So i'm 28 yrs old, studied in History before college and never ever thought about this possibility. I read about it today, learned about the invasions and defense plans and all so i don't just want to hear the related facts. I'm really wondering why i took for granted that "Switzerland was neutral so it wasn't attacked" and never looked it up a bit more? Is it the way WW2 is taught in High school? Is it because it was never really serious so we don't hear about it and people don't write about it very much? Even my father who is a really huge fan of history litterature never heard of such invasions plan so i'm confused. Can you help?
People don't really question the neutral thing, even though the low counties and several other nations that Germany did invade were neutral. The hundreds of battles and millions of lives lost you don't really put much thought into something that never happened. Granted you do hear a fair amount about the planned invasion of the USA but that's because it involved us (I'm assuming you are American) I'm sure that Swiss children learn about operation Tannenbaum. Edit : I only knew about it because my family is Swiss by heritage and well I love ask things Swiss
Switzerlands neutrality was upheld for a few reasons but primarily it did not fall on the invasion route of any major army. The same with sweden, there was no need to violate their neutrality. The low countries were in the very center of the gap that has been used for a thousand years to attack north western and central europe. Second Switzerland as an independant country had use to germany in banking and backing the german reichsmark. Basically the list of reasons to uphold their neutrality greatly outweighed the reason to violate it