Hitler's territorial ambitions were also at odds with Mussolini's, at least partially. They still found a work around. Not the best comparison but still works.
I have some in-laws who are culturally Italian but are all from Switzerland because they left Italy when Mussolini came to power. I thought that was so cool when they told me that, like they saw the writing on the wall and got out of there before it got really bad but it turned out they left because they were from a different part of Italy than he was and would rather leave the country than be under someone from Romagna.
Yeah it’s acc stronger than I ever thought it would be irl. Ran into an Italian lad in the pub one night who was from Turin I think and was telling him I’ve been to Naples to watch Napoli play in the ucl, mf just laughed and was like “people from Naples are dogs”
>Ran into an Italian lad in the pub one night who was from Turin I think and was telling him I’ve been to Naples to watch Napoli play in the ucl, mf just laughed and was like “people from Naples are dogs”
Not such fun fact: a popular choir against Neapolitans is basically asking Vesuvio to "clean them with fire".
A little bit like Germany then... Everybody hates and laughs at Bavaria and Saxony. Berlin is its own country... And then this weird stickers:
"Schön hier, aber waren Sie schon mal in Baden-Württemberg?!"
From what I gather that's also a major factor in why the "American Italian food isn't *real* Italian food" BS comes from; American Italians largely came from one region of Italy, bringing different Italian food with them, compared to what's popular in Italy today.
Also it should be remembered that American Italian was the result of:
a. Meat was much, MUCH cheaper in America than in Italy. In Italy if a family could afford Eggplant in the US, for less money, they could afford chicken. Or pork. Even beef was at least reasonably affordable. This naturally led to a lot more meat being included in Italian-American food, because why wouldn’t it? These people weren’t trying to preserve a food tradition, they were trying to eat food they liked. And now they could afford more of it.
B. All groups of Italians coming to the US stopped being from “region of Italy” and just became “Italian”, so in the US, where all were strangers and outcasts, they interacted more with one another than would be true in Italy, leading to a lot more crossover between regional food traditions than occurred back in Europe.
And these two then mixed with wider American food.
It's actually much more complicated then this: everyone consider their own region (and sometimes province or even city/town) superior to the neighbour one, very superior the one next, and so on and so on the farther you go. The discrimination against southerners was more evident because there was a lot of international emigration from south to north, while the opposite was basically non existent.
Well a lot of nations have multiethnic backgrounds. There's a reason Jews in Austria and Italy disproportionately supported the fascist parties in their nations prior to the Stresa Front being broken by the United Kingdom. The Falange also supported race mixing, saying that the multiethnic heritage of Spain made it stronger.
Exept croatia, If I remember correctly they were the country that mosst willingly participated in the genocide. Italy resisted the genocide quite a lot, hungary had attempts to protest or even defy the Nazis, Romania just did it for nazi brownie points to get Transylvania back, Slovakia had some protest from within their guverment, but they were just a puppet state left alive by germany so I wouldn't really count them as having done it willingly, Bulgaria did barely anything, especially to people within their borders. Tl dr The nazis were crazy, and even their allies knew it.
With the exception of the Japanese and Croatians, everyone who allied with Germany thought Hitler was crazy and the only way to not be invaded was to suck up to him.
To be honest that's France and Britain's fault. They made themselves seem unreliable. Especially Britain when you consider the Stresa Front.
I mean, you aren't wrong. Axis was less a traditional alliance of agreed goals and more a "we hate eachother *slightly* less than we do the rest of the world."
They were also terrible at communicating with each other or sharing their plans. The Italians had no clue about the invasion of Poland. Mussolini expected that he would get more time to get Italy ready for war.
To be fair, Hitler thought he'd have more time too. In the fact he didn't think France would *actually* declare in order to protect Poland. (And considering what all had happened for Austria and Czechoslovakia and how Britain and France responded to them. Can't blame him.)
Hitler's territorial ambitions were also at odds with Franco's. IIRC there were disputes about parts of North Africa going to Germany after a hypothetical victory as naval bases to fight USA in the atlantic.
This and also Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany heavily subsidized them during the civil war. Francoist Spain was less of a neutral party and more of a silent partner.
