Neutrality is the Answer - They Didn't Attack Switzerland

Truth-Bringer

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They Didn't Attack Switzerland

by Bill Walker

Switzerland has not been in a war of any kind since 1815. It has not been in an official foreign war since 1515. This would be astounding, even miraculous, for any nation. But Switzerland borders Germany . And France . And Italy . And Austria . And Liechtenstein . Now the Prince of Liechtenstein has rarely lashed out in Blitzkrieg in a desperate bid to reign uber alles, but ALL of Switzerland 's other neighbors have devoted a lot of effort to invading other countries.

In addition to the encircling foreign marauders, Switzerland itself is composed of several different ethnic groups that get along as well as, e.g., Germans and French. But they haven’t ethnically cleansed each other for two centuries, either.

You would think that peacekeeping performance of this kind would make Switzerland an object of study in every political science and civics course worldwide. "WHY Didn't They Attack Switzerland ?" should be the title of many a textbook. This is not the case. Very few political scientists study Switzerland .

Switzerland is of no interest to politicians, because the features of the Swiss system that keep the peace are the same features that make Swiss politicians unimportant. Do you know the name of the Swiss President now serving out his nonrenewable one-year term? No, you do not (it’s Samuel Schmid, but you won’t remember tomorrow). His name doesn't matter, and he doesn't matter to the defense of Switzerland . There is no central location of Swiss defense, no Pentagon or NORAD into which you can crash a 757 or a black-market Kazakh nuclear weapon. The defense of Switzerland is the entire people of Switzerland itself.

The features of the Swiss system for keeping the peace are simple. They mind their own business, and they have very strict gun control. By which they mean that every Swiss male must have a gun, except for those who have to carry a mortar or missile launcher. Females are not subject to universal military training, but if you go to a Swiss rifle range, there are always girls blasting away too. After 9-11, the Swiss told passengers to carry their bayonets onto their airliners . . . somewhat different from the US response of panicked victim-disarmament. (You are aware that 99% of US pilots are STILL disarmed?)

As a final defense, the Swiss have rigged the vaults of their banks for demolition. Any dictator attacking Switzerland will find the gold in his numbered bank account buried in rubble hundreds of meters under a mountain. It is known that Hitler had a numbered account.

Switzerland has also provided for defense of the lives of its civilian population against nuclear terrorism. Realizing after World War Two that nuclear weapons in the hands of power-mad idiots posed a public health threat, the Swiss started a nationwide shelter-building program in 1960. By 1991, there was enough shelter space in Switzerland to protect everyone in their home or apartment, and also enough at their workplace and school. A Swiss citizen is generally never more than a few minutes from a fallout shelter with an air filter.

Rest of article at:

http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/walker/walker1.html
 
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Switzerland wasn't attacked because they maintained intimate financial ties with germany throughout the war. They also turned jewish refugees back at their borders. And the swiss were among the few that were capable of carrying out the vanishing of jewish bank accounts in such a was as to maintain their liquidity for the germans.

Switzerland became germany's bank for all practical purposes. To suggest that they didn't come under attack because they remained neutral is dishonest at best.
 
Switzerland has also never experienced the prosperity of the United States has. If the U.S. had remained neutral in WWII, there would have been thousands more deaths, and there could possibly have been a very different outcome. Countries like Switzerland can afford to stay neutral because countries like the United States and Britain refuse neutrality.
 
Iraq

Hey, I'm new to the forum. Name's Jack, and I'm from the UK.

On the topic of neutrality, if Britain had stayed neutral, we wouldn't have been attacked by radicals. And its not like America need us in Iraq, they have enough military strength to replace us. It wasn't our twin towers that were bombed, so it wasn't really any of our business to get involved. If America had needed our help it would have been different, but they can do all this without us.

All we got out of this war is our tubes blown up and the loss of innocent lives. All the every day person in Iraq got was their whole country even more dangerous than under Saddams rule.

While I hated Saddam, and I thing the twin towers was disgusting, the war is worse than either of them.
 
Hey, I'm new to the forum. Name's Jack, and I'm from the UK.

On the topic of neutrality, if Britain had stayed neutral, we wouldn't have been attacked by radicals. And its not like America need us in Iraq, they have enough military strength to replace us. It wasn't our twin towers that were bombed, so it wasn't really any of our business to get involved. If America had needed our help it would have been different, but they can do all this without us.

All we got out of this war is our tubes blown up and the loss of innocent lives. All the every day person in Iraq got was their whole country even more dangerous than under Saddams rule.

While I hated Saddam, and I thing the twin towers was disgusting, the war is worse than either of them.

