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Category: Gear & Stuff
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I want one real bad!
Amazing that it survived so long! Grumpy
The Germans actually made plans to conquer Switzerland ( Operation Tannenbaum “Fir Tree”). Hitler repeatedly assured the Swiss that he would respect their neutrality, this however was all a ruse. He secretly despised Switzerland & wished to bring it into the Reich one day:
“Switzerland possessed the most disgusting and miserable people and political system. The Swiss were the mortal enemies of the new Germany.”-Adolf Hitler
The Swiss however were no idiots, they gradually increased their defense spending & worked to modernize their military during the 1930’s. The Swiss standard issue K31 Rifle for example was superior to the German Kar98 rifle in terms of ease of use, accuracy, & weight. Fortifications & defensive works were also increased or updated to meet the rising German threat.
(K-31 Rifle)
The conquest of Poland (1939) caused the Swiss military to mobilize its population for war & to implement contingency plans for a possible conflict. The surrender of France & the expulsion of the British Expeditionary Force (1940) however left Switzerland alone & surrounded. The day France surrender Hitler immediately ordered plans be drawn up for the conquest of Switzerland, the Wehrmacht prepared for its next conflict.
(German troops march through Paris)
(German troops marching through Warsaw)
What Hitler’s inner circle hoped for however was a bloodless Anschluss, as what Germany did with Austria. Nonetheless this never materialized, although a democratic & diverse country, many Swiss citizens ( foreign born & domestic ) were firmly anchored with the Swiss Government & loyal to Switzerland.
(Austrian citizens welcome German troops)
Switzerland’s population and military hunkered down & waited for the impending invasion. The Swiss plan was a little controversial, they would fight a war of attrition. The military would hold their fortresses & inflict maximum casualties until they had to retreat. The mountainous terrain of the Swiss Alps created excellent defensive positions & were peppered with trenches, bunkers, pillboxes, etc. The economic & population centers however were to be sacrificed, they were vulnerable & not worth the resources to defended. The Swiss military knew they couldn’t stop a German invasion, they wanted to maximize their military as much as possible ( better to fight at their defenses in The Alps than the city streets, which would eventually be overrun by the Germans ).
(Swiss soldiers on patrol)
(Modern day remains of Swiss fortifications)
So why didn’t the Germans invade? They definitely could’ve suppressed Switzerland (eventually) with their superior military, plus they had the Italians (who would’ve invaded from the South). Well nobody knows exactly. Hitler for whatever reason never gave the go-ahead to the invasion plans. Some think it was Switzerland’s military deterrence & economic concessions that did it, but we’ll never know for sure why Hitler never gave the go. Setbacks in other theaters ( Reverse of fortune on the Eastern Front, defeat in North Africa, D-Day, etc ) eventually shifted German priorities elsewhere. Thus Switzerland survived through a combination of smart politics, military deterrence, & luck.
(Swiss & German soldier at the border)
Nazi Germany always intended to end Switzerland’s independence after it had defeated its main enemies on the continent first.
Operation Tannenbaum – Wikipedia
Fortunately for the Swiss, that didn’t happen, with the U.K. winning the Battle of Britain, and the Soviet Union not surrendering to Nazi Germany. If that had happen, Switzerland would have been a simple clean-up operation for Germany.
With the U.K. to win, and Operation Barbarossa, German didn’t really have the spare units in the size needed to take Switzerland! For the invasion of Switzerland, Germany thought it needed somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 men. Between the Western Wall, Russian front, and the fighting in North Africa and Italy, the Germans couldn’t waste units to take Switzerland!
Switzerland was going to be a tough nut to capture, but not impossible at all.
The rest of the allies were a big reason why Switzerland wasn’t invaded. The Swiss made it expensive enough to take their nation, that with the pressure the allies were putting on Germany, it wasn’t worth it.
Without allied pressure, Switzerland was doomed
An old friend gave me a new pocket knife for Christmas last year. I decided rather than lay it up somewhere that I would “carry” it.
And I am most comfortable with a pocket knife in the bottom of my pocket. A pocket knife takes me back to my early days in Brim Hollow. My grandfather, Herod Brim, was an expert when it came to pocket knives. In the Riddleton community, he was a whittling legend.
In my mind’s eye, I can see him vividly as he sat in a cane-bottomed chair, knee-deep in cedar shavings, in the ditch across the road from Leonard Carter’s General Store.
My friend, Bobby Dias, confirmed that the whittlers used to fill that ditch with whittled cedar spirals. He went on to say that a regular prank involved someone sneaking in behind the whittlers and setting the shavings on fire.
“That would make Pa Davis so mad,” Bobby laughed.
Pa Davis, whose given name was Bethel, was a former sheriff of Smith County. My grandfather named one of his favorite dogs after Pa Davis.
I’m sure you have read about his dog, Ol’ Bethel. He’s in chapter three of my second book, “Snowflakes in Summer Time.”
My grandfather got off to a rocky start as a whittler when he attended the fair in Dixon Springs as a young boy. My mother tells of two events at the fair that made lasting impressions on him.
In those days, you could buy all the lemonade you could drink for a nickel. My grandfather spent one of his nickels on lemonade. But he drank so much, his Aunt Kit made him quit. He was not happy.
The other event involved a booth at the fair which advertised on a big banner, “Learn How to Whittle — Five Cents.” After serious consideration, young Herod decided to spend his nickel and go inside.
After all the would-be whittlers took their seats, a man came into the tent and stood before them. He took out a long piece of cedar whittling timber and pointed it toward the ground. Then, he opened a blade of his pocket knife and slowly pushed the blade of the knife toward the end. As he did, a long, slender shaving spiraled ahead of the knife blade.
When he reached the end, he looked into the eyes of those eager to learn and said, “Boys, always cut away from you, and you will never cut yourself.” Then, he turned and walked out of the tent. The demonstration was over.
My grandfather stomped out of the tent. Aunt Kit reported that she never saw him any madder, before or after. I never recall him cutting himself while whittling.
My grandfather had a small collection of pocket knives. He usually toted a Case.
But he took special pride in a John Primble and a Camillus he owned. A Schrade-Walden was another one of his favorites.
He knew knives, and he knew how to read the steel in each one. In his day, the steel in knife blades was softer than the stainless steel used today.
He took many a pocket knife home to sharpen for his friends. I recall he charged 50 cents for his work. He could put an edge on a knife blade that was plumb scary.
I remember his teaching me how a razor-sharp edge felt on the tips of my fingers. But the proof was in the shaving. He would lay the blade to his forearm and the hair would roll off at the stoke of the knife blade. Then, he would look at me with his eyebrows raised, and his eyes would sparkle.
Being a farmer, my father always carried a four-blade pocket knife. He preferred a Buck or a Boker. The largest blade usually had the tip broken off where my father had used it as a screwdriver.
One blade, the second largest with a rounded tip, was his castrating blade. To quote my father, it was always “sharp as a briar.”
Of course, on a farm, the uses of a pocket knife are endless. There are always strings to cut, cans to open and sticks to sharpen. And on Sunday at church, if the sermon got slow, you could always take out your pocket knife and clean out from under your fingernails. I recall with fondness witnessing my father doing that on many occasions.
You might say my affinity for pocket knives is a part of my heritage. That’s why I think every man should own a good pocket knife. You never know when it might come in handy.
And who knows? The world might be a better place if we had more whittlers.