CDZ People have short memories

[OldLady]

since this has been out for a while I will now post my thoughts....

In the 1920s the people of Europe believed their governments when they were told.....you do not need firearms....the police will protect you from criminals, and our soldiers will protect you from foreign invaders......the Swiss did not believe this and kept their guns......

20 years later....the Germans over ran the countries of Europe...except Switzerland......and proceeded to march 12 million unarmed men, women and children from all over Europe...into gas chambers.

The exception...Switzerland, whose citizens had kept their guns, to the tune of having 435,000 armed civilians with the direction that if the Germans invaded, they were to ignore any calls from the government to surrender...and to keep fighting....and they were not invaded, though the Germans had plans all made up.....it wasn't worth the fight....

Then....after the end of the war....with the knowlege that the unarmed people of Europe were unable to resist the Germans, who marched 12 million people into gas chambers, the Europeans forgot the lesson just learned...and gave up their guns...again.......

They really do have short memories....

I think Germany left Switzerland alone because the Swiss had the Germans' money in their banks. There was a whole lot of hand shaking between Nazi's and Swiss bankers in those days. That is not an insult to the Swiss, mind you--sometimes getting an enemy by the wallet works better than any number of bullets.

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

since this has been out for a while I will now post my thoughts....

In the 1920s the people of Europe believed their governments when they were told.....you do not need firearms....the police will protect you from criminals, and our soldiers will protect you from foreign invaders......the Swiss did not believe this and kept their guns......

20 years later....the Germans over ran the countries of Europe...except Switzerland......and proceeded to march 12 million unarmed men, women and children from all over Europe...into gas chambers.

The exception...Switzerland, whose citizens had kept their guns, to the tune of having 435,000 armed civilians with the direction that if the Germans invaded, they were to ignore any calls from the government to surrender...and to keep fighting....and they were not invaded, though the Germans had plans all made up.....it wasn't worth the fight....

Then....after the end of the war....with the knowlege that the unarmed people of Europe were unable to resist the Germans, who marched 12 million people into gas chambers, the Europeans forgot the lesson just learned...and gave up their guns...again.......

They really do have short memories....

I think Germany left Switzerland alone because the Swiss had the Germans' money in their banks. There was a whole lot of hand shaking between Nazi's and Swiss bankers in those days. That is not an insult to the Swiss, mind you--sometimes getting an enemy by the wallet works better than any number of bullets.

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

EXCUSE? More a statement of fact. Okay, you've got a source that says the Nazi's were worried about gun carrying civilians. I tend to question that?

They were worried about having to hold the territory against 435,000 armed, determined resistors....with orders to disregard any directive from the Swiss government to surrender after an occupation.....

Guns matter.......the rest of Europe was disarmed.....their people could not resist the nazis and their civilian populations were brutalized and murdered by the Germans...but not the Swiss...as one article I saw pointed out...there was no Holocaust in Switzerland....the rest of Europe handed over innocent men, women and children to the Germans to be murdered in gas chambers....

Operation Tannenbaum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much as Hitler despised the democratically-minded German Swiss as the "wayward branch of the German people", he still acknowledged their status as Germans.[5] Furthermore, the openly pan-German political aims of the NSDAP called for the unification of all Germans into a Greater Germany, including the Swiss people.[2] The first goal of the 25-point National Socialist Program stated that "We [the National Socialist Party] demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination."[6]

We were both wrong, although the article later states that no one knows why Hitler ultimately did not go through with the invasion and so we can both still guess. I guess the $$ connection. You guess an armed citizenry. It's a really interesting article though. You should read it.

 

[2aguy]

since this has been out for a while I will now post my thoughts....

In the 1920s the people of Europe believed their governments when they were told.....you do not need firearms....the police will protect you from criminals, and our soldiers will protect you from foreign invaders......the Swiss did not believe this and kept their guns......

20 years later....the Germans over ran the countries of Europe...except Switzerland......and proceeded to march 12 million unarmed men, women and children from all over Europe...into gas chambers.

The exception...Switzerland, whose citizens had kept their guns, to the tune of having 435,000 armed civilians with the direction that if the Germans invaded, they were to ignore any calls from the government to surrender...and to keep fighting....and they were not invaded, though the Germans had plans all made up.....it wasn't worth the fight....

