I find this insulting due to the fact that it is a misrepresentation of history, as opposed to insulting to my country or my family, who suffered due to the war, family members having fought in it.
It is a terrible misrepresentation in that 100 Swiss people died due to the effects of World War 2, whereas a total of possibly 70 million deaths total can be attributed to the war. 25 million deaths were Soviet, the greatest losses by number, and the Polish lost the highest proportion of their population.
The rest of Europe lost a generation of young men. Switzerland lost a handful of people in what were effectively unfortunate accidents.
There is also the likes of India, which had possibly the most volunteers as opposed to impressed soldiers, who sided with the Allies, in spite of poor treatment by colonial Britain and in spite of diplomatic overtures made by Nazi Germany.
I agree with a lot of your points, and I understand most of them, but I failt to see how this is offensive. Switzerland did what other countries wanted to do but were unfortunatly dragged into war for whatever reason.
Blunt, I understand how you feel about family members in war, my great grand father was by the german fun and that wasn't fun. Waiting any day for the shelling to start for 6 years has to be a nightmare.
And yes, I know the greatest loss was that on the eastern front. Germany lost 65?% of it's men on that front and Stalingrad was a disaster. But let's not forget what Switzerland actually does during war time (like in WWI). We set up neutral camps and provide medical help to soldiers from all sides. During WWII, we provided refuge to thousands of Jews, Axis, and Allied soldiers, and pilots.
A book I have "Target Switzerland, Swiss armed neutrality during world war two" has the following stats of refugees. Either hospitalized, or whatever reason, they were safe in Switzerland until the war ended when they returned to their respective countries.
France - 32'621
Italy - 29'213
Poland - 14'972
Russia - 8'415
Germany and Austria - 7'532
Britain - 5'139
Yugoslavia - 2'921
United States - 1'742
Greece - 846
Belgium - 783
Czechoslovakia - 516
Finland - 105
Diverse - 81
(and 50'000+ Jewish refugees)
Had Switzerland fallen (which it would have after a long war all those thousands of soldiers, who went to switzerland for whatever reason, would have been killed, taken to P.O.W camps, or worse. All these people were treated well, given shelter, food etc.
Swiss losses? Well, yes, the misbombings were a few hundred, but there were also like 200 traitors, fascist, communists (all swiss) who were killed by the swiss government because they were a threat to a stable democracy and switzerland itself. To this day, there are only 7.7 million Swiss in the world, which is still much less then most European Countries.
As for India and other nations under imperialist control, they joined the war in an effort to prove to their mother countries that they can be independant. India is exactly such an example. I think Australia and all of those were too. They joined to get their independance from Great Britain.
Still, there is nothing to be proud of regarding the Swiss contribution. They could have shut the bank accounts used to launder money stolen from Holocaust victims in Poland but didn't.
I think your video picks a shameful period of Swiss history to show some rather shoddy history as a part of national pride. Treating PoWs reasonably well is all well and good, but it isn't a serious contribution. Hell, Rommel treated prisoners well, and he fought for Nazi Germany.
If I were to showcase things about Switzerland to be proud of, and there are a lot, I would start by stating that the two cities with the highest standard of living in the modern day (a more important time period to us than the 1940s, since it currently affects us) are in Switzerland. Another would be Switzerland's refusal to take part in the First World War.
The whole money thing is very controversial and a huge debate from everything I've heard.
What I do know for sure is this and it's not much:
-Trainloads of valuables where shipped to Switzerland during the great war periods
-These shipments where intercepted by both axis and allies and stolen (sometimes)
-All that money etc. is still sitting there because no one can prove who it all belongs to.
-Switzerland did NOT give money to germany, it was trade. We needed trade to survive. Raw materials etc. We recieved large amounts of raw stuff from warring nations, we turned them into weapons, sold them etc. In the end, everything Germany recieved from us totalled only about .02% (about. and that stat is from that book as well) of it's total supply.
The point of the video wasn't to showcase the best of switzerland, it was to show what we did during WWII. Armed Neutrality is the best way to sum it up, and I'm surprised at how little people know about switzerland. Which most of the time are only this:
-we're sweds too for some reason
-we make watches
-we make cheese
-we make chocolate
-we can all yodel
-we all carry pocket knives
Unfortunatly not many people know much about Swiss history (don't blame ya), so I just tried to teach maybe just a bit about what we did, that we didn't just sit around and let the war go over us. And the pictures are what I find to be the neatest stuff:)
And funny about rommel... no wait, who was hitlers propoganda minister? Anyways, he hated us a lot and couldn't wait to get rid of us hehe.
I thought that Switzerland's armed neutrality was well known, actually... Nobody disputes that Switzerland is fully capable of defending itself, but still, its action (or inaction) in WW2 isn't much to be proud of (neither is its mercenary tradition from before its neutrality).
And yeah, Rommel's Afrikacorps commited no war crimes, and in many cases behaved better than their Allied counterparts.
Rommel himself lectured white British prisoners on military honour for being racist and refusing to share cells with black comrades.
In my opinion, Switzerland has far better things to be proud of than the likes of Henri Guisan.
Hmm, that's neat. I didn't know that about Rommel. Yes I agree there are more things to be proud of, but what Guisan did was keep the morale of the people going. Some wanted to give in, surrender, just like all the other countries did. But Guisan made it legally impossible for there to be surrender (ex. if you heard by any form of media that the swiss government surrendered, that was to be taken as propoganda and dis-regarded). For 6 years someone had to tell the people that it was going to be okay. I mean, when the odds are all against you, you tend to give in, but Guisan basically held the country together.
The mercenary thing... yeah, I don't like that too much. The government outlawed it a few hundred years ago, but that's because we're a warrior people with no one to fight. Today the only person to have Swiss soldiers as their guard/whatever is the pope. Lucky him lol.
I plan on ordering a book on Guisan soon so I can really read up on him and know what he was like.
All I have to say is, Switzerland and Finland are on my list for most kick-ass countries of the world. I mean, you don't even need to watch the video, just look at the statistics.
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."