Can someone confirm a claim for WII made by a friend?

by [deleted]

Seeing how it was recently the time of the Winter Olympics, some of the sports' history came up during my social studies class. The Biathlon came into discussion, and I mentioned how it originated. The next time the class met there was a kid who somewhat reiterated what I said, but said it originated during WII in Switzerland. I figured that it could have influenced the sport to some degree if it did originate there, but he then added this 'It was literally a few thousand men on skis that were snipering intruders and keeping them safe from the Germans that were attacking".

I've been told that Hitler never attacked Switzerland due to mountain terrain and the other difficulties Hitler would have had.

I did a quick Google search and, again, read that Hitler never attacked them. Normally that'd be enough for me, but this kid is a pretty arrogant kid that pulls lies out of no where and keeps to them. I figured you Historians would have a good enough knowledge to debunk what he said.

Thanks.

Boogada42

Biathlon originated in the 19th century in Norway. It was already a contest in the first Olympics in 1924 (called 'military patrol'), so thats 15 years before WWII. I guess that settles it.

Also I've never heard of fighting between Germany and Switzerland during WWII. There were a couple planes shot down, intruding swiss airspace though.

[deleted]

The Biathlon originated in Norway (at least that is what I have read) as a form of military training. That being said, what really makes the claim suspect is that, to my knowledge, the Swiss never used Ski troops during world war 2 and I can't find any sources saying they did. The Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden, and Norway are more famous for their ski troops and actually had those during world war 2.

kombatminipig

Well, I thought I might give you another few arguments for your cause.

  1. Attackers will rarely choose winter to start a campaign, especially not a country with Germany's military doctrine. Winter is a period with poor and unpredictable weather, ill suited for moving armor around or being relied on tactical and strategic support from aircraft (though sometimes the opposite can be true, as when Germany at the Battle of the Bulge relied on poor winter weather to negate allied air superiority). That the Soviet Union invaded Finland during the winter of 1939 was due to poor strategic planning (the sudden realization that Leningrad was a mere 40km from the Finish border), and they suffered dearly for it.
  2. Hitler would have rolled over the Swiss had he found it necessary, but it would have been costly. There was even a battle plan in place, Germany never acted on it, likely because it would have been pointless. Switzerland gave equal aid and opportunity to both sides, and had no resources vital to the German war effort. As you said, Swiss terrain negated much of the German material advantage.
  3. Note though, that running counter to your friend's argument, Swiss defense didn't rely on a fluid and counteroffensive based defense like the Finns, but on a small section of the country being massively fortified, giving up all economically important resources and merely defending and denying use of domestic logistic resources to the attacker. It would have involved delaying actions in the lowlands while personell, important civilians and currency were moved into the redoubt and then bridges and tunnels collapsed, valleys flooded and passes blocked while any attempts to clear these would have been fiercely defended by static artillery positions. As you can guess, ski borne infantry wouldn't have figured much into this plan.