemies, unbowed.

Another reason Hitler didn’t invade Switzerland had little to do with Switzerland itself. Hitler’s primary military objective was the conquest of Russia. According to Andrew Nagorski (2007; The Greatest Battle) Adolf Hitler had declared his intention to hit the USSR on 11 August 1939 to Carl Jacob Burckhardt, League of Nations Commissioner by saying: “Everything I undertake is directed against the Russians. If the West is too stupid and blind to grasp this, then I shall be compelled to come to an agreement with the Russians, beat the West and then after their defeat turn against the Soviet Union with all my forces. I need the Ukraine so that they can't starve us out, as happened in the last war.”
http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/italy/ch19391945.html

Most of the Nazi’s 18 million man army was massed on the Eastern Front (as the German war against Russia was called). At least 1 million men would be required to invade Switzerland since the Germans themselves estimated they would suffer 200,000 casualties. Plus, the Germans suffered grievous losses on the Eastern Front and were having enormous problems with underground resistance movements in previously occupied territories that siphoned enormous resources from Hitler’s primary goal.

Since France’s surrender in June 1940, Switzerland was surrounded by German-held or Italian territory. The Swiss government, aware of it's delicate position and it's dependency on imports, considered repeated German surrender demands and rejected them.

The Swiss held true to their core beliefs and maintained their position of heavily armed neutrality. The tiny Swiss nation thus avoided the horrors of war that befell other European nations. In addition to retaining their freedom, the Swiss provided safe haven for approximately 3 million Jews who would otherwise have been murdered by the Nazis.

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The Warsaw (Poland) Ghetto Uprising - a truly heroic epic

WARNING - There are graphic photos in this article

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."

"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill, (1806–1873) was a British philosopher and civil servant. He was an influential contributor to social theory, political theory and political economy. His concept of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control.

Hitler’s final solution, the extermination of all Jews, was progressing smoothly until the time came to eliminate the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Even that went smoothly at first.

Between July and September 1942, Nazi authorities deported or murdered about 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. SS and German police agencies deported 265,000 to the Treblinka killing center and 11,580 more to forced-labor camps. Another 10,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto itself during deportation proceedings.

Germans granted 35,000 Jews permission to remain in the Ghetto and another 20,000 stayed behind in hiding. Only 55,000 to 60,000 Jews were left alive.

Two Jewish self-defense organizations formed in 1942 in an effort to halt the deportations and genocide - the Jewish Combat Organization, (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa or ZOB and the Jewish Military Union, Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy or ZZW.) Their goal seemed unattainable with a mere 750 fighters opposing the entire German war machine. Nevertheless, during the summer of 1942, the ZOB established contact with the Polish military underground movement known as the Home Army. There they obtained a small number of weapons, mostly pistols and explosives, from Home Army contacts.

German SS and police units tried to resume mass deportations of Jews from Warsaw on January 18, 1943. A group of Jewish fighters, armed with pistols, infiltrated a column of Jews being forced to the Umschlagplatz (transfer point) and, at a prearranged signal, broke ranks and fought their German escorts.

Most of these Jewish fighters died in the battle, but the attack sufficiently disoriented the Germans to allow the Jews arranged in columns at the Umschlagplatz a chance to disperse. After seizing 5,000-6,500 ghetto residents to be deported, the Germans suspended further deportations on January 21. Encouraged by the apparent success of the resistance, which they believed may have halted deportations, members of the ghetto population began to construct subterranean bunkers and shelters in preparation for an uprising should the Germans attempt a final deportation of all remaining Jews in the ghetto.



A few victims of Hitler's genocide.


The Germans wanted to begin liquidation of the ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover. But when SS and police units entered the ghetto, the streets were deserted. Nearly all of the residents had gone into hiding places or bunkers. The renewal of deportations was the signal for the armed uprising within the ghetto.

Armed with pistols, grenades (many of them homemade), and a few automatic weapons and rifles, the ZOB fighters emerged from their bunkers and stunned the Germans and their auxiliaries on the first day of fighting, forcing the German forces to retreat outside the ghetto wall. German commander SS General Jürgen Stroop reported losing 12 men, killed and wounded, during the first assault on the ghetto. On the third day of the uprising, Stroop's SS and police forces began razing the ghetto to the ground, building by building, to force the remaining Jews out of hiding. Jewish resistance fighters made sporadic raids from their bunkers, but the Germans systematically reduced the ghetto to rubble.

Though German forces broke the organized military resistance within days of the beginning of the uprising, individuals and small groups hid or fought the Germans for almost a month.

Eventually, the Germans won the battle over the Warsaw Ghetto and 42,000 Jews were deported to such notorious killing centers as Tteblinka, where 7,000 Jews were gassed to death almost immediately on their arrival. Most of the remaining 35,000 Jewish survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising were sent to Lublin/Majdanek, Poniatowa, Trawniki, Budzyn and Krasnik forced labor camps. All were eventually murdered.

Instead of the three days the Germans estimated it would take to ship all the ghetto residents to killing centers, the stiff resistance held out for more than 30 days and even after that individual Jews hiding in the ruins of the ghetto continued to attack German patrols.
Most of the statistics in the above came from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188

The United States has fielded one of the most formidable armies in world history. An army many feel it would be useless to resist should they ever be turned against our own citizens. What good would a pistol or hunting rifle be against heavy armor, artillery, tanks and jet fighters, they ask rhetorically? Perhaps the answer can be found in the sheer courage and heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance movement and in the website,
What good is a handgun against an Army?

Remember, the German Army in WWII was also formidable with tanks (panzers), a state-of-the-art air force, artillery and an extremely well trained force of foot soldiers. Yet a force of only 750 Jews, armed mainly with handguns, held that army at bay for more than 30 days. Imagine if there had been 100 such groups…

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