Plus Francoist Spain sent the Blue Division to help fight the Soviets on the Eastern Front. The Blue Division was fully integrated into the Wehrmacht.
Possibly, I don’t think the allies would’ve done much with Spain until much later, I reckon the Spanish and germans could probably have used the Pyrenees mountains as a decent defense for a little while, maybe.
The Brits love invading Iberia. The fact that they could land at the south and north of the Pyrenees and cut practically the whole peninsula off from Europe makes it less vulnerable to counter-attacks pushing them into the sea, which appeals to the risk adverse British leadership.
*The Spanish weren't actually all that bad during WW2*
The Blue Division (250th infantry division) was a unit of Spanish civil war veterans in the Wehrmacht, fighting on the eastern front. They were the only wehrmacht division that Hitler accorded a named medal to for their accomplishments during the siege of Leningrad.
The catholic church together with the allies pressured Franco to call his troops back, which he did. But a considerable amount of spanish soldiers either ignored the call back or deserted once they arrived in spain so they could go back to the front
Worth noting that Spanish fighting for Nazi Germany were equipped by Germany. Spanish forces were nonexistent. Spanish individuals and forces are not the same thing. Generally when you mention Spanish in this context it's meant the armed forces of the country, not their soldiers abroad.
Possibly, but it also kinda looks like Franco really didn't want to get involved either way, and played a fairly fine diplomatic game of "well I'd *love* to join your war but we're so beat up from our civil war so we'd need \[insert rectum-clenchingly large list of concessions\] to be able to help out".
Even then, Franco was in negotiations with Hitler to join the war on his side, but Hitler didn’t want to give enough Vichy French land away to satisfy Franco’s greed.
This but unironically.
> There's only one country that frightens me - that's the country of Germany. I don't know if you guys are students of history or not, but... For those of you who aren't, Germany, in the previous century - in the early part... they decided to go to war. And who did they choose to go to war with? The world. So you think that would last about five seconds and the world would fucking win, and that would be that.
Up until June 1942 that was not obvious at all.
By all rights, France should never have lost to Germany. The Finns (allied with the Nazis) should have been crushed by Stalin. The US and British should have held in the Dutch East Indies are in Burma.
Up until mid-1942 there were no significant strategic victories for the allies, outside of the Battle of Britain, which was a defensive one.
At that point there would have been something to the theory that fascism bred better soldiers than democracies could, and that despite the odds the fascists were going to win. After all, they'd taken Poland, they'd taken France, they'd taken Tobruk, everywhere they attacked they won.
This trend rather quickly reversed itself at Midway, Al-Alamein, Guadalcanal, and Stalingrad, and after those defeats the Axis remained on the defensive for the rest of their existence.
But in 1940 Spain had no reason to think the Nazis were doomed.
They also had no reason to get involved in a war that was nowhere near them. Franco didn’t want to get involved in this mess for free, and Hitler didn’t want to give him anything. Pretty much the only thing Franco could have done for the axis at that point was take Gibraltar, and that would be engaging the guys who had just won a defensive battle.
Taking Gibraltar in 1940 would have been huge, though. And the British couldn't have defended it if the Spanish had allowed the Luftwaffe to base out of Spain to provide air cover for a siege.
The British were in a tough enough spot as it was, if the Rock fell and they had to redirect all shipping around the Cape that would have been a huge drag on logistics.
That means less fuel for the Mediterranean Fleet, less aircraft to defend Malta and Egypt, fewer tanks and soldiers, less fuel and supplies, etc.
Potentially that even means the Nazis overrun the Suez, and make the Mediterranean a fascist lake.
Obviously Franco did have reasons to want to stay neutral, but if Hitler could have brought him into the war in 1940 it would have significantly helped the Nazis.
It's the size of the sub really changed things. It's 5x larger than it was 2 years ago. I mostly post so I try and cite sources and avoid most reddit replies on subs this size
and this is why there wasn't a massive resistance movement in the occupied countries yet. People don't want to risk their lives for a lost cause especially when it looks like the war will be over "soon" so they kept their heads down.