The UK is under attack. Maybe your sky scrapers aren't falling down with jet planes stuck in them, but you are under attack none the less and the damage that has been done to your nation is far more serious than the felling of our towers.

For example, ice cream at burger king has been banned, because muslims have complained that the picture of the ice cream on the container looks like the word allah.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005430136,,00.html

And banning a box of tissues because winnie the pooh and piglet are on it because muslims believe pigs are unclean? Really.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...2.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/10/04/ixportal.html

Your nation is being invaded by muslims and they are reproducing at a rate that is going to make them the majority in your nation before half this century is gone. The same is true for most of europe.

You are under attack but just don't know it. You are like the frog who is in water that is being heated up. You won't realize the trouble you are in until it is too late.
 
The UK is under attack. Maybe your sky scrapers aren't falling down with jet planes stuck in them, but you are under attack none the less and the damage that has been done to your nation is far more serious than the felling of our towers.

For example, ice cream at burger king has been banned, because muslims have complained that the picture of the ice cream on the container looks like the word allah.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005430136,,00.html

And banning a box of tissues because winnie the pooh and piglet are on it because muslims believe pigs are unclean? Really.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...2.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/10/04/ixportal.html

Your nation is being invaded by muslims and they are reproducing at a rate that is going to make them the majority in your nation before half this century is gone. The same is true for most of europe.

You are under attack but just don't know it. You are like the frog who is in water that is being heated up. You won't realize the trouble you are in until it is too late.

Oh my God! Times might change! Everyone, quick, get your pitchforks!

If I wanted to put a picture of a woman getting ****ed in the ass on a billboard promoting porn would you let me? No, because to your sensibilities that is profanity - much in the same way pigs are profane to Muslims.

If people want to immigrate and bring their cultural ideals with them, fine. There is no reason they shouldn't. I chimed in to support the language thing in another thread because I believe that in order to a functioning part of a nation's economy and government you have to speak the predominant language of the country as well as your own. This issue that you just brought up has to do with culture and is therefore not applicable.

What do you propose the British do about this? End immigration just because immigrants are changing their nation's cultural standards?
 
I am not racist at all, I have quite a few Muslim friends, but yes this whole political correctness thing is ridiculous.

They banned piggy banks in adverts for banks because it might offend Muslims, but every Muslim I spoke to thought it just as stupid as I did.

And yes, while I would feel uncomfortable if this country became more and more 'Muslim', I shouldn't because the average Muslim is a levelheaded person and in my experience doesn't try to force their religion on you like the average Christian. And in the US it seems you have more radical Christians than Muslims, its just the Muslims bomb stuff and the Christians just brainwash people.
 
Switzerland wasn't attacked because they maintained intimate financial ties with germany throughout the war. They also turned jewish refugees back at their borders. And the swiss were among the few that were capable of carrying out the vanishing of jewish bank accounts in such a was as to maintain their liquidity for the germans.

Switzerland became germany's bank for all practical purposes. To suggest that they didn't come under attack because they remained neutral is dishonest at best.

Some private companies and banks did collude with the Nazis, but they did so without government knowledge. Meanwhile, many private Swiss citizens also opened bank accounts for Jews in order to help them protect their money from confiscation by the Nazis. Yes, there were many instances when Jews were turned away, but there were also many instances where they were given sanctuary. Switzerland wasn't a poster child for perfection during World War 2, but they certainly behaved more civilized than most other countries who were killing people by the millions.

"World War II - Swiss secrecy helped persecuted Jews hide money from the Nazis"

http://www.solami.com/swissbanks.htm

can you prove that the Swiss policy for Jewish refugees was more strict than for other races? If not, you cannot condemn them for that. Europe was engrossed in war and they had to use every means possible to survive. That includes limiting the number of refugees. Would you want America to accept 200,000 people during a war if you knew it would drain our resources to the point that we would be invaded and defeated? Again, if the Jews will not stand up and fight for themselves, why don't you criticize them first instead of condemning other people for not saving them when they won't even fight for their own lives? That's the real issue.

But let's take a look at the fact that many private Swiss citizens did help numerous Jews escape from the Nazis:

"Carl LUTZ (1964)
Gertrud LUTZ, née FRANKHAUSER (1964)
Carl Lutz (1895-1975) deserves very particular mention. As the first Swiss national who was elevated to the rank of Righteous among the Nations in 1964, he – aided by his wife and his helpers – saved about 62,000 Hungarian Jews after the German occupation of March 1944.

Jeanne LAVERGNAT (1998)
Arthur LAVERGNAT (1998)
Arthur and Jeanne Lavergnat let numerous groups of Jewish children and other refugees use their market-gardening farm near the French/Swiss border as a half-way house during their escape."