Then....after the end of the war....with the knowlege that the unarmed people of Europe were unable to resist the Germans, who marched 12 million people into gas chambers, the Europeans forgot the lesson just learned...and gave up their guns...again.......

They really do have short memories....

I think Germany left Switzerland alone because the Swiss had the Germans' money in their banks. There was a whole lot of hand shaking between Nazi's and Swiss bankers in those days. That is not an insult to the Swiss, mind you--sometimes getting an enemy by the wallet works better than any number of bullets.

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

since this has been out for a while I will now post my thoughts....

In the 1920s the people of Europe believed their governments when they were told.....you do not need firearms....the police will protect you from criminals, and our soldiers will protect you from foreign invaders......the Swiss did not believe this and kept their guns......

20 years later....the Germans over ran the countries of Europe...except Switzerland......and proceeded to march 12 million unarmed men, women and children from all over Europe...into gas chambers.

The exception...Switzerland, whose citizens had kept their guns, to the tune of having 435,000 armed civilians with the direction that if the Germans invaded, they were to ignore any calls from the government to surrender...and to keep fighting....and they were not invaded, though the Germans had plans all made up.....it wasn't worth the fight....

Then....after the end of the war....with the knowlege that the unarmed people of Europe were unable to resist the Germans, who marched 12 million people into gas chambers, the Europeans forgot the lesson just learned...and gave up their guns...again.......

They really do have short memories....

I think Germany left Switzerland alone because the Swiss had the Germans' money in their banks. There was a whole lot of hand shaking between Nazi's and Swiss bankers in those days. That is not an insult to the Swiss, mind you--sometimes getting an enemy by the wallet works better than any number of bullets.

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

EXCUSE? More a statement of fact. Okay, you've got a source that says the Nazi's were worried about gun carrying civilians. I tend to question that?

They were worried about having to hold the territory against 435,000 armed, determined resistors....with orders to disregard any directive from the Swiss government to surrender after an occupation.....

Guns matter.......the rest of Europe was disarmed.....their people could not resist the nazis and their civilian populations were brutalized and murdered by the Germans...but not the Swiss...as one article I saw pointed out...there was no Holocaust in Switzerland....the rest of Europe handed over innocent men, women and children to the Germans to be murdered in gas chambers....

Operation Tannenbaum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much as Hitler despised the democratically-minded German Swiss as the "wayward branch of the German people", he still acknowledged their status as Germans.[5] Furthermore, the openly pan-German political aims of the NSDAP called for the unification of all Germans into a Greater Germany, including the Swiss people.[2] The first goal of the 25-point National Socialist Program stated that "We [the National Socialist Party] demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination."[6]

We were both wrong, although the article later states that no one knows why Hitler ultimately did not go through with the invasion and so we can both still guess. I guess the $$ connection. You guess an armed citizenry. It's a really interesting article though. You should read it.

No...435,000 armed partisans were the reason they made other plans...

THE SWISS WERE PREPARED TO FIGHT FACISM TO THE BITTER END | FRONTLINE | PBS



That is why the Nazis despised Switzerland. Joseph Goebbels called Switzerland "this stinking little state" where "sentiment has turned very much against us." Adolf Hitler decided that "all the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated," even if it meant he would later "be attacked as the 'Butcher of the Swiss.'"



The 1940 Nazi invasion plan, Operation Tannenbaum, was not executed, and SS Oberst Hermann Bohme's 1943 memorandum warned that an invasion of Switzerland would be too costly because every man was armed and trained to shoot. This did not stop the Gestapo from preparing lists of Swiss to be liquidated once the Nazis overran the country.



The other European nations were easily toppled and had little means to wage a partisan war against the occupation. Once their standing armies were defeated, the governments capitulated and the populaces were defenseless.



Only in Switzerland was the entire populace armed and prepared to wage a relentless guerrilla war against an invader. When the war began in 1939, Switzerland mobilized 435,000 citizen soldiers out of a population of 4.2 million. Production figures for Swiss service rifles, which had firepower equal to those of the Germans, demonstrate an ample supply of small arms.

