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  • (film reeling)

  • (dramatic music)

  • - I want you to say something.

  • (upbeat music)

  • You ready?

  • This is a giant map of Switzerland.

  • (choir like music)

  • I love Switzerland.

  • And one thing I have learned about Switzerland

  • is that the Swiss like to be neutral.

  • (somber music)

  • This country does not like conflict.

  • They avoid it at all costs,

  • which is strange because they're really good at fighting.

  • Other European countries used to hire Swiss men

  • to fight their wars for them.

  • But back home in Switzerland, they don't fight.

  • They don't take sides.

  • That's partly because they lost a few wars of expansion

  • and kind of just decided it was probably better

  • to just stay put.

  • But it's also because back when Europe was full of empires,

  • the big European powers thought it would be a good idea

  • to have a mountainous small buffer country

  • in between some of the big rival powers.

  • And so Switzerland was kind of deemed this neutral power,

  • but the result is that today Switzerland doesn't take sides.

  • They don't send their troops to fight another other wars.

  • They rarely join alliances.

  • I mean, they're not a part of the EU.

  • They're not a part of NATO.

  • And they reluctantly barely joined the UN

  • as recently as 2002, a decade after North Korea.

  • And the only countries that joined after them

  • didn't exist before then.

  • Meaning they came into existence after 2002.

  • So they couldn't have joined before then.

  • Switzerland is serious about neutrality,

  • no conflict, no alliances.

  • Leave us alone.

  • (somber music)

  • When you're right here,

  • right at the crossroads of people

  • trying to take over Europe,

  • staying out of conflict has big benefits for your country

  • and its economy.

  • But it also means staying neutral is really hard,

  • but the Swiss have done it.

  • Using their mountains, some exceptional engineering,

  • obsessive commitment,

  • and a healthy amount of explosives.

  • The Swiss have kept empires out of their country,

  • sticking to their guns

  • and staying neutral

  • even when Europe was tearing itself apart.

  • (somber music)

  • So you're Switzerland in the 1940s.

  • Here's your situation.

  • You're surrounded by Nazi Germany to your North

  • and Fascist Italy to your South

  • and quickly are becoming engulfed

  • with all the countries that are now in the sphere

  • of influence of these countries.

  • You're surrounded and Hitler is winning everywhere,

  • but you're Switzerland.

  • And so you're like, don't invade us.

  • We're not going to fight, we're not taking sides.

  • We'll just keep trading with whoever wants to trade with us,

  • but we're not going to fight

  • or be invaded.

  • And no, that's not how Europe was in the 1940s.

  • You couldn't just sit it out.

  • And yet the Swiss were committed to doing so.

  • The fact is that even with this commitment to neutrality

  • an invasion from their next door neighbor,

  • the Third Reich, was it very real possibility.

  • So Switzerland devised, what I argue

  • is just the most Swiss plan ever.

  • To stay neutral during World War II

  • and future global conflicts.

  • It's a plan that still lives on today

  • that you can still see when you go to Switzerland.

  • Here's what it looks like.

  • (upbeat music)

  • First up, hey looked around their country

  • at any linkages to the outside.

  • They choose key points around the country

  • that would give invading armies access to the country

  • like roads, bridges, tunnels,

  • any access point.

  • And then they packed it full of explosives.

  • (explosion noise)

  • Dynamite, TNT, whatever.

  • Anything that would just completely destroy that linkage.

  • They got really inventive with this stuff.

  • Sometimes they would wire a bridge with dynamite,

  • but they also would put secret canons in mountains

  • that would pop out

  • and point at a major road

  • and demolish it if needed,

  • making it unusable.

  • Or sometimes they would go to their long tunnels

  • like this 10 kilometer tunnel down here

  • at the border with Italy.

  • And they would rig it with TNT

  • so that they could quickly seal off this part

  • of their mountainous Southern border.

  • (ominous music)

  • Up on mountain passes they even rigged

  • the sides of mountains with explosives

  • to create artificial landslides to block the road.

  • The thinking here is that if an invading army

  • were marching into Switzerland,

  • they could pull the trigger on all this stuff.

  • Igniting dynamite or shelling

  • or otherwise destroying all the ways

  • to get into the country,

  • making it a lot harder to invade

  • and giving them time to retreat to the mountains.

