Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality In World War II [Paperback]

Stephen P. Halbrook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2003

A fascinating and enlightening explanation of the dilemma Switzerland found itself in during the 1930's and 1940's. --Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The recent focus on Swiss accommodations to the Third Reich has obscured the facts surrounding Switzerland's success in deterring Nazi invasion, argues Halbrook in this narrative of Switzerland's preparations for armed resistance during WWII. Concessions on commercial or refugee issues, Halbrook contends, were not enough by themselves to fend off one of history's most ruthless dictatorships. What was decisive, he finds, was Swiss determination to defend itself by an armed force based on armed citizens. In contrast to Holland, Denmark or Norway, Switzerland during WWII successfully maintained its neutrality. It did so, argues Halbrook, by convincing Nazi Germany and its own citizens that any invader would pay in blood for every foot of ground, and in the end would find only devastation. Halbrook, a practicing attorney rather than an academic scholar, relies primarily on journalistic sources to make the points that Switzerland was prepared to abandon most of the country and fight to the last man from an Alpine redoubt. Among other questionable premises he accepts uncritically, he takes as given that militiamen armed primarily with bolt-action rifles and 50 rounds of ammunition constituted an effective fighting force in an age of mechanized war. His account, while written from a limited vantage point, nevertheless establishes a series of elements in danger of being submerged by the recent furor over bank accounts and trade figures. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Halbrook vigorously and, inevitably, controversially argues a conservative defense agenda with his thesis that Switzerland's federal system, which lacks a central authority capable of surrendering the country, and its militia-based defense (shades of the Minutemen, the Second Amendment, and the NRA!) effectively enabled Swiss neutrality during World War II. He offers much evidence that the Swiss armed and equipped themselves at considerable cost to defend their independence, for which most of them were prepared to fight even against the might of the Wehrmacht. Whatever the range of Swiss sympathies was, and however much the necessary bribes to the Third Reich may have benefited the Axis, the Swiss deterred the Germans, remained neutral, and thereby benefited the Allies--and the many thousand refugees allowed into Switzerland--far more. Whether the Swiss would have offered a last-ditch resistance in the face of the full range of German terror tactics remains an open question, of course, but Halbrook suggests that the question of Swiss "complicity" with the Third Reich should also remain open. Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (December 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306813254
• ISBN-13: 978-0306813252
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #42 in Books > History > Europe > Switzerland

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52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superbly documented and beautifully written, September 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War ll (Hardcover)

A slightly different version of this review appeared in "The American Enterprise" magazine.

Review by: Dave Kopel

If all you know is what you read in the papers, then you must think that Switzerland is one of the most despicable countries in the world. Switzerland, rather than joining the Allied cause, stayed neutral World War II. After the war, Swiss banks helped themselves to the deposits of holocaust victims, rather than giving the deposits to the victims' heirs. Case closed?

Not at all, historian Stephen Halbrook shows in his new book Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality In World War II. Wrongful as was the bankers' post-war behavior, the behavior of the Swiss people during the war was morally exemplary-superior, indeed to the conduct of most of the rest of Europe. As Winston Churchill recalled, "of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right distinction... She has been a Democratic State, standing for freedom in self-defense among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side."

Except for Britain, France, and Canada, virtually all of the Allied nations during World War II joined the war only because the Axis declared war on them, Halbrook reminds us. Even after Pearl Harbor, the United States remained neutral in the European war, until Hitler declared war on United States a few days later.

Nazi maps showed that the Third Reich would eventually include Switzerland, just as it would include all portions of Europe with German-speaking people. While the majority of Switzerland's population is German-speaking (the rest being French, Italian, or Romansh) the nation was virtually unanimous in hoping and praying for the defeat of Germany. Infuriated by the lack of ethnic solidarity, and by the strongly anti-Nazi stance of Switzerland's free press, Hitler predicted that Switzerland would be "liquidated" and that he would be known as "the butcher of the Swiss."

As Halbrook details, in every stage of the war, the Axis had powerful military reasons to invade Switzerland. Before the fall of France, the non-alpine part of Switzerland offered at inviting path to sweep into France and avoid the Maginot Line. After France fell and Italy entered the war, Switzerland offered the only convenient transport of military men and supplies between Italy and Germany. After the Allied landing in Italy, Germany's need to swiftly deploy troops into Italy became even more urgent. As the war came to conclusion in 1944-45, the Nazi leadership laid plans to make a stand in the Alps, but Switzerland stood right in the middle.

By the summer of 1940, there was only one country on Germany's borders whose free press and rights of assembly allowed the Third Reich to be publicly and lawfully denounced as the evil empire that he was. In every country on Germany's borders--except Switzerland--Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other targets of Hitler's hate were sent to extermination camps. But there was no Holocaust on Swiss soil. Switzerland protected her own Jews, and sheltered many more refugees of all religious backgrounds. Had America sheltered refugees at the same per capita rate as Switzerland, the United States would have taken in over three million refugees. Instead America accepted hardly any.

In all the countries that Hitler conquered, the economy was plundered for use in the Nazi war machine. As a neutral, Switzerland did trade with Germany and Italy, and with the Allies. (For the Allied trade, the Swiss smuggled out precision ball bearings and other military equipment disguised in consumer products like watches.) But unlike in the countries which Hitler conquered, the only products that Hitler could get from Switzerland were what he could buy at full price.

Target Switzerland includes the maps of the evolving Germans invasion plans for "Case Switzerland." Yet although the Germans several times massed troops on the Swiss border for an invasion, the invasion never went forward. With so many reasons to invade Switzerland, why did the Nazis desist?