Swiss militiamen were instructed to disregard any alleged "official" surrender as enemy propaganda and, if necessary, to fight individually. This meant that a nation of sharpshooters would be sniping at German soldiers at long ranges from every mountain.



While neutral, Switzerland was prepared to fight a Nazi invasion to the end. The celebrated Swiss Gen. Henri Guisan developed the strategy known as defense du reduit--an initial opposition followed by a retreat into the Alps, where a relentless war to the death would be waged. Most Swiss strongly opposed Nazism. Death sentences were issued for fifth-column activities, and proclamations against anti-Semitism were passed at various official levels. There was no Holocaust on Swiss soil, something that can not be said for France, the Netherlands, Poland or most of Europe.

 

[OldLady]

I think Germany left Switzerland alone because the Swiss had the Germans' money in their banks. There was a whole lot of hand shaking between Nazi's and Swiss bankers in those days. That is not an insult to the Swiss, mind you--sometimes getting an enemy by the wallet works better than any number of bullets.

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

I think Germany left Switzerland alone because the Swiss had the Germans' money in their banks. There was a whole lot of hand shaking between Nazi's and Swiss bankers in those days. That is not an insult to the Swiss, mind you--sometimes getting an enemy by the wallet works better than any number of bullets.

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

EXCUSE? More a statement of fact. Okay, you've got a source that says the Nazi's were worried about gun carrying civilians. I tend to question that?

They were worried about having to hold the territory against 435,000 armed, determined resistors....with orders to disregard any directive from the Swiss government to surrender after an occupation.....

Guns matter.......the rest of Europe was disarmed.....their people could not resist the nazis and their civilian populations were brutalized and murdered by the Germans...but not the Swiss...as one article I saw pointed out...there was no Holocaust in Switzerland....the rest of Europe handed over innocent men, women and children to the Germans to be murdered in gas chambers....

Operation Tannenbaum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much as Hitler despised the democratically-minded German Swiss as the "wayward branch of the German people", he still acknowledged their status as Germans.[5] Furthermore, the openly pan-German political aims of the NSDAP called for the unification of all Germans into a Greater Germany, including the Swiss people.[2] The first goal of the 25-point National Socialist Program stated that "We [the National Socialist Party] demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination."[6]

We were both wrong, although the article later states that no one knows why Hitler ultimately did not go through with the invasion and so we can both still guess. I guess the $$ connection. You guess an armed citizenry. It's a really interesting article though. You should read it.

No...435,000 armed partisans were the reason they made other plans...

THE SWISS WERE PREPARED TO FIGHT FACISM TO THE BITTER END | FRONTLINE | PBS



That is why the Nazis despised Switzerland. Joseph Goebbels called Switzerland "this stinking little state" where "sentiment has turned very much against us." Adolf Hitler decided that "all the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated," even if it meant he would later "be attacked as the 'Butcher of the Swiss.'"



The 1940 Nazi invasion plan, Operation Tannenbaum, was not executed, and SS Oberst Hermann Bohme's 1943 memorandum warned that an invasion of Switzerland would be too costly because every man was armed and trained to shoot. This did not stop the Gestapo from preparing lists of Swiss to be liquidated once the Nazis overran the country.



The other European nations were easily toppled and had little means to wage a partisan war against the occupation. Once their standing armies were defeated, the governments capitulated and the populaces were defenseless.



Only in Switzerland was the entire populace armed and prepared to wage a relentless guerrilla war against an invader. When the war began in 1939, Switzerland mobilized 435,000 citizen soldiers out of a population of 4.2 million. Production figures for Swiss service rifles, which had firepower equal to those of the Germans, demonstrate an ample supply of small arms.

Swiss militiamen were instructed to disregard any alleged "official" surrender as enemy propaganda and, if necessary, to fight individually. This meant that a nation of sharpshooters would be sniping at German soldiers at long ranges from every mountain.