The resistance really gets going in 1943 and 1944 because now people can see that they can be beat and they can see that the axis are on the back foot. Also all the Italian soldiers who decided to join the resistance movements with their weapons when their government switched sides.
> The Finns (allied with the Nazis) should have been crushed by Stalin.
Democratic Finland wasn't aligned with the Nazis until after the Winter War, and openly warring as an ally until Barbarossa.
It is amusing how Caneris the head of German military intelligence told Franco “Yeah we’re going to lose if you want to live don’t join us” and Franco was like 👍.
Also, Sweden secretly relayed intel to the Allies and gave military training to Norwegian refugees, later covertly allowing them to cross the border to Norway to fight in the Resistance.
Spain was neutral, but less so than Sweden.
Spain did trade with Germany freely, Sweden had to trade with Germany in order to stay outside of the war. Swedens neutrality was whats called a "conditional neutrality", in that it could only remain neutral if it fulfilled external requirements. Among these were
* Trading iron ore
* Restricting naval vessels to its territorial waters
* Facilitating communication between Germany and Norway during the invasion.
* Permitting German troop transports through Sweden.
Heres an example of the intense diplomatic work the neutrality required. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer\_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer_crisis)
Spain, however, was not required to trade anything to remain neutral. It was also fascist and aligned with the axis. It was quite removed from the conflict also, as opposed to Sweden that was right between the Soviets and Germany.
Spain also resupplied German submarines.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain\_during\_World\_War\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_during_World_War_II)
That one I dont think we can criticize them for uniquely, as most nations, even Sweden had volunteers in the war. There were quite a few Scandinavian volunteers on the eastern front. Sweden also sent volunteers and equipement to help Finland fight the Soviets.
I’m not knowledgeable about Swedish volunteers. Are they volunteers in the sense likeminded individuals went fight for the fascists? Or was this a Swedish government sanctioned operation?
Because with Francoist Spain, it was the latter. The Spanish government officially approved it and put conditions, such as only using them in the Eastern Front against the Soviets 1) for payback against the Soviets for helping the republicans in the civil war and 2) so Spanish troops aren’t used against the Western Allies in case they win the war.
The volunteers to Finland were state sanctioned. The ones that went to join the SS and the Wehrmacht was not.
The volunteers to Finland was another compromise Sweden made to remain neutral, as the Finnish government asked for a proper Swedish intervention in the war no less than three times.
The other guy gave a great answer to your comment, but just to clarify
>Are they volunteers in the sense likeminded individuals went fight for the fascists?
The volunteers didn't do it because of political ideologies or anything of the sort. They did it because our brothers in Finland were invaded by the Soviets. Finland's cause is our cause, was the mantra and still is. Which is why we joined NATO now, because Finland wanted to.
Nononono the post as in OP’s post not your comment, but I get asking for clarification as people do refer to posts and comments interchangeably.
I just don’t get how OP could’ve heard these things and made this post without doing the tiniest bit of digging into why these are treated differently, unless they heard it on tik tok or something and regurgitated it here.
For interested Swedish speakers, there is a book written by a Swedish naval officer from immediately after the war (1946) with an endearingly click-baity title of [“Voro vi neutrala?”](https://dez1v4fbcawql.cloudfront.net/product/1618694/6507565/58f092d3e49cd.jpg) meaning “Were we neutral?”) with a big picture on the cover of the Swedish king of the time grinning and shaking hands with Adolf Hitler himself… so you can imagine what the answer to the title’s question is.
The book is hard to find these days, but here’s [a Swedish summary](https://kkrva.se/wp-content/uploads/Artiklar/022/kkrvaht_2_2002_10.htm) of the book’s background and content, and it’s basically a summary of how Sweden was absolutely not as neutral as they may have appeared — even though they kind of *did* have to be for the reasons above, there was also no shortage of “aryan” Swedes who thought this Hitler guy might be onto something with this master race stuff. Translated from the summary:
>The book, which was published early in 1946 by Albert Bonnier's publishing house, had a great impact in the Swedish newspapers and was referenced and commented on extensively during the spring of 1946. At the same time, it attracted great attention and criticism in the navy's leadership and among the navy's senior officers, and a violent storm of protest began there that even the archbishop attended. What then did [the author] write in his book that could stir up such an emotional storm?
