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AngusBurgers β Neutrals
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Published: 2010-08-02 05:02:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 16812; Favourites: 162; Downloads: 122
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Bored Swiss troops.Switzerland remained neutral in both World Wars, but in a world at war, staying truly neutral is impossible. This small country mobilized its army, built defenses against the Germans (because many feared an invasion, the Nazi army occupying all German-speaking countries) all while making weapons parts, trading gold for convertible currency and allowing transports between Germany and Italy.
Switzerland and its people, surrounded by fascist nations, chosed to keep its independence as much as possible not to get invaded and suffer useless casualties.
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Comments: 38
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EspaΓ±a fue un paΓs neutral durante la segunda guerra mundial.
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That reminds me of the fact that the Swiss airforce used Me-109s. It's a delicate situation for the Swiss, not only did they have to be alert against the Axis, namely the Third Reich but also fend off occasional Allied intrusions into their territory, all while balancing their relationships with the different belligerents. This always gives me the image of Swiss Messerschmitts radioing American bomber formations to turn back or they will be forced to engage.
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"also fend off occasional Allied intrusions into their territory"
Why would they fend them off? I mean, it's not like they tried or appeared willing to bomb Switzerland.
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Still, a lot of factors like bombing targets on the German side of the Swiss-German border or moving to and from Axis territory. It really imposed challenges for aircrews on both sides of the conflict, especially when you consider how lot of aviation technique and technology was maturing then.
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J'aime beaucoup tes dessins et celui-ci, parce qu'il traite de la Suisse, me pousse au commentaire 
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man do i hate switzerland this little neutral land must be so boring.
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but they're fine at least xD i wished we were like them... swiss seems to work, germany doesn't
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YES! Fukken' YES! I've always wanted to see you draw the swiss soldiers!
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The truth of Swiss secret of staying out of the war was for the goods they made... and able to yodel an avalanche on any invading forces.
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"and able to yodel an avalanche on any invading forces. 
Considering how fortified the Swiss mountains were - and still are - and how well trained was the Swiss soldier, be it the reservist (and nearly all able-bodied Swiss males were and are reservists, training regularly each year, from 18 to 54 years old or so) or the professional, this image of "yodelling an avalanche on any invading force" is closer to the truth than we'd believe.
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Didn't the Swiss also have to fight the allies on occasion? I forget.
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yes, but only the bombers which ddidn't want to comply with the swiss air force, got shot down (but most landed on our airfields, DΓΌbendorf for example), as well as during the bombardements of schaffhausen for example, when swiss anti-aircraft artillery fired upon the bombers which were bombing schaffhausen by mistake
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Whoo ... late random reply xD
Anyhow, I know of our guys fighting off the Luftwaffe here and there (or generally anyone to enter swiss airspace), but that was just at the very beginning of the war. It was then decided to not continue this as we didn't want to have germany invading.
As for the allies, I don't know about combat, but I do know of a ton of planes that failed to navigate to germany or were just so badly shot up that they weren't able to return to allied airspace ... which our guys escorted to our military bases and then basically stole them. (mustangs, lightnings, liberators, landcasters you name it)
There's also some incidents in which allied bombers dropped bombs over here due to aforementioned navigational errors.
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why do they have similar uniforms with the germans?
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Because they are from the same general area, share similar culture and technology.
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good thing not ideology aswell
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i never thought about Swiss Army during wars. I thought about them as a well prepared nation for the eventuality someone would be so crazy to attack them.
Anyway the drawing is perfect as everytime, the equipment is really neat and the expression are really "bored". with a bit of ground shadows would be even better!
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i think they made a wise choice not making sides
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The Swiss made weapons for Germany in exchange not to invade them... Desperate times call for desperate mesures.
Still they are so neutral that they made their own calibre(7,5 Swiss) and don't export it around the World.
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Plus the Germans felt it would be too costly to invade Switzerland, since literally every man owned a military-grade rifle (in Switzerland every man had, and today still has to complete basic training, after which they keep their service rifle and ammo at home).
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They don't keep them at home- they keep them in their basements.
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It's still 4 million men with military-grade rifles ;D
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But they made the famous Swiss Army knife and watches they never actually used in a war
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Heh imagen how Swiss army tanks would look like...
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I think they had some Panzer VI Tiger Is just after the war - and maybe even some Panzer IVs -, and bought their tanks in Germany, when this country was allowed again to make weapons and have an army.
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So the Swiss modeled their combat uniforms (or at least the uniforms) after the Germans?
At first I thought this was a run-in between a Nazi trooper and an Allied communications officer on neutral ground - so they couldn't technically do anything to each other except trade dirty looks... And it looked like the communications gent was sticking out a leg to trip up the infantryman.
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Well they did have their own helmets
[link]
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Oops, I meant "helmets" in the parenthetical.
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This is a wonderful bit of work. Shaded very, very well. Looks like a really clean Bill Mauldin drawing (he of "Willie and Joe" fame).
I have been to Switzerland for all of maybe fifteen minutes. I was on the German border during a college trip and we thought, "Why not?" We crossed the unmanned post, bought some chocolate, saw that at least one restaurant there served horse-steak, and left.
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Yeah, I already made a drawing of the dirty, tired Willie and Joe, marching through Europe the hard way. Thought it would be fun to draw the opposite; clean soldiers who never saw fighting.
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Draw Soviet generals then !
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