This is the story of one small nation's heroic resistance to Nazism,
leading the reader to wonder how history might have been different had all of
Europe been equally well-equipped to resist Nazi terror.Stephen Halbrook's vigorously argued and controversial thesis is that
Switzerland's federal system, which lacks a central authority capable of
surrendering the country, and its militia-based defence, effectively enabled
Swiss neutrality during World War II. He offers much evidence that the Swiss
armed and equipped themselves at considerable cost to defend their
independence, for which most of them were prepared to fight even against the
might of the Wehrmacht. Whatever the range of Swiss sympathies was, and however
much the necessary bribes to the Third Reich may have benefited the Axis, the
Swiss deterred the Germans, remained neutral, and thereby benefited the Allies
- and the many thousand refugees allowed into Switzerland - far more. Whether
the Swiss would have offered a last-ditch resistance in the face of the full
range of German terror tactics remains an open question, of course, but
Halbrook suggests that the questions of Swiss 'complicity' with the Third Reich
should also remain open.