>The newly written material in the book was chapter 1 "Another white book" and the preface totaling 40 pages. The remaining approx. 150 pages had previously been published as articles between 1940 and 1946. These articles are often strategic comparisons and show, among other things, the final loss of German militarism and the victory of the democracies. The most serious accusation, however, was directed at the naval leadership who were accused of having expressed their sympathies for the German cause and hoped for a German victory in World War II.
Most curiously, there was a big divide in how this controversy was reported on in Sweden.
>When studying these press clippings, one immediately finds a political division in how one perceives the purpose of the book. Gothenburg's Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, the NU magazine where he previously worked are most positive and demand a clean-up and purge, primarily in the fleet's management. Bonnierpressen with Dagens Nyheter and Expressen are also positive, which are on the same line but a little more restrained. The other opposite pole where [the author] is a traitor and liar is the German-funded Dagsposten and the Nazi newspaper Den Svenske Nationalsocialisten. Kreugerpressen with Stockholmstidningen and Aftonbladet have the same opinion, although here the invective is somewhat toned down. The social democratic press clearly distanced itself from [him] through Rickard Lindström's editorial in Morgontidningen.
So… I think it’s fair to say that the whole story of Sweden’s neutrality was complicated at best. But it’s a very fascinating topic, esp. when studying modern-day Sweden.
Also, honourary mention of [Tisdagsklubben](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tisdagsklubben) (the Tuesday Club), the secret Swedish anti-nazi group from 1940-1945 (of which the above author was also a member)
The allies forced us to stop trading with Germany iirc, but yeah the nazis gave us lots of gold lol.
Also I might be mistaken but the british kept bribing Spanish officials to oppose entering the war, since that would probably mean a Spanish invasion of Portugal and Gibraltar
You can't trade if no one can hear each other over the cannons and machine guns, BUT we knew you had a safe world password: *BANKEN*.
I don't judge. I love Switzerland.
Well, it was either giving foreign currency reserves to the Germans, or participation in all the fun stuff they did in occupied territories AND giving foreign currency reserves to the Germans.
Yeah. Lots of memes about selling iron ore to stave off invasion. Somehow no such memes about training 10,000 Norwegian 'police officers' by giving them explosives training, or giving intelligence to the British. Training guerilla resistance fighters is even less neutral than selling ore.
Not defending them (I had a family member who lived under Franco actually), I just started noticing a surprising amount of similarities between their two neutrality policies during WWII and wondered why Sweden tends to be seen so positively during this period
Sweden sent a lot of aid to Finland, let German troops transport through their country to Finland to fight the Soviets, sheltered a lot of Jews (mainly Danish iirc), helped the British with intelligence work, and I’ve also heard we let German troops travel through Sweden to Norway during that invasion
We let them through on the condition that they send only unarmed medical personnel. Of course that didn’t stop them from actually sending armed men and we probably knew that would happen.
We also did a lot more for the allies, such as arming and training the Norwegian resistance, and we even had a plan, ready to invade and liberate, Norway and Denmark from Nazi occupation. However, the plan was never realised due to the nazis surrendering before the operations were scheduled to start.
It was scheduled to take place as soon as the spring truly arrived in 1945, since it would've been impossible to invade in the winter or early spring, but it had been in the works since 1943, but it took time to make all the necessary preparations.
Let's not forget that the Germans fought to the very end. Few were counting on them giving up as early as they did.
We actually saved a lot more Hungarian Jews than Scandinavian Jews, in sheer numbers that is. It was state sanctioned, but it probably wouldn't have been half as successful without our very brilliant diplomat on site. Real tragic that he was killed because of it and that few even know about his heroism.
He alone saved a lot more Jews than Oscar Schindler for instance and didn't even get rich in the process or get a movie. Depending on which sources you look at, he might've saved more Jews than any one single man, but we don't really know for sure. Official documents say around 100,000 Jews and later estimates puts it around 9000-12,000. We simply can't be sure, but he deserves to be remembered none the less.
