Talk:Operation Tannenbaum

message: it's a common myth in switzerland, that the nazis did not invade us because of the army...
the swiss army was much weaker than most conntinental armies, it was ill-equipped, compared to other continental victims of the nazis (except for the eastern european countries).
switzerland didn't have fighter aircraft, almost no artillery, no tanks, no fortresses worth mentioning, event though many people think so. there were only riflemen whose resistance surely would have crushed within days by the wehrmacht and it's superiour support weapons, aircraft and so on.
the swiss army bulked up heavily only after the war. 
(Switzerland posessed 21 aircraft squadrons at the outset of the war, its 100 newly delivered Bf 109Es were among the best planes of the day. The percentage of artillery was more or less identical to that of the German Wehrmacht. A fortification programm had been initiated in 1937 along the borders to Germany and France, about half of which was finished by the time war broke out, all of which was finished by the time Tannenbaum was drafted. While many older Swiss people credited the forces with deterring the Germans, many younger people see the cooperation with Germany as the desiding foctor. Be that as it may, Germany was a superpower in 1940, and it is unthikable that the Swiss Army could have fielded an effective resistance alone. (morahun)
the reason why the nazis didn't invade switzerland was that they needed swiss intermediaries to buy chemicals to produce gunpowder, to buy oil, and to do financial services for the nazis because they couldn't participate in the international financial system anymore.
only those compannies who illegally cooperated with the nazis preserved a token neutrality.
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When and how did the Swiss shoot down 11 German planes? Bastie 22:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A myth... 

message: Operation Tannenbaum was the third of several detailed invasion plans drawn up for the German General Staff after France collapsed, but Hitler never gave the go-ahead, perhaps because Switzerland had defenses no other country had. It is often suggested that Every Swiss home was equipped with a rifle and the alpine terrain gave a tactical advantage to Swiss general Henri Guisan and his army which included a fifth of the Swiss population. The Swiss had also heavily fortified most of the country, specifically the national Reduit in the center of the country. But arguably the massive Wehrmacht could have easily overcome those obstacles by a blitzkrieg campaign. 
This paragraph has more to do with nationalism than with any serious strategic assessment. The presumably impassable Ardennes were breached by the German cavalry in 1940, and presumably impassable Switzerland had more or less become a highway for France, Russia and Austria during the Napoleonic wars a century earlier. It is undeniable that the existence of a Swiss army, by itself, meant that there was going to be opposition, but to repeat the ridiculous claims that it was a "defense that no other country had" is veiling one's eyes from the basic fact that France, and probably Poland (I don't know) had mandatory military service as well, and the Franco-Polish reservists (and regulars), in the end, were walked over by the Wehrmacht. (unlogged, but User:Snapdragonfly who also will have rewritten the paragraph quoted above by the time someone reads it).
The revision is, sadly, weasel-ly to my taste, but it appears to me as slightly more encyclopedic than stating as fact the already destroyed myth of Swiss invulnerability (or even a variant). Or using a generic US gun-nut as an encyclopedic source for a viewpoint, which would be disingenuous as they have a political stake in maintaining this kind of populist myths. Snapdragonfly 13:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Ardennes are higher hills of the low lands of West Europe.  The Alps have twice the altitude, and a far more extreme climate.  There really isn't a comparison between the two.  As far as a "highway" for the European powers, the plan as stated above was to abandon the lowlands and conduct guerilla warfare against the Axis.130.13.16.51 02:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  To revise 

message: interesting  to  see  that  however  rich  the  Canaris - oriented  bibliography  has  grown,  treatment  of  the  issues  the  man's  action  influenced  hasn't  really  changed.
Admiral  Canaris  was  head  of  the  Wehrmacht's  counter-intelligence  unit   (Abwehr)   and  one  of  the  leading  figures  of  the  anti - nazi  conspiracy.   Particularly  worth  mentioning  is  his  personal  intervention  on  Franco  leading  the  Caudillo  -  even  after  Hitler's  June  1940  triumph  -  to  decline  the  Fuehrer's  request  to  either  let  German  troops  occupy  Gibraltar  or  occupy  it  through  his  own  troops.
Most  biographies  today  acknowledge  Canaris'  critical  impact  in  convincing  Hitler  -  in  good  or  bad  faith  - that  invading  Switzerland  would  be  militarily  too  costly.  Whether  this  stems  from  Canaris'   Swiss  connections,  military  expertise  or  coup  planning contingencies  won't  be  considered  here.   
Zossen 21:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canaris 

message: I deleted an unsourced and frankly out of context comment about American businesses "profiting" from Nazi Germany at the end of the article.  If someone finds a source for the comment, feel free to replace it.130.13.16.51 02:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  unecessary comments 

message: Is it possible that Hitler never invaded Switzerland simply because he never had to? In all the other countries he invaded because ( in his eyes ) he had a reason : raw materials, threatening moves ( in his eyes ), could be used by the enemy etc, but none of these apply to Switzerland ( or Sweden either ). Racism could also have been an issue : Switzerland is afterall considered part of the German speaking world. 91.128.24.37 (talk) 23:23, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I find this believable, but there were three separate invasion plans drawn up so the intent was there to some degree or another. 68.214.70.248 (talk) 18:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of cause