In reading an article about German plans to invade Switzerland, I came across the following:
“Switzerland possesses the most disgusting and miserable people and political system. The Swiss are the mortal enemies of the new Germany.” - Hitler
In August 1942, Hitler further described Switzerland as “a pimple on the face of Europe” and as a country that no longer had a right to exist. Moreover, he denounced the Swiss as “a misbegotten branch of our people.”
Why did Hitler have such contempt for the Swiss people?
Germany, at the time, was a nationalist fascist dictatorship with all power concentrated in one party and one person. Hitler's vision for the Großdeutsches Reich was an racially-homogeneous state centered around the superiority of the German people.
Switzerland, on the other hand, was a multilingual, multicultural democracy with a highly decentralized government where the German-speaking majority felt they had more in common with the French-speaking Swiss-citizens of Suisse Romande than towards their German brothers across the northern border. In short, Switzerland represented the opposite of everything Hitler desired for the German peoples of the world.
Plans for Operation Tannenbaum did not partition Suisse Romande with Vichy France, as the Reich Interior Ministry planned for all lands East of the mouth of the Somme river to Lake Geneva to be colonized by Germans in the future.