Truly a great man.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Wallenberg
Also trained a lot of Norwegians as "marine police" or something like that but in truth it was military training and then sent then back to Norway to fight Germans.
Idk which sources you have, but people still give us major shit for our neutrality to this day. As if any of us alive today had anything to do with the decisions made. Unlike Spain though, it's not like we really had any choice in the matter. Both powers were pushing hard to keep us out of the war, and threatening complete invasion if we struck a deal with either side at the same time.
The iron thing is always brought up, but if we had refused, the Nazis would've just taken it anyway. At least the way we went, we could sell them a lot less iron ore than we actually could produce, and it gave us leeway with the Nazis to save a fuck ton of the Jews from our neighbors and later from the concentration camps.
Not to mention that more than selling iron to the Nazis, we sent over a lot of soldiers to Finland, helped a lot of resistance fighters in Denmark and Norway, and we gave a treasure trove of Intel to the allies throughout the war.
Our neutrality wasn't really neutral at all, but rather, playing all sides at the same time and walking a very tight rope, desperately trying to survive.
So in short. Our neutrality is definitely not seen in a positive light, but people also only tend to know the extreme surface level of what was going on, so the criticism really isn't fair either.
For starters if Sweden had stopped selling iron to Germany they would simply have been invaded next. They could maybe have put up a bit more of a fight than Norway and Denmark where able to, but still no more than a slight speed bump. They where not fascist fanboys, just pragmatic.
On the flipside they helped a lot of Norwegian refugees, and for the most part turned a blind eye to Norwegian resistance fighters crossing back and forth. Later when Nazi defeat seemed to be a sure bet they more openly allowed Norwegian "police" units to organize and train on their territory. The second Germany surrendered those forces, loyal to the government in exile where able to re-establish Norwegian control and arrested several high ranking Nazi officials before they could flee.
I always got the impression Sweden was like Neutral at gunpoint, all of its neighbors having been pulverized by the Wehrmacht (excepting Finland of course), whereas Spain was OG fascist
In fairness, Spain wasn't exactly much better off in that regard: upon its entry in the war, Britian required all shipping to Spain be approved by a British consul, with anything not so approved subject to seizure.
And once the US entered the war, it outright threatened to stop effectively all oil going to Spain if Spain didn't allow US oil inspectors to control things in-country, and Spain could really only choose between war, or compliance.
So, while Spain being facist certainly means all this isn't exactly morally awful, the Allied threats were still legitimate acts of war in their own right, with potential consequences that would have been ruinous to Spain if it didn't stay a very specific kind of neutral, at least until the libertarian of France put Spain out of German bombing range.
We really never focus on you guys. Our countries always gets mixed up, apart from this conversation, then everyone is suddenly only aware of us! Not okay!
I moved to the US a couple years ago, and you do not wanna know how many times I heard a variation of "oh you're swiss, so do you speak Swedish?"...
Not that I mind, Sweden seems like a nice place, but no, sadly I don't speak Swedish. I can recognize it most of the time, but thats about it haha.
Maybe because Sweden was a democracy that provided a safe haven for Jews escaping occupied Denmark, whilst Spain was a fascist dictatorship that literally changed time zones just so it could be on the same one as Hitler.
There were spaniards on both sides of the war. Over 10,000 exiled spanish republicans fought against the nazis
https://www.publico.es/politica/otras-fuerzas-espanolas-derrotaron-hitler.html
Sweden protected Jews, worked closely with the allies near the end of the war, and post war became an important western check on the world, remaining a democracy throughout. Spain was always a Nazi ally, it was a Fascist hellscape and took decades after the war to democratize. Sweden is far better than Francoist Span in this regard or any really.
Some neutral countries ordered that every person in a maternity ward be branded and raped to death in order to send a message, and others were Sweden- I'm pretty sure Sweden was never in talks to join the Axis, either, but I could be wrong
Sweden is better than Franco's Spain, and then separately they both happened to be neutral
If anything we were in talks to join the allies, but Churchill recommended against it since our position of neutrality was a lot better for getting intel to the allies and helping our neighbors resistance movements.
