Book Review: Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II.

Authors

Karl Wood

Keywords

World War II, Nazism, Switzerland, Swiss neutrality, Germany

Abstract

Stephen P. Halbrook's 1998 book, Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II is a well-narrated account of the Swiss preparedness to resist any possible invasion by a hostile power, but most especially by the Nazis, through the critical years of the 1930s and 1940s. The author brings to bear his considerable skills of persuasion and journalistic perception, reminiscent of the late William Shirer, of whose work he makes extensive use for historical perspective. He offers an argument that the "true Swiss experience in the war" lay not in the recently much-discussed accommodations made to the Nazis, "a regrettable consequence of encirclement", but in "the extraordinary and courageous efforts of the Swiss military to prevent invasion" and to preserve a haven in a sea of tyranny for individual rights and democracy, where many found refuge (x).

Recommended Citation

Wood, Karl (1999) "Book Review: Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II.," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 35: No. 2, Article 5.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol35/iss2/5