The list continues at:

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Switzerland8.htm

Here's another one. Funny how most of the Jews on this list found safety in Switzerland:

They also arranged the release of children from internment camps, and then smuggled them to safety in Switzerland or Spain. On a local level in France, similar activities were carried out by the Comite rue Amelot, the Jewish Communist "Solidarite" organization in Paris, the Service Andres group in Marseille, and the Groupe Maurice Cachoud in Nice, which specialized in secretly transporting children to refuge in Switzerland. Thanks to these efforts, as many as 12,000-15,000 Jewish children were saved from deportation and almost certain death."

Rest of the info at:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php...uleId=10005519

And how much did the American trade and profit from private American business exchanges contribute to the Nazis being able to murder more Jews? We'll likely never know... Don't forget, FDR was freely trading with Hitler's Germany up until Pearl Harbor.
 
Switzerland has also never experienced the prosperity of the United States has.

LOL. Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world...

If the U.S. had remained neutral in WWII, there would have been thousands more deaths, and there could possibly have been a very different outcome.

I'm not saying we should or shouldn't have entered the war to end the Holocaust. I would just remind people that we didn't. It had nothing to do with it. Roosevelt even forced the ship "St. Louis" to head back to Europe, sending Jews to their deaths.

Good primer:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/primary/

Countries like Switzerland can afford to stay neutral because countries like the United States

No, countries like Switzerland remain neutral for the following valid reasons:

"Neither Nationalist nor Socialist: How the Swiss Kept Their Freedom in World War II"

(by Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute, from Reason Magazine)

An "island of liberty and harmony in a sea of dictatorship and discord" and "a citadel of peace through stormy centuries," to quote a 1938 New York Times analysis; "it is a land of hard work and frugal habits, of justice and cleanness and tolerance, of the very essence of live-and-let-live" -- and, not incidentally, the bulwark of free-market capitalism in Europe. To say that Switzerland enjoyed a favorable reputation in America until recently would be to understate matters. Today, after a relentless and astonishingly one-sided media campaign, there is scarcely a horror tale about the Swiss too extreme or absurd to be picked up in the press.

The assault began with widely circulated allegations -- the truth is less clear-cut than news reports have made it sound -- that Swiss banks swallowed great sums deposited in private accounts by victims of the Holocaust. (At press time, Swiss banks had reached a tentative agreement to settle those allegations, and avert threatened sanctions, by paying more than $1 billion.)

Picking up its own momentum, the indictment soon expanded into a depiction of the Swiss as a nation of heartless profiteers, "Hitler's silent partners," working to advance the Nazi cause without being shot at. In June the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center made worldwide headlines by issuing a report claiming that pro-Nazi activity "thoroughly saturated...the core of Swiss society." Teenagers now grow up hearing that the Swiss spent World War II rooting for the Axis powers.

Now Stephen Halbrook, an attorney and well-known Second Amendment expert (he's the author of 1984's That Every Man Be Armed), has taken a much-needed look at the Swiss wartime record in a new book titled "Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II." The book not only provides a starting point for all future discussions of Switzerland's military role in the war, but also makes an interesting contribution to the literature on both federalism and gun rights; according to Halbrook, Switzerland's traditions of extreme decentralization and of a well-armed populace played a key role in preserving its freedom in an hour of peril.

As Halbrook reminds us, the American Founders often cited Switzerland as an example of the kind of nation they hoped to build on these shores. They admired its survival for centuries as a democracy amid tyrannies of every kind, following its birth in 1291 as the result of a peasant revolt in the remote fastnesses of the Alps.

Rest of article at:

http://2asig.iqhost.net/2001/dec.htm

and Britain refuse neutrality.

Let's hear from a prominent Brit on the subject:

"I put this down for the record," wrote Churchill to Anthony Eden in a December 1944 memo reprinted in Triumph and Tragedy. "Of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right to distinction. What does it matter whether she has been able to give us the commercial advantages we desire or has given too many to the Germans to keep herself alive? 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."
 
What do you propose the British do about this? End immigration just because immigrants are changing their nation's cultural standards?

You believe the action is appropriate? Do you believe it would be equally appropriate for the British citizens to demand that the muslims stop doinig a thing or change iin some way because they are offended by the muslims?

Immigrants to a nation hardly have a right to expect for that nation to bend over backwards to accomodate them if something about said nation offends them. I would hardly be reasonable if I came to your home and demanded that you repaint, or dispose of some art work that I find objectionable. If I don't like your home and find its custom offensive, then I don't have to come.
 
