This story is really stupid journalism, Switzerland is blocking re-export of useful stuff but this one is a non-story. The gear that is being destroyed is old stuff (this model (B) has been decommissioned in GB in the 90ties despite what Le monde days (they did use still model (C) which is a more modern system ) for which there are no spare parts anymore and nobody except the Swiss knows how to operate. GB has the right to get it back if they want, by contract, and neutrality doesn’t block it. They have been informed that Switzerland wants to dispose it long time ago but they didn’t ask for it back. This probably because the gear is useless given how old and broken it is and clearly the Swiss army cannot teach the Ukrainians how use it without breaking international law (specifically the Hague convention). There are probably for GB much more effective ways to help the Ukrainians than sending them garbage.
It's kind of easy to be neutral when you're landlocked inside NATO, I guess. No reason to even join. Neutrality didn't quite work out that way for Norway in WW2...
Great cheese down there though, gotta give them that.
> It's kind of easy to be neutral when you're landlocked inside NATO
I guess you think that NATO is why the Swiss people added a neutrality clause to the constitution of the Swiss Confederation during the Restoration in 1815?
Only in the bizarro world where I make laughably false statements so you can point it out to feel clever.
No, the NATO part is only commenting on current events.
The reason they weren't invaded during WW2 was mainly that they had a strong military in a very mountainous country with next to no strategic or material importance to Hitler. Just not worth the trouble. If Hitler saw a strategic reason to invade Switzerland he would have; he had no reservations about ignoring neutrality.
I figured all this was obvious given knowledge about basic history and geography, and that it didn't need to be spelled out that I know NATO didn't exist during or before WW2
> The reason they weren't invaded during WW2 was mainly that they had a strong military in a very mountainous country with next to no strategic or material importance to Hitler. Just not worth the trouble. If Hitler saw a strategic reason to invade Switzerland he would have; he had no reservations about ignoring neutrality.
Are you sure? I was told in history class that it was because too many of Hitler's cronies stored massive amounts of money there. Which would obviously have disappeared to the allies before they could capture the whole country.
I've never investigated that in detail though so perhaps this was just wrong.
Either way it's still true it was quite easy for the Swiss to remain neutral since they're a pain in the ass to invade, and there was no reason to. I can definitely see them being more useful to him with their neutrality intact, but in some sense that only reinforces my point. If Switzerland had, say a bunch of oil, the equation might have changed.
Norway on the other hand had no realistic hope of remaining neutral once Hitler laid his eyes on our iron ore and massive, honkin' coastal line.
Whereas Sweden managed to maintain their neutrality partially by continuing to sell iron ore to Germany throughout the war as well as allowing them to move troops through them en route to Finland. And Hitler was more interested in the Soviets at that point, so Sweden would have been a distraction.
Finland was also neutral originally and they ended up in all sorts of wars theoughout WW2.
It seems pretty clear that neutrality in WW2 was respected by the large powers only to the extent it was convenient, and ignored otherwise. Most of the countries that remained neutral were city-states and the aforementioned countries + Spain(aligned with the axis powers though still neutral), Portugal(insulated by Spain) and Ireland(insulated by the British).
Source (in French): https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/13861370-les-systemes-de-defe...