The Nazis could have eventually have conquered Switzerland, but at a fearful price. The Wehrmacht expected 200,000 German casualties; it would have taken a very long time to remove the Swiss military from the Alpine "Reduit" to which they planned to make a stand. And by the time the Swiss were defeated, every bridge and train track and everything else of value to the conquerors would have been destroyed.

The reason that Switzerland was too difficult to invade-in contrast to all the other nations which Hitler conquered in a matter of weeks-was the Swiss militia system. Unlike all the other nations of Europe, which relied on a standing army, Switzerland was (and still is) defended by a universal militia. Every man was trained in war, had his rifle at home, was encouraged to practice frequently, and could be mobilized almost instantly. The Swiss militiaman was under orders to fight to the last bullet, and after that, with his bayonet, and after that, with his bare hands. Rather than having to defeat an army, Hitler would have had to defeat a whole people.

Conversely, the Swiss citizen militia, with its extensive network of fortifications, had no offensive capability. The Swiss militia was not going to sweep into Berlin; modern Swiss-bashers who condemn the nation for not declaring war fail to understand that by keeping the Axis out of Switzerland, the Swiss were already doing everything they could for the Allied cause.

From the Anschluss of Austria to the Fall of France, Hitler swallowed nation after nation where cowardly ruling elites surrendered the country to the Nazis-either before the shooting began, or a few weeks afterward. But such a surrender would have been impossible in Switzerland, explains Halbrook. The Swiss governmental system was decentralized, with the separate 26 cantons, not the federal government, having the authority. The federal government did notify the Swiss people that in case of a German invasion, any claim that there had been a Swiss surrender should be disregarded as Nazi propaganda. And because the military power was in the hands of every Swiss man, the federal government would have been unable to surrender had it ever wanted to. Nothing could stop the Swiss militiamen from fighting to the very end.

America's Founders admired Switzerland as a "Sister Republic" amidst the despotisms of Europe. The American Founders-like the Swiss-understood the moral implications of a universal militia system: a people who are trained to self-reliance and responsibility will defend their freedom to the utmost. But a people who rely on a professional standing army may not have the nerve to resist tyranny.

When, as William Shirer wrote from Berlin, the lamps of freedom were going out all over Europe, they burned brighter than ever in Switzerland, as the Swiss people maintained their democracy, their right to assemble, and their freedom of religion. And the Swiss people saved thousands and thousands of refugees from the gas chambers. A well-regulated militia really was necessary to the security of a free state.

Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler both understood how much Switzerland damaged the Axis cause-on both a military and a moral plane. Stephen Halbrook's excellent book-the first in English to tell Switzerland's history during the war-is the story of how a small, isolated nation, faced with mighty enemies and gigantic dangers, can demonstrate true greatness.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A spirited defense of a nation and its traditions, January 21, 2002

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Stamford, Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War ll (Hardcover)

At one point in his narrative, Stephen Halbrook quotes Philipp Etter, a Swiss federal counselor from the 1930s through the 50s. In 1937, Etter wrote, 'The armed defense of the country is a primary and substantial task of the state. The mental defense of the country falls primarily not on the state but on the person, the citizen. No government and no battalions are able to protect right and freedom where the citizen himself is not capable of stepping to the front door and seeing what is outside.' No one familiar with Halbrook's other works should be surprised that this seems to be one of the key lessons Halbrook wants us to learn from his history of Switzerland in World War II.

Halbrook makes it clear that Switzerland walked a tightrope during the War. Fierce and well trained as the Swiss citizen-army was, it was not eager to tangle with Hitler's Wehrmacht. Though unquestionably sympathetic to the allies, the Swiss were determined to maintain their neutrality. If that meant making some economic concessions to Germany in order to keep the Nazis from overrunning the country, the Swiss were willing, reluctantly, to do that. It's easier to second-guess that decision from half a century's distance than it must have been at the time, when national-socialist armies dominated the continent and liberation was still a distant dream.

As other reviewers have noted, Halbrook is clearly sympathetic, not only to the Swiss nation generally, but specifically to its armed-citizenry approach to national defense. With Switzerland being so greatly maligned in recent years, it's not surprising that voices have been raised in its defense as well. While not perhaps perfect, 'Target Switzerland' is a fascinating and enlightening explanation of the dilemma in which Switzerland found itself in the 1930s and 40s, and why and how that nation chose to do the things it did.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, well researched, and engrossing read, August 23, 1998

By 

Glenn H. Reynolds - See all my reviews

This review is from: Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War ll (Hardcover)

When I saw the ads for this book, I was skeptical. The timing seemed too good, with a book that reflects well on the Swiss coming out just as Swiss Banks were getting a lot of bad publicity. But having read it, I've changed my tune. Halbrook doesn't waste time defending Swiss banks (who at any rate may have been no worse than Chase Manhattan -- read Charles Higham's "Trading with the Enemy" for the disgusting story of American business' collaboration with the Nazis), but rather tells the story of the Swiss people and the Swiss Army. Those two entities are more or less the same thing, which in part explains how the Swiss mobilized one-fifth of their population (and armed most of the rest) to deter a Nazi invasion. The most persuasive part of the book consists of quotations from fulminating Nazis -- Hitler, Goering, Himmler, etc. -- about those damned Swiss and their incomprehensible willingness to die fighting rather than surrender to the Reich. Halbrook also notes how the Swiss traditions of armed citizenry, federalism, and democracy made the kind of surrender-by-elites that took place in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, etc. impossible and pretty much unthinkable in Switzerland. If the rest of Europe had done as the Swiss, Hitler would never have made it out of Germany. Even though I knew the ending (naturally) the book kept me turning pages until the end. I highly recommend it.