While neutral, Switzerland was prepared to fight a Nazi invasion to the end. The celebrated Swiss Gen. Henri Guisan developed the strategy known as defense du reduit--an initial opposition followed by a retreat into the Alps, where a relentless war to the death would be waged. Most Swiss strongly opposed Nazism. Death sentences were issued for fifth-column activities, and proclamations against anti-Semitism were passed at various official levels. There was no Holocaust on Swiss soil, something that can not be said for France, the Netherlands, Poland or most of Europe.

You win, Guy! Good for PBS; some RW's should rethink their prejudice against them.

 

[2aguy]

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

EXCUSE? More a statement of fact. Okay, you've got a source that says the Nazi's were worried about gun carrying civilians. I tend to question that?

They were worried about having to hold the territory against 435,000 armed, determined resistors....with orders to disregard any directive from the Swiss government to surrender after an occupation.....

Guns matter.......the rest of Europe was disarmed.....their people could not resist the nazis and their civilian populations were brutalized and murdered by the Germans...but not the Swiss...as one article I saw pointed out...there was no Holocaust in Switzerland....the rest of Europe handed over innocent men, women and children to the Germans to be murdered in gas chambers....

Operation Tannenbaum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much as Hitler despised the democratically-minded German Swiss as the "wayward branch of the German people", he still acknowledged their status as Germans.[5] Furthermore, the openly pan-German political aims of the NSDAP called for the unification of all Germans into a Greater Germany, including the Swiss people.[2] The first goal of the 25-point National Socialist Program stated that "We [the National Socialist Party] demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination."[6]

We were both wrong, although the article later states that no one knows why Hitler ultimately did not go through with the invasion and so we can both still guess. I guess the $$ connection. You guess an armed citizenry. It's a really interesting article though. You should read it.

No...435,000 armed partisans were the reason they made other plans...

THE SWISS WERE PREPARED TO FIGHT FACISM TO THE BITTER END | FRONTLINE | PBS



That is why the Nazis despised Switzerland. Joseph Goebbels called Switzerland "this stinking little state" where "sentiment has turned very much against us." Adolf Hitler decided that "all the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated," even if it meant he would later "be attacked as the 'Butcher of the Swiss.'"



The 1940 Nazi invasion plan, Operation Tannenbaum, was not executed, and SS Oberst Hermann Bohme's 1943 memorandum warned that an invasion of Switzerland would be too costly because every man was armed and trained to shoot. This did not stop the Gestapo from preparing lists of Swiss to be liquidated once the Nazis overran the country.



The other European nations were easily toppled and had little means to wage a partisan war against the occupation. Once their standing armies were defeated, the governments capitulated and the populaces were defenseless.



Only in Switzerland was the entire populace armed and prepared to wage a relentless guerrilla war against an invader. When the war began in 1939, Switzerland mobilized 435,000 citizen soldiers out of a population of 4.2 million. Production figures for Swiss service rifles, which had firepower equal to those of the Germans, demonstrate an ample supply of small arms.

Swiss militiamen were instructed to disregard any alleged "official" surrender as enemy propaganda and, if necessary, to fight individually. This meant that a nation of sharpshooters would be sniping at German soldiers at long ranges from every mountain.



While neutral, Switzerland was prepared to fight a Nazi invasion to the end. The celebrated Swiss Gen. Henri Guisan developed the strategy known as defense du reduit--an initial opposition followed by a retreat into the Alps, where a relentless war to the death would be waged. Most Swiss strongly opposed Nazism. Death sentences were issued for fifth-column activities, and proclamations against anti-Semitism were passed at various official levels. There was no Holocaust on Swiss soil, something that can not be said for France, the Netherlands, Poland or most of Europe.

You win, Guy! Good for PBS; some RW's should rethink their prejudice against them.

Thanks. Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.....but you still throw it away......

 

[OldLady]

EXCUSE? More a statement of fact. Okay, you've got a source that says the Nazi's were worried about gun carrying civilians. I tend to question that?

They were worried about having to hold the territory against 435,000 armed, determined resistors....with orders to disregard any directive from the Swiss government to surrender after an occupation.....

Guns matter.......the rest of Europe was disarmed.....their people could not resist the nazis and their civilian populations were brutalized and murdered by the Germans...but not the Swiss...as one article I saw pointed out...there was no Holocaust in Switzerland....the rest of Europe handed over innocent men, women and children to the Germans to be murdered in gas chambers....