  • There's a wonderful, strange irony going on here.

  • The Swiss are really good at transportation.

  • The trains are immaculate and efficient

  • and go up crazy mountains

  • and are always on time.

  • Roam around the country and you'll see this.

  • These are the little doors in the streets

  • where they would pack explosives.

  • So it's kind of ironic that all of this infrastructure

  • was packed with explosives,

  • but I guess that makes it even more functional

  • because now it's a defense mechanism.

  • In addition to being infrastructure for transportation.

  • I love Switzerland.

  • (jet engines)

  • (somber music)

  • There's this one bridge that connects Switzerland to Germany

  • that was built in 2006.

  • And when it was built, it was packed with explosives.

  • This bridge was built in conjunction with Germany.

  • Germany paved half of the bridge,

  • and yet they didn't even know that it was rigged

  • with explosives.

  • It's very aggressive Switzerland.

  • Okay, so anyway.

  • Blowing up their borders and sealing themselves off

  • was one major strategy for aggressively staying neutral.

  • Let's get onto the next one.

  • (dramatic music)

  • Zoom into the lower half of Switzerland.

  • And you'll be struck by one massive thing

  • that Switzerland has.

  • Mountains.

  • Big, giant mountains that flank across

  • the South part of the country.

  • (dramatic music)

  • Another thing Swiss was have

  • is an unmatched ability to drill holes into mountains.

  • The country has over a thousand tunnels.

  • One of which is 57 kilometers long.

  • These people know how to build holes in mountains.

  • And that skill becomes very useful

  • when your situation looks like this.

  • Most of the population lives here,

  • meaning not in the mountains.

  • And so there wasn't much of a separation

  • between these population centers

  • and Nazi Germany.

  • After the Swiss saw Hitler march into Paris

  • and take over huge portions of France,

  • they got serious about figuring out

  • what they would do if Hitler invaded.

  • So they had their plan to blow up the borders

  • and slow down an invasion.

  • But where could they retreat to

  • that would allow them to stay neutral

  • and stay alive during the fighting?

  • In the mountains, they were building giant fortresses

  • and bunkers and tunnels

  • that work literally inside of the Alps.

  • They built thousands of these things

  • in the side of mountains,

  • and they rigged them with guns,

  • and cannons,

  • as well as full on bases

  • that were equipped with supplies and beds

  • and living space.

  • Sometimes they'd be hidden in steep mountain passes,

  • disguised as a barn,

  • but really it would be a bunker

  • with hidden explosives, supplies,

  • and men ready to fight.

  • All over the Alps, the Swiss built these secret bunkers

  • mainly during World War II

  • in preparation for any sort of invasion.

  • Once the war ended, the idea of putting bunkers

  • in the mountains for defense

  • and neutrality became pretty embedded

  • in the Swiss security doctrine,

  • as well as just Swiss culture.

  • (upbeat music)

  • So I did a call out on Instagram stories

  • to see if this bunker culture was still a thing.

  • And I caught a lot of responses that showed me

  • that it's not just World War II in the mountains.

  • Swiss bunkers are all over the country.

  • (upbeat music)

  • Geez.

  • That's a lot of bunkers.

  • Thank you to all of those

  • who sent me pictures of your bunkers.

  • After World War II, the new threat was the Soviet Union

  • and the Cold War

  • and nuclear destruction.

  • Bunkers were now built into homes, apartment buildings,

  • hospitals, public infrastructure of all kind

  • had bunkers underneath it.

  • By the 1960s, Switzerland had built enough

  • underground bunkers and shelters

  • to protect the entire population

  • and with a healthy surplus.

  • Something that no other country's ever done.

  • Okay.

  • So let's talk about the last step here,

  • which is kind of the dark side of Swiss neutrality

  • and the one that no one really wants to talk about,

  • but gotta talk about it.

  • (ominous music)

  • So let me reiterate here

  • that staying neutral and safe

  • when this is your situation is a very difficult thing.

  • I mean, World War II was an incredible tragedy

  • where millions of people lost their lives.

  • During World War II,

  • Switzerland had an official policy of neutrality.

  • This meant that they would trade with whomever.

  • Whether it was the Axis and Hitler,

  • or it was the Allies and Churchill.

