How Switzerland Became Unconquerable

[Music] switzerland is the most unconquerable country on earth and this isn't a new thing it's been this way for centuries no one has even dared to try for a very long time not even hitler wanted to try and knowing what i know now i completely understand this reluctance to invade switzerland it's not that they'll get angry per se it's most of the fact that if anyone chooses to go to war with switzerland they'll have to deal with bombs and no i don't mean this with german language that is the equivalent of an atomic bomb for your ears i mean real bombs but they won't be pointed at the enemy though instead the swiss will target themselves with these bombs now obviously they won't bomb their own cities where people live instead they'll bomb their marvelous infrastructure roads bridges tunnels you name it switzerland has tnt explosives and bombs in any and all of the infrastructure that leads into the country which might sound insane and it is but switzerland is serious about staying out of conflicts and since there are only a few ways you can get into switzerland by land as a result of the mountains surrounding the majority of the country the swiss saw this as a golden opportunity to create what they saw as a necessary defense mechanism in order to keep hitler out and keep him out they did but part of the reason why switzerland never got conquered by big european superpowers back when they were expanding right at their doorstep is that those same european superpowers decided it would probably be a good idea to have a buffer zone between them switzerland became that buffer zone and since then they've been a neutral power in the center of europe by neutral i of course mean insanely neutral they aren't part of nato or the eu and they only became part of the un 19 years ago they don't send their troops to fight in any wars even though they're actually really good at fighting as we can see from their history back in the day other european nations would actually hire swiss westmen to fight for them in wars but they put an end to that when they lost a big war to france a few hundred years ago these days switzerland doesn't fight yet still they can raise an army of 800 thousand almost instantly and even though they are unlikely to ever fight in any wars the swiss army is to say it mildly pretty remarkable you know there is a saying switzerland does not have an army switzerland is an army which refers to the fact that it has compulsory military service for all swiss men but that's not even the crazy part everyone that's been in that mandatory military service up until 2007 has kept all their equipment everyone and i mean everyone kept their uniform assault rifles and ammunition so that if a war were to start they would be able to instantly jump into their military uniform at home put their assault rifle on the back and go straight to the action in a way it's insanely genius but mostly it's just insane and the insanity doesn't stop there have you ever wondered what the swiss might be hiding in the mountains it could be gold or money which they are probably hiding some of in there but somewhere in switzerland inside of a mountain there is a secret air base in which multiple fa-18 hornets sit ready to take action just imagine a swiss air force pilot firing up the engines of an fa-18 hornet behind camouflage doors inside a mountain getting ready to take off and make a surprise attack on an unsuspecting enemy that could be on his way to bombing switzerland right now but little does he know behind him a fighter jet just got released from the inside of a mountain to take him down i don't know it just seems like something out of a james bond movie to me and since it's highly classified information where exactly this base is located chances are enemies wouldn't notice before it's too late we actually only know of this airbase's existence because swiss soldiers have occasionally referred to it on social media but they've always been requested to delete their mention of the airbase promptly after and as a senior swiss officer has said the name and location of the base are highly classified information but knowing the swiss i'm not so concerned about where it is more so how many there are as there's probably more than one what there's definitely more than one of are bonkers [Music] you see back when hitler was taking over most of europe the swiss realized they had to have a place they could retrieve to in case hitler did choose to invade and since most of the population lives in flat and easily maneuverable terrain which is a bad thing in war times by the way they went to the mountains to build bunkers and tunnels and while these tunnels obviously never got used for what they were intended for they are now used for anything from aging rooms for cheese to hotels and high tech server boards where you can store information that requires that extra level of security i guess but bunkers aren't just limited to these swiss alps you see for a long time in switzerland it was required by law that when you build a house it had to have a bunker that could fit all the people living in that house nowadays the law has been changed a bit and it states that every inhabitant must have a protected place that can be reached quickly from that person's place of residence so basically you either need to install a nuke proof bunker in your basement or you have to pay for access to a community bunker and have a designated place in one of those what's rather curious though is that since these bunkers haven't been used and probably never will get used the swiss typically just use them as storage rooms you know to make sure your wine is safe in the off chance that a nuclear bomb decides to hit your country or if enemy tanks come knocking at the door tanks as if those could even get anywhere close to swiss soil don't you think the swiss have already thought of that well of course they have you remember the explosives from earlier right you know the ones they put in place to destroy all routes going into switzerland if necessary yeah those ones if enemy tanks get past that then first of all well done and second of all you now have to deal with these they are called tank traps you heard me write tank traps these are long lines of giant concrete blocks specifically designed to block out tanks and if you go to the french speaking region sui roman along the swiss side of the lake between geneva and the sun you'll find these lines of tank traps that stretch all the way from the lake side into the mountains and do you see these houses they're actually bunkers disguised as houses and here the swiss hid cannons they could use when the tanks tried to go over the tank traps but the cannons wouldn't be pointed at the tank directly though instead they would be aimed at the belly of the tank where there was little armor it's genius but but also quite terrifying although i do find this one instance where switzerland threatened germany a tad more terrifying you see this river is called the rhine the head of this river is right here within switzerland's borders and it runs through a large part of western germany and eventually ends up here in the netherlands what's terrifying is that switzerland threatened to poison the rhine and in turn all of germany's water if they had made it a little aggressive switzerland i gotta say but fair play now obviously this never happened at least on purpose you see switzerland did actually poison the rhine in the 1980s but that was considered an accident but ultimately it shows the swiss commitment to keep enemies from even thinking about invading their country what is weird though is that hitler actually did have a very detailed plan to invade switzerland and while he saw it as a challenge it could certainly be done so why didn't he well it's quite a complex topic and the swiss as well as historians don't completely agree on why hitler didn't attack them some strongly believe that it was the strong swiss military and the graduate strategy and the alps that saved them others said it was the cooperation with nazi germany as it's likely the nazis preferred to bank with them so they just let them stay neutral because of it historians say that both were needed and that's another important reason was that germany had a hard time in russia germany could have easily invaded switzerland but it would have cost them too many resources which germany just couldn't afford to lose at this time because their russian expedition had bad luck the cooperation with switzerland also proved quite useful to the germans as switzerland had to deliver resources on credit to germany which they obviously didn't need to pay for upfront as part of a contract additionally germany could sell their gold to the swiss national bank in exchange for foreign currencies without proving its origin this way they could sell gold they had stolen from countries they had invaded in return for this switzerland could stay out of the war and continue trading with allies for food and coal which they really needed now since the war ended these things have shown to be quite controversial i don't personally have an opinion on this but had switzerland not done these things they wouldn't have been the neutral nation we know them as today so the contingency of swiss independence and neutrality is a result of many different factors but above all the swiss made sure that none of the parties in a war would benefit from attacking them and that's the mentality they've kept to this day although they aren't as insane about it as they were back then for example the swiss military said in 2014 that they had removed all bombs and explosives from their infrastructure well done switzerland that's probably for the best but in terms of bunkers and tank traps they are all still here because might as well be right you never know when those could become useful but all in all switzerland remains the most unconquerable country on earth as a result of its continuing desire to stay neutral thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 2,740,235

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Id: O0MMvvcYhO4

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 13 2021