Some private companies and banks did collude with the Nazis, but they did so without government knowledge. Meanwhile, many private Swiss citizens also opened bank accounts for Jews in order to help them protect their money from confiscation by the Nazis. Yes, there were many instances when Jews were turned away, but there were also many instances where they were given sanctuary. Switzerland wasn't a poster child for perfection during World War 2, but they certainly behaved more civilized than most other countries who were killing people by the millions.

OK. First, nazi gold including gold that was once fillings in the mouths of jews killed at the camps was accepted by the swiss national bank. Private banks accepted gold as well, but they did so with the permission of the government.

Secondly, if swiss citizens gave protection to jews, they did so illegally. The policy of the swiss government was that jewish refugees were not to be accepted.

The swiss government, and a few other neutral countries avoided attack in very large part by converting nazi gold into currency with which the could purchase material for their war effort, and by instituting government policy that forbid jewish immigration.
 
OK. First, nazi gold including gold that was once fillings in the mouths of jews killed at the camps was accepted by the swiss national bank. Private banks accepted gold as well, but they did so with the permission of the government.

Secondly, if swiss citizens gave protection to jews, they did so illegally. The policy of the swiss government was that jewish refugees were not to be accepted.

The swiss government, and a few other neutral countries avoided attack in very large part by converting nazi gold into currency with which the could purchase material for their war effort, and by instituting government policy that forbid jewish immigration.

First of all, PRODUCE AND PRESENT EVIDENCE FOR ALL OF YOUR CLAIMS.

Secondly, your charges are refuted by someone with a hell of a lot more credibility than you on the issue:

The Swiss in the 1940s Were No Worse Than the Rest of Us

By Walter J. Rockler - International Herald Tribune

The current wave of vilification of Switzerland, most recently abetted by a U.S. government report, is overblown and basically warped. A public image is being created of the Swiss as virtual Nazi collaborators. This is false.

In writing these views, I should note that I was the Nuremberg war crimes trial prosecutor directly responsible for cases against German bankers, and I spent two years at that work. My cases had no Swiss components or angles.

Switzerland has maintained a policy of neutrality and nonalignment in European and world affairs for hundreds of years. That was its official policy also in World War II. I do not know where the sympathies of most Swiss were directed during the war, but the country is the oldest democracy in the world and has a pluralistic population of German, French and Italian background.

Were some Swiss pro-Nazi? Probably. But the United States had its German American Bund, Britain its Cliveden set and Mosleyites, and France the Vichy government.

Rest of article at:

http://www.iht.com/articles/1997/07/23/edwalt.t.php
 
The policy of the swiss government was that jewish refugees were not to be accepted.

Why can you not answer my questions and address my points:

Can you prove that the Swiss policy for Jewish refugees was more strict than for other races? If not, you cannot condemn them for that. Europe was engrossed in war and they had to use every means possible to survive. That includes limiting the number of refugees. Would you want America to accept 200,000 people during a war if you knew it would drain our resources to the point that we would be invaded and defeated? Again, if the Jews will not stand up and fight for themselves, why don't you criticize them first instead of condemning other people for not saving them when they won't even fight for their own lives? That's the real issue.
 
First of all, PRODUCE AND PRESENT EVIDENCE FOR ALL OF YOUR CLAIMS.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nazis/etc/status.html

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/swiss-kept-billions.html

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cach...zerland"+"nazi+gold"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/eizen_nazigold.html

The Swiss in the 1940s Were No Worse Than the Rest of Us

I didn't make any statement about individual swiss citizens. I made a statement about the swiss government's relationship with germany. The fact is that switzerland has just completed a very large restitution regime involving assets of prisoners of nazi camps and nazi loot from other locations.
 
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Why can you not answer my questions and address my points:

Can you prove that the Swiss policy for Jewish refugees was more strict than for other races?

Sure, how about an apology from the swiss government with regard to turning away jews.

Here is a clip from that apology:

"Nothing can make good the consequences of decisions taken at the time, and we pay our respects before the pain of those who were denied access to our territory and were abandoned to unspeakable suffering, deportation and death,"



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/558450.stm


Just the fact that jews were fleeing for their lives is evidence enough of the harshness of the government policy.

If not, you cannot condemn them for that. Europe was engrossed in war and they had to use every means possible to survive. That includes limiting the number of refugees.

They were hitler's bankers and they turned away jewish refugees. This effectively refutes the original premise of the thread that the swiss stayed out of the war because they were neutral. The fact is that they were not neutral.

The morality of their decisions is open for debate, but their neutrality, which is the premise of this thread is not. They were not neutral.
 
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