  • But in reality, Switzerland traded a lot more with Germany,

  • providing them with anti-aircraft guns

  • and other military supplies and ammunition

  • that was used in the war.

  • In addition, Switzerland allowed the Nazi regime

  • to store lots of gold and art

  • and other valuables that were looted from victims

  • of the war.

  • And specifically the Holocaust.

  • Not a super good look.

  • Defenders of this will tell you that Switzerland

  • was doing what it needed to do to stay out of the war,

  • to stay neutral

  • and just like blowing up your borders

  • or making bunkers in the mountains.

  • This pandering to Hitler

  • and being kind of on decent terms with the Third Reich

  • was a way of making it more costly

  • and more implausible that Germany

  • would just pop right down South from where they are

  • to take over this small country.

  • Neutrality does not mean holding hands

  • and singing kumbaya.

  • Neutrality in the Swiss foreign policy doctrine

  • means deterrence and defense.

  • There's a Swiss military saying that says,

  • "In order to remain in peace, you have to have cannons."

  • (artillery fire)

  • This kind of sums it up.

  • Not only did they have cannons and weaponry,

  • but they also played by whatever rules they needed to

  • in order to stay out of the war.

  • And it worked.

  • Hitler had a pretty developed plan to take over Switzerland,

  • but in the end it didn't make strategic sense.

  • It was too costly and implausible for them

  • to take over their neighbor to the South.

  • Even though he had taken over the majority

  • of the European continent at that point.

  • I would bet a large sum of money

  • that the top comment on this video

  • is someone badmouthing the Swiss

  • for all of this World War II stuff.

  • Which, whatever.

  • I don't have a dog in this fight.

  • If that's how you feel, that's how you feel.

  • (somber music)

  • Okay.

  • So these two massive global wars are over

  • and Switzerland is still neutral,

  • but they don't have to take as extreme measures

  • to remain so.

  • So what do you do with all these bunkers?

  • First, the bombing the borders thing,

  • where they packed explosives in all of these bridges

  • and roads and tunnels.

  • It turns out that the military slowly started to dismantle

  • all of this a few years ago.

  • And by 2014, the military says

  • that all of the mines and bombs and TNT

  • have been removed from public infrastructure.

  • Good for you military.

  • No more bombs at bridges.

  • So for the household bunkers

  • that were built during the Cold War,

  • those are still there.

  • And my friends on Instagram tell me

  • that they're just kind of used for like storage rooms

  • or sometimes like as a laundry room.

  • Extra space, I guess,

  • with really fortified doors

  • that will withstand the radioactivity of a nuclear weapon.

  • I mean, it's not bad to have.

  • But what I'm really interested in

  • is all of the mountain fortresses

  • and tunnels,

  • and like bunkers that were in the Swiss Alps.

  • What happened to those?

  • Those were really expensive to build

  • and were expensive to maintain.

  • And the military is honestly kind of eager

  • to get rid of them.

  • Some of them have been sold off

  • and turned into like fancy hotels

  • in the side of a mountain.

  • Others are used as cheese sellers

  • to make delicious Swiss cheese.

  • And then you've got this one,

  • which was purchased by like a tech security company

  • that specializes in keeping your data safe.

  • So you can store your Bitcoin

  • or whatever else you need

  • on these super secure servers

  • in the side of a Swiss mountain.

  • They claim these servers are so protected

  • that they are impervious even to an electromagnetic shock

  • from an atom bomb.

  • It seems to me like a little bit overkill,

  • but if you have some really important documents

  • and files that you need to save,

  • this is your place.

  • But the majority of these mountain bunkers

  • and fortresses lie completely abandoned.

  • If you hike around Switzerland,

  • you will see these things everywhere,

  • which is something I've never done.

  • And really now want to do.

  • Go like bunker hunting in Switzerland.

  • It sounds kind of amazing.

  • All right, so the Swiss stayed neutral.

  • They've continued to stay neutral.

  • They will probably continue to stay neutral

  • and it turns out that we'll use whatever means necessary

  • to do so.

  • Thanks for watching.

  • (upbeat music)

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  • (upbeat music)

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  • Thank you all for watching.

  • I've got a lot of really cool videos coming up

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  • Alright, have a good day.

  • (calm music)

(film reeling)

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