Operation Tannenbaum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much as Hitler despised the democratically-minded German Swiss as the "wayward branch of the German people", he still acknowledged their status as Germans.[5] Furthermore, the openly pan-German political aims of the NSDAP called for the unification of all Germans into a Greater Germany, including the Swiss people.[2] The first goal of the 25-point National Socialist Program stated that "We [the National Socialist Party] demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination."[6]

We were both wrong, although the article later states that no one knows why Hitler ultimately did not go through with the invasion and so we can both still guess. I guess the $$ connection. You guess an armed citizenry. It's a really interesting article though. You should read it.

No...435,000 armed partisans were the reason they made other plans...

THE SWISS WERE PREPARED TO FIGHT FACISM TO THE BITTER END | FRONTLINE | PBS



That is why the Nazis despised Switzerland. Joseph Goebbels called Switzerland "this stinking little state" where "sentiment has turned very much against us." Adolf Hitler decided that "all the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated," even if it meant he would later "be attacked as the 'Butcher of the Swiss.'"



The 1940 Nazi invasion plan, Operation Tannenbaum, was not executed, and SS Oberst Hermann Bohme's 1943 memorandum warned that an invasion of Switzerland would be too costly because every man was armed and trained to shoot. This did not stop the Gestapo from preparing lists of Swiss to be liquidated once the Nazis overran the country.



The other European nations were easily toppled and had little means to wage a partisan war against the occupation. Once their standing armies were defeated, the governments capitulated and the populaces were defenseless.



Only in Switzerland was the entire populace armed and prepared to wage a relentless guerrilla war against an invader. When the war began in 1939, Switzerland mobilized 435,000 citizen soldiers out of a population of 4.2 million. Production figures for Swiss service rifles, which had firepower equal to those of the Germans, demonstrate an ample supply of small arms.

Swiss militiamen were instructed to disregard any alleged "official" surrender as enemy propaganda and, if necessary, to fight individually. This meant that a nation of sharpshooters would be sniping at German soldiers at long ranges from every mountain.



While neutral, Switzerland was prepared to fight a Nazi invasion to the end. The celebrated Swiss Gen. Henri Guisan developed the strategy known as defense du reduit--an initial opposition followed by a retreat into the Alps, where a relentless war to the death would be waged. Most Swiss strongly opposed Nazism. Death sentences were issued for fifth-column activities, and proclamations against anti-Semitism were passed at various official levels. There was no Holocaust on Swiss soil, something that can not be said for France, the Netherlands, Poland or most of Europe.

You win, Guy! Good for PBS; some RW's should rethink their prejudice against them.

Thanks. Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.....but you still throw it away......

That's unfair. It wouldn't hurt you to listen to the other side and be open to adjusting your view. I listen to Fox every night, believe it or not. As well as PBS. Both have influenced my world view.

 

[320 Years of History]

[That's unfair. It wouldn't hurt you to listen to the other side and be open to adjusting your view. I listen to Fox every night, believe it or not. As well as PBS. Both have influenced my world view.

Off topic:
You know, I have from time to time wondered whether there exist folks who would find it hurtful (emotionally) to encounter well presented/argued opposing points of view that in turn force them to somehow alter their original stance. I get that it'd take a lot of ego to truly be hurt. I get that actually determining one's position was flawed may for some folks necessarily erode their confidence in others whom they respect, and that may too effect some form or degree of hurt. I just don't know.

I know only that I don't much care who's right or wrong, or mostly right or wrong. What matters to me is that I find out what is right or wrong, not who is the source of that truth. It's nice to be on the "right" side, but it's not necessary in most situation.

 

[francoHFW]

Trump's lies tend to be whoppers, discredited. Hillary's tend to be highly debatable. Media bend over backwards to make it competitive and appear even handed. Complicit.

 

[Wilbur Right]

We were both wrong, although the article later states that no one knows why Hitler ultimately did not go through with the invasion and so we can both still guess. I guess the $$ connection. You guess an armed citizenry. It's a really interesting article though.