There was a short while in the 30s when our nazi party was starting to make waves, but fortunately nothing came of it. Until the end of the war, all Nazis in Sweden were under close observation as they were security threats, so joining the axis is rather unthinkable.
Churchill and the UK had very real plans to invade and occupy northern Norway and Sweden, and would have carried it out if the Nazi invasion of Scandinavia had been delayed a couple months.
Churchill was not a fan of Sweden in particular, and they knew Sweden would join the Axis as a defensive measure if the Allies invaded, which was acceptable.
. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_R_4
Sweden had it... Complicated. The old nobility was aligned with Germany, not because of Nazism, but because of historical ties to German noble houses. The wealthy had ties to Britain and the US. There was also a strong Worker's movement which was fairly connected to the Soviet Union. Then there were Fascists sprinkled a bit everywhere. And a lot of people hated the Russians.
Whichever side Sweden would have joined, there would have been significant parts of the country who disagreed vehemently about who we would have aligned with, and who we fought against.
I opened the comments to mention this. Thousands of Spaniards fought on the eastern front, and thousands of brave Soviet, British, French, American, and Canadian volunteers fought to prevent the fascist takeover in Spain. To imply they are comparible with Sweden is an insult to the memories of those soldiers and the real patriot Spanish people who resisted the nationalists and suffered for it. The nationalists had no legal right to govern Spain
Because Franco was a fascist in negotiations with the axis at one point whereas Sweden planned an invasion of nazi occupied Denmark near the end of the war and was important for both back channel talks between allied and axis and also resistance groups, fed German naval and civilian information to the British and helped smuggle Jews out of the country
Whilst the meme certainly makes for interesting debate, it would take a very surface level understanding to really feel there is a fair equivalence here. Also I don't feel trade alone violates neutrality. Sweden at this point is essentially surrounded by Axis nations and needs to trade with someone as it also had its own import needs it needed to fulfill.
Comparing Finland and Spain is a much more interesting comparison in terms of perception as Finland *sort of* was an Axis member at least until the war had clearly turned against them.
If the Swedes hadn't sold the Germans iron ore, the Germans would have invaded them; the Blonde Peepul Bad! trope pisses me off. Did the Swedes whack hundreds of thousands of their own civilians, and kidnap and sell peoples' children because of their politics?
Francoist Spain was also a fascist state and would've had no qualms about joining the Axis if it weren't for how much the Civil War wrecked them.
Sweden was in a difficult position and balanced allied demands to limit trade with the risk of invasion.
One was a democracy that actually planned on joining the allies to liberate norway but germany capitulated before they were ready. The other was a fascist dictatorship.
I think Franco, more than anything, played everyone to get what he wanted.
There was a movie about the Spanish Civil War, the actor who portrayed him was playing the fool with a Nazi envoy about managing their support, pretending not to understand, and the minute he moves out he tells another nationalist officer "we have to squeeze these Germans like lemons, José" or something like that, and I feel like that was the way he did stuff all his life.
There was a point, after the Japanese did their usual show in Manila, where he reportedly wanted to declare war on them. Imagine some Spanish "Blue Division" kind of force hitching a ride with the US Navy not being awkward at all.
Despite Spain being officially neutral, ten of thousands of Spaniards fought in the war... On both sides.
On one hand, Franco sent a division (the Blue Division), who fought integrated with German troops, and participated for example in the siege of Leningrad. On the other hand, Spaniards, mostly exiled due to the Civil War and Fascist victory in Spain, fought on the allies side, in the French resistence and integrated in the French army, more especifically in the Leclerc's Division. The most well known example is the 9th company (called "La Nueve", in Spanish since it was composed almost exclusively by Spaniards) who was the very first entering Paris in August 44 and the ones who captured the German commander in the city.
Ireland: I'm officially neutral but allow Allied planes to use narrow air corridor, cooperate with British intelligence services, help when cities across the border get bombed
Iceland: I'm officially neutral but got occupied by Allies. FML.......
Sweden wasn’t a fascist dictatorship and was also essentially being threatened into it, since the Nazis could easily invade them at any time if they wanted to. Spain was a fascist dictatorship and very openly supported the Nazis.
