What If Hitler Had Invaded Switzerland?

What if Hitler had invaded Switzerland? In 1940 the German army wrote four drafts of an invasion plan for the small country in the middle of Hitler's Europe, and every one of them ran into the Alps. This is the war that was never fought, told through the enemy's own paperwork: Operation Tannenbaum, draft by draft. In June 1940 Swiss fighters shot down German planes over the Jura, France fell, and Switzerland was surrounded. A German staff captain began typing the first study of an attack. Then the plan kept changing: about fifteen divisions, then eight, then twenty-one cut to eleven, with Italy coming from the south. In Switzerland a sixty-five-year-old general made a choice nobody expected. On the meadow where the country was founded, he told his officers the army would give up the cities and hold the mountains, with the Gotthard tunnel ready to be blown. You'll meet General Henri Guisan, President Marcel Pilet-Golaz, Captain von Menges, General von Leeb and spy chief Roger Masson. Then we open the drawer and sign the last draft, to see what the Alps would have cost Germany. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Dogfight 1:27 The Island 3:09 Drafts One and Two 4:49 The Voice from Bern 6:19 The Quiet Deals 8:04 The Impossible Border 9:23 The Meadow 11:09 Drafts Three and Four 12:43 The Plateau 14:36 The Tunnels 16:25 The Bill 18:02 The False Alarm 19:44 What Became of Them What kept Hitler out of Switzerland: the mountains or the money? Tell me in the comments. If you like history read from the enemy's own paperwork, subscribe. SOURCES Wikipedia: Operation Tannenbaum; National Redoubt (Switzerland); Henri Guisan; Aerial incidents of Switzerland in World War II; Roger Masson Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War (Bergier Commission), Final Report, 2002 swissinfo.ch: The Rütli report of 25 July 1940 Archive photos and newsreels: public domain (credits in the video) #WhatIf #WW2 #Switzerland #AlternateHistory #History