How did Switzerland manage to avoid both World Wars?

defense bonus from mountains

File: guns in europe.jpg (71KB, 600x550px) Image search: [Google]

71KB, 600x550px

>>2904054

big mountains, economic freedom, democracy, and lots and lots of guns

>>2904054
Gun ownership.

For real though. Even Hitler didn't invade Switzerland because he knew that since Switzerland requires citizens to own guns, combined with the terrain, that they'd be too tough to just easily conquer like Belgium.

>>2904054
>>2904054
avoid? nigger wtf you on about they let hitler chill there and pass through wihtout any trouble even showed them the best route, fuck swizterland, or was it sweden either way, fuck both them countrys

>>2904054
by being irrelevant and serving a better purpose as a neutral zone

>>2904054
ETERNAL NEUTRALITY

>>2904069
poland only one? thats absolute bullshit, who made this map, what are his sources?

by making sure they remained useful as an independent state to Germany

there's no doubt they would have gotten around to annexing Switzerland eventually though

>>2904054
Natural aversion against Anschluss and credible deterrence, also enough brains to do business as usual.
All in all, Switzerland is the far better buffer state than Belgium.

>>2904054
What was their endgame if Germany won the war? It must have been pretty spooky to live there during the blitzkrieg

>>2904054
banks

The rulers were sitting there watching the puppets fight eachother

>>2904983
By 1940 they where pretty scared, but then General Guisan started its propaganda, and soon he had a Swiss in a solid patriotic frenzy, defiant as ever.

>>2904054
People always forget Switzerland is literally a money laundering machine. E.g. Nazis brought gold stolen from Jews and occupied nations. Got back fresh $$$ to finance their war.

>>2907161
Not sure if this fits in a historic discussion or in a tabloid.