The previous answer (now removed), which was summed up as "Switzerland aggressively protected their neutrality", was very off base. It is a common belief, and one the Swiss for a long time loved to play up, but it misses the real reasons. If you actually were to write a TL;DR for why they didn't invade Switzerland, it is "What would Germany have gained?" The Swiss role in World War II is quite controversial, and while the Swiss for a long time loved their image of an armed citizenry standing up to German sabre-rattling, even they eventually came to terms with the role they played in enabling Germany, which can be found in the extensive report released in 2002 by the Independent Commission of Experts (Or Bergier Commission). The entire report can be found here (PDF Warning).

So anyways, as I said, the short answer is "What would Germany have gained?" Switzerland may have presented a bit of a hedgehog had Germany put Operation Tannenbaum into action, the Swiss's own defensive plans were to abandon much of the country to the Germans and hole up in the 'National Redoubt', destroying as much infrastructure as they could in their wake. Sure, this was a deterrent, but even if the Germans could have prevented the Swiss from fulfilling that aim, why risk it? As I will cover in this piece here, the Swiss engaged in trade with the Axis on a rather large scale and in doing so provided Germany with much of the services they wanted from Switzerland anyways,
and in fact, some of the business, such as laundering possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in pilfered gold, would have been considerably harder to do had Germanynot left Switzerland alone. So anyways, that is the very short of it, and as for the long of it... Here you go!



You weren't wrong old lady.
Second a guy truly believes (I guess) that the sun rises and sets because he has a gun or others have a gun or the sun is afraid of his gun. But it's something that has to do with a gun.

There just can't be more than one reason for Germany not to have invaded Switzerland. It's da guns I tell you. Da guns.

 

[IsaacNewton]

I suspect that most of the folks on this site never saw this advertisement when it first aired.



The ad could very well be aired today with regard to Trump.

Note:
The themes of this thread are:

• how history repeats itself
• the nature and extent of soul searching conscientious and cogently thinking Republicans/conservatives must do in light of the extancies of Trump's campaign and potential nomination to the Presidency by the Republican party

Please stay on and address the topic and it's themes....not things that are only obliquely related to the video, it's central theme or even its tacit themes.

Wow, history repeats in almost perfect horror. The words being spoken about Trump today are exact echoes from then. This is why history is the most important subject to be taught in school. A population has to be able to see patterns over time and when those patterns start to repeat human negatives you know they have to be rejected.

 

[GaryDog]

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

Yeah...I have heard that excuse before.......do you really think that hitler wouldn't have taken over the Swiss banks after he invaded and managed his own money? When he took over every other country in Europe and controlled their banks? From the link I have hitler hated the Swiss....but their armed civilians worried his military leaders to the point it wasn't worth it to invade them....they invaded everyone else, with disarmed populations...but not the Swiss......

EXCUSE? More a statement of fact. Okay, you've got a source that says the Nazi's were worried about gun carrying civilians. I tend to question that?

They were worried about having to hold the territory against 435,000 armed, determined resistors....with orders to disregard any directive from the Swiss government to surrender after an occupation.....

Guns matter.......the rest of Europe was disarmed.....their people could not resist the nazis and their civilian populations were brutalized and murdered by the Germans...but not the Swiss...as one article I saw pointed out...there was no Holocaust in Switzerland....the rest of Europe handed over innocent men, women and children to the Germans to be murdered in gas chambers....

Operation Tannenbaum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much as Hitler despised the democratically-minded German Swiss as the "wayward branch of the German people", he still acknowledged their status as Germans.[5] Furthermore, the openly pan-German political aims of the NSDAP called for the unification of all Germans into a Greater Germany, including the Swiss people.[2] The first goal of the 25-point National Socialist Program stated that "We [the National Socialist Party] demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination."[6]

We were both wrong, although the article later states that no one knows why Hitler ultimately did not go through with the invasion and so we can both still guess. I guess the $$ connection. You guess an armed citizenry. It's a really interesting article though. You should read it.

No...435,000 armed partisans were the reason they made other plans...

