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The Nazi Scheme to Bombard New York City With Rockets and Other Unfinished Military Plans

Khalid Elhassan January 16, 2020 32 min

South Vietnam - United States — American troops in South Vietnam. USA Today

24. The Nazi Invasion of Switzerland

Hitler touring a recently conquered Paris in June of 1940. Pintrest

When France surrendered to the Nazis in June of 1940, Switzerland ended up completely surrounded by Axis-controlled territory. A major aim of the irredentist Nazis was to gather all ethnic Germans into a single country, and that included the German-speaking Swiss. They were not as eager for such a union, however. Hitler was appalled that the German-speaking Swiss felt stronger attachment to their French and Italian-speaking countrymen, than they did to Germans.

The Fuhrer opined that: “Switzerland possessed the most disgusting and miserable people“, and that the Swiss were “a misbegotten branch of our Volk‘. He considered democratic Switzerland an anachronism, and ordered plans drawn for its conquest and absorption into the Third Reich.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.