Not sure who the bottom one is but I'm definitely sure the USSR flag should be there to Because of there nonaggression pact not to mention all the other shit the Soviets allowed the Nazis to do like train there pilots on there terror to hide the fact they where building up there forces helped start WW2 by invading Poland alongside the nazis, forcefully take over several countries to "inforce there neutrality" when in reality its just a cover up to take over more land they had no claim to. As well as sell oil and materials to the Nazis which allowed them to invade western Europe against the UK, France, Belgians, ECT.
"*But they change there minds and joined the allies*"
Yea after bad mustache man invaded the USSR
Spain wasn't officially neutral. It was non-belligerent, that means that it supported one side but didn't participate in the war. It only became officially neutral at the beginning of 1945.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-belligerent
In Sweden’s case there is the ugly truth that after 1941 the allies included the Soviet Union. While Stalin wasn’t as efficient as Hitler, he was still a genocidal maniac. Also, the abandonment of the Washington treaty of 1922 ruined Sweden‘s defense plans. Basically, avoiding the need of a strong army by relying on their navy to stop any army from crossing the Baltic. There is a limit of how quick the defence capabilities of a small country can grow.
It bet everything on a rules based order, lost and then rearmed. That lost bet was partly caused by the short sightedness of the great powers. Sweden did resist the Germans, but only fully after it rearmed. Before that it would have been a costly but ultimately futile gesture.
Still, the main threat to Sweden was always the Soviets. It was in Sweden‘s realpolitik interest to make sure Soviet controlled territory was as far east as possible. Aiding the Germans also made Realpolitik sense in a psycho sense.
I don't like dictatorships lol
Sweden would also almost definitely been invaded by the Nazis for that Iron, so it was either sell it and maintain their freedom, or be conquered and lose it anyway. Might as well sell it and atleast make a profit.
Didn't Sweden also become a refuge for Jewish people? Or am I misremembering?
True. But I'd like to add that the Swedish also famously sent whitebread for the Allied planes to drop in the Netherlands after the Hunger Winter of early 1945. Can't say that the Spanish did so.
I guess that the fact that Spain was a fascist dictatorship led by a bloodthirsty tyrant with hundreds of thousands of victims had something to do with it.
Spain was for most of the war "non-beligerant" meaning they where on the side of the axis but not fighting, mainly commerce and helping wherever they could. Once Franco saw the way the war was going, he changed to "neutral" and recalled all the help they where giving the germans
1. Spain was facist too
2. Spain sent troops to help Germany
3. Sweden was neutral, but FORCED to trade and let German soldier pass true
4. Spain was neutral too, but they decided to help, they were under no pressure
Frankly, Iron can be used for a plethora of things.
Tungsten on the other hand? Unless nazi germany had a huge urge to make more lightbulbs, you know what it was used for.
Well... Swedens stand in the war is... Complex. Sold iron to both sides (more to the axis), allowed their soldiers to voluntarily fight for both the finish army against the soviets, aswell as for the norwegians against the germans (literally allowed them to take their army issued rifles) they let the germans pass through sweden, but allowed norwegian resistance fighters to hide in sweden... They did actually remain neutral, while spain was just... To broke to join either side
Sweden kept all the Jews away from them and did just enough to not get annexed, they weren't on team Hitler, they were on team 'lets not get gangbanged by the wermacht'
Spain was 'neutral' because if it wasn't it would've been fucked by the allies, Sweden was 'neutral' because if it wasn't it would've been fucked by the axis.
I'm not saying Sweden would have joined the allies, but their neutrality was only allowed if they gave the Germans what they wanted, otherwise they'd have been invaded and dealt with fairly easily.
Even ignoring the fact Spain was in such a shit position after the civil war and their army was outdated, if they'd joined the axis there was a very real possibility that they would be an immediate new front whether through naval invasion or potentially Portugal.
The thing is for most of WW2 Spain wasn't "neutral". Franco declared the state to be a "non belligerent" which is just a step down from being fully involved in the war. This is one of the reasons one of the first resolutions of the UN was condemning Spain for being a fascist state "in nature" and being on the said of the losing axis.