THE SWISS WERE PREPARED TO FIGHT FACISM TO THE BITTER END | FRONTLINE | PBS



That is why the Nazis despised Switzerland. Joseph Goebbels called Switzerland "this stinking little state" where "sentiment has turned very much against us." Adolf Hitler decided that "all the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated," even if it meant he would later "be attacked as the 'Butcher of the Swiss.'"



The 1940 Nazi invasion plan, Operation Tannenbaum, was not executed, and SS Oberst Hermann Bohme's 1943 memorandum warned that an invasion of Switzerland would be too costly because every man was armed and trained to shoot. This did not stop the Gestapo from preparing lists of Swiss to be liquidated once the Nazis overran the country.



The other European nations were easily toppled and had little means to wage a partisan war against the occupation. Once their standing armies were defeated, the governments capitulated and the populaces were defenseless.



Only in Switzerland was the entire populace armed and prepared to wage a relentless guerrilla war against an invader. When the war began in 1939, Switzerland mobilized 435,000 citizen soldiers out of a population of 4.2 million. Production figures for Swiss service rifles, which had firepower equal to those of the Germans, demonstrate an ample supply of small arms.

Swiss militiamen were instructed to disregard any alleged "official" surrender as enemy propaganda and, if necessary, to fight individually. This meant that a nation of sharpshooters would be sniping at German soldiers at long ranges from every mountain.



While neutral, Switzerland was prepared to fight a Nazi invasion to the end. The celebrated Swiss Gen. Henri Guisan developed the strategy known as defense du reduit--an initial opposition followed by a retreat into the Alps, where a relentless war to the death would be waged. Most Swiss strongly opposed Nazism. Death sentences were issued for fifth-column activities, and proclamations against anti-Semitism were passed at various official levels. There was no Holocaust on Swiss soil, something that can not be said for France, the Netherlands, Poland or most of Europe.

You win, Guy! Good for PBS; some RW's should rethink their prejudice against them.

It's not PBS, it's a litigator who works for the NRA:

Stephen Halbrook - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephen Halbrook is an author and lawyer known for his litigation on behalf of the National Rifle Association.[1][2]


Of course he's going to trumpet guns as the savior of democracy. Helps his bottom line substantially, I'm sure.

 

[GaryDog]

Trump's lies tend to be whoppers, discredited. Hillary's tend to be highly debatable. Media bend over backwards to make it competitive and appear even handed. Complicit.

Agreed, the false equivalencies rampant in the media right now make me sick. Trump DAILY makes remarks that should disqualify him from any office whatsoever, much less president. Yet they try to cast both candidates as equally incompetent.

 

[presonorek]

That one?



This is the one that I remember more vividly:

That's a good one. We should pool all of our money together and play this ad in Ohio. We will insert Hillary's name or Trump's name depending on what the highest donors want.

This ad is hilarious.

 

[presonorek]

[That's unfair. It wouldn't hurt you to listen to the other side and be open to adjusting your view. I listen to Fox every night, believe it or not. As well as PBS. Both have influenced my world view.

Off topic:
You know, I have from time to time wondered whether there exist folks who would find it hurtful (emotionally) to encounter well presented/argued opposing points of view that in turn force them to somehow alter their original stance. I get that it'd take a lot of ego to truly be hurt. I get that actually determining one's position was flawed may for some folks necessarily erode their confidence in others whom they respect, and that may too effect some form or degree of hurt. I just don't know.

I know only that I don't much care who's right or wrong, or mostly right or wrong. What matters to me is that I find out what is right or wrong, not who is the source of that truth. It's nice to be on the "right" side, but it's not necessary in most situation.

It's easy to tell. The pain is excruciating to dogmatics. "My way or the highway" isn't an accurate description. "My way" is more accurate. It's totally impossible to consider any other point of view.

 

[320 Years of History]

That one?

This is the one that I remember more vividly:

Off topic:
I never would have thought you are old enough to remember that ad. The 60-second spot was broadcast only once, ... on Sept. 7, 1964, during a screening of the 1951 biblical drama "David and Bathsheba" on NBC's "Monday Night at the Movies." I was born in 1959, and I certainly don't recall watching David and Bathsheba. LOL I'm certain I didn't know who either protagonist was until somewhere between a lustrum and decade after 1964.

FWIW, I do vaguely remember this commercial.

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