Which Neutral European Countries Collaborated With Hitler’s Reich During World War II
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On September 30, 1938, the leaders of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, the United Kingdom and France met in Munich, southern Germany to decide Czechoslovakia’s fate. The deal that was reached, known in the West as the Munich Agreement, and in Soviet and Russian historiography as the Munich Betrayal, set the stage for the Second World War.
Czechoslovakia, who had treaties of alliance with France and the USSR, was given no say in its destiny, with Prague’s French ‘ally’ allowing Germany to annex the disputed Sudetenland borderlands into the Reich with no pushback to Hitler. The Soviets expressed readiness to send the Red Army to Prague’s assistance, in accordance with a 1935 treaty, but were blocked by Poland and Romania, who refused to allow Soviet troops to transit through their territory. Fearing that Moscow would veto any unfair deal, Soviet representatives were barred from the Munich talks together Czechoslovak officials.
Returning to London on September 30 boasting about ‘saving’ Europe from a new great conflict, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain iconically waved a piece of paper with Hitler’s assurances, touting his success in assuring “peace for our time.”
But instead of peace, the Munich Betrayal triggered the collapse of the post-WWI European security order. On March 15, 1939, Nazi troops marched into the rump state of Czechoslovakia, set up a protectorate in the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, and created a Slovak puppet state.
6 January 2023, 19:10 GMT
Hard Choices
When the Second World War began several months later on September 1, 1939, countries around the world, and especially in Europe, were forced to choose between the German-led Axis powers and the Allies, led by Britain and France, and joined by the USSR and the United States in June and December 1941, respectively.
In Europe, only a handful of countries managed to avoid invasion and puppet status to the Third Reich, which required difficult and controversial choices and maneuvering to dodge direct involvement in the devastating conflict. Formally neutral nations including Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Portugal ended up playing a crucial role in fueling the German war machine, providing key strategic raw materials, as well as other forms of assistance, Oleg Matveev, an expert from Russia’s National Center for Historical Memory, told Sputnik.
“The integrity of these countries’ neutrality…was stained by mutually beneficial secret agreements with Hitler,” which Soviet counterintelligence helped uncover after the June 26, 1945 arrest and interrogation of German businessman and Foreign Ministry Trade Department advisor Wilhelm Bisse, Matveev pointed out.
“Germany had secret treaties with states that declared themselves neutral during Germany’s war against the Soviet Union…The management of the agreement of secret treaties with other states was carried out by Ministry of Foreign Affairs Trade and Political Department director [Emil] Wille. Wille was also in charge of all foreign trade,” Bisse told Soviet investigators in his testimony.
Switzerland
For instance, Operation Tannenbaum, the secret Nazi plan to invade Switzerland, was shelved after the Nazis realized the mountainous nation known for its banking secrecy could prove more useful as a partner than an enemy, according to Matveev.
“An agreement was reached with Switzerland around 1940, under which the country undertook to allow German troops to pass through its territory to Italy. In addition, Switzerland agreed to supply Germany with equipment and precision measuring instruments, and ball bearings for German military production. In return, Germany would provide coal, iron and steel to the Swiss. These deliveries continued until November 1944, including up to 60,000 tons of coal per month. In addition, Germany supplied Switzerland with weapons – mainly anti-aircraft guns,” the observer said.
The agreement “also had a financial component,” Matveev pointed out.
Switzerland began to buy gold from the German Reichsbank, ultimately purchasing about $1.7 billion worth (about $29.7 billion in today’s dollars). The Swiss loophole allowed Berlin to keep afloat financially and keep trade with third countries going despite increasingly stringent global restrictions on the circulation of the Reichsmark by the Allies as the war wore on. In 1998, an investigative commission revealed that up to a third of the gold sold by the Nazis was still in the coffers of Switzerland’s National Bank.
Sweden
Sweden, another formally neutral power during WWII, had secret agreements with Berlin allowing German troops to pass through its territory on their way to occupied Norway or allied Finland, with Stockholm compensated through weapons deliveries and up to 6 million tons of coal annually. Sweden also supplied Germany with ball bearings, according to Bisse’s testimony, and crucially, high quality iron ore, without which Berlin would find it impossible to manufacture the steel used for its war effort.
“Historians have calculated that about 40% of German weapons were made from Swedish iron,” Matveev recalled.
Spain
Exhausted by the Civil War of 1936-1939 – dubbed by some observers as the “dress rehearsal for World War II,” Francisco Franco’s Spain formally sat out the Second World War, rejecting Hitler’s proposals for an alliance and sticking to neutrality.
Instead, Berlin and Madrid stuck to secret trade agreements, among them a deal for the supply of up to 1,400 tons of tungsten - the strategic material critical for the production of metal alloys for artillery systems, tank rounds, anti-tank weapons and machine tools.
Besides that, Matveev recalled, Spain provided Germany with an array of other strategic resources, including iron ore, zinc, lead and mercury, and “acted as an intermediary and a transshipment point for the supply of goods from South America, including industrial diamonds and platinum.” The latter would be used for the manufacture of an array of weaponry, from rifle and engine parts and explosives to industrial equipment.
Franco sent the 250th Infantry Division, better known as the Blue Division, to fight the Red Army on the Eastern Front, with up to 45,000 troops serving in the volunteer formation.
German deliveries to Spain during the war included war materiel, “especially anti-aircraft guns, including arms captured by Germany in occupied countries,” Bisse testified.
6 November 2015, 11:35 GMT
Portugal
Announcing its intention to adhere to a centuries-old treaty of alliance with Britain at the beginning of WWII in 1939, Portugal nevertheless reached a economic understanding with Hitler’s Reich, starting in 1941 at the start of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
“Under this agreement, Portugal undertook to supply 1,500 tons worth of tungsten to Germany annually, and it fulfilled these deliveries,” Bisse revealed during questioning.
“Under the same agreement, Germany was supplied with foodstuffs, [including] up to one million boxes of canned fish (sardines). In return, Germany supplied Portugal with anti-aircraft guns, and guaranteed that the gasoline and oils brought from the United States to Portugal aboard Swedish ships would not be torpedoed by German warships. Germany fulfilled this obligation,” Bisse added.
An estimated 150-200 Portuguese volunteers unofficially served in the Spanish Blue Division.
7 October 2023, 03:15 GMT
