system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why didn't the Nazis invade Switzerland?

Switzerland is a tiny country surrounded by Nazi controlled countries, why didn't they invade and capture Switzerland? I also understand that Switzerland had a very powerful military, did that have anything to do with Hitler's decision to stay away from them?
gpt
Just to clear up a few things here.

Switzerland would not have been terribly hard to invade. The vast majority of the population lived then (as now) in the Jura and Plateau regions. These are not mountainous, mostly they are plains and rolling hills. Sure partisans could have done well in the Alps, but for the most part the Alps have nothing worth going to get. And they aren't self sufficient. The Axis could have easily conquered 2/3 of the country and ignored the rest.

Likewise a light army like the Swiss wouldn't have held up and equal sized force of Germans for very long. The Swiss army simply wasn't set up on a scale to fight continental wars.

But it would have been "harder" than similarly sized areas to conquer. And there wasn't much value there to conquer. Switzerland was not a major producer of any material needed by the Germans. In fact Switzerland imported more from Germany than they exported to Germany.

Finally what value Switzerland had for the Germans would have been lost in an attack. The Swiss provided vital rail links to Italy. And they made it very clear that the tunnels would be collapsed and the bridges blown up. So until they could be repaired they would be gone. And these also happened to be in the part of Switzerland that partisans could best operate. That would be a pain to maintain.

And the Swiss provided political capital abroad. As long as there were neutrals (Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey also come to mind) Hitler could convince the other remaining neutrals like Argentina to remain neutral. Switzerland provided cover for the idea that the war was really all the Allies fault. And he was willing to negotiate for peace.

Switzerland also provided access to global markets. Germany was blockaded and surrounded. But by trading with Switzerland he could get international credit. He could then buy needed materiel via middlemen countries like Spain.

So if Hitler attacked, he would conquer Switzerland. But he would have to spend an inordinate amount to succeed. And he would lose just about everything Switzerland had to offer him. It wasn't just not worth the bother, it was a guarantied net loss.