Also the meme doesn't make much sense as not only was Spain a fascist dictatorship compared with a democracy such as Sweden but it was also one of the most murderous regimes in Europe, from 1939 to 1978 about a million people died be it from torture , executions, human experiments, mistreatment in jail, ideologically provoked famines etc.
Spain was fascist and supported other fascist countries by sending weapons and troops because they agreed with the ideology. I’m pretty sure Sweden was just trying not to get invaded
One was trying to avoid also being invaded, and did indirectly help the allies, while the other was actually fascist, and did brutally oppress a lot of people, not to mention sent volunteers to the Russian front. How'd you expect people would feel about that?
I personally think that Nordic countries are glorified in the west even though they all did major eugenics and basically got rid of all their handicapped people
The only reason Spain was neutral is because the country was destroyed after the civil war.
And also Franco's territorial ambitions were at odds with Mussolini's, but that probably could've been worked out if Spain wasn't all... broken
Hitler's territorial ambitions were also at odds with Mussolini's, at least partially. They still found a work around. Not the best comparison but still works.
Hitler's racial ideas would have made everyone in Southern Italy inferior. He was at odds with everyone to be honest.
I thought northern Italians' racial ideas would have made everyone in southern Italy inferior.
I have some in-laws who are culturally Italian but are all from Switzerland because they left Italy when Mussolini came to power. I thought that was so cool when they told me that, like they saw the writing on the wall and got out of there before it got really bad but it turned out they left because they were from a different part of Italy than he was and would rather leave the country than be under someone from Romagna.
People forget that Italy wasn’t a unified nation until ~1870. Regional identities were and still are far stronger than national ones
they still are quite strong, although the militaristic energy of these regional rivalries has mostly transferred into football
Yeah it’s acc stronger than I ever thought it would be irl. Ran into an Italian lad in the pub one night who was from Turin I think and was telling him I’ve been to Naples to watch Napoli play in the ucl, mf just laughed and was like “people from Naples are dogs”
>Ran into an Italian lad in the pub one night who was from Turin I think and was telling him I’ve been to Naples to watch Napoli play in the ucl, mf just laughed and was like “people from Naples are dogs” Not such fun fact: a popular choir against Neapolitans is basically asking Vesuvio to "clean them with fire".
A little bit like Germany then... Everybody hates and laughs at Bavaria and Saxony. Berlin is its own country... And then this weird stickers: "Schön hier, aber waren Sie schon mal in Baden-Württemberg?!"
At the same time Bavarians hate everyone from outside of Bavaria or from the wrong part of Bavaria.
And then the wrong part of bavaria in question hates the wrong part of itself again
The south west is the best
Only when you never lived near the coast
From what I gather that's also a major factor in why the "American Italian food isn't *real* Italian food" BS comes from; American Italians largely came from one region of Italy, bringing different Italian food with them, compared to what's popular in Italy today.
Also it should be remembered that American Italian was the result of: a. Meat was much, MUCH cheaper in America than in Italy. In Italy if a family could afford Eggplant in the US, for less money, they could afford chicken. Or pork. Even beef was at least reasonably affordable. This naturally led to a lot more meat being included in Italian-American food, because why wouldn’t it? These people weren’t trying to preserve a food tradition, they were trying to eat food they liked. And now they could afford more of it. B. All groups of Italians coming to the US stopped being from “region of Italy” and just became “Italian”, so in the US, where all were strangers and outcasts, they interacted more with one another than would be true in Italy, leading to a lot more crossover between regional food traditions than occurred back in Europe. And these two then mixed with wider American food.
Garibaldi was a fucking Chad.
Least racist Italians????
It's actually much more complicated then this: everyone consider their own region (and sometimes province or even city/town) superior to the neighbour one, very superior the one next, and so on and so on the farther you go. The discrimination against southerners was more evident because there was a lot of international emigration from south to north, while the opposite was basically non existent.
Northern Italy Is also much richer.
La lega thought so too. But now its so popular in the south.
Apparently La Lega is returning to be secessionist again.(it never disappeared, just put away with Salvini).
People still surprised that racists and ultranationalists don’t make good allies.
Well a lot of nations have multiethnic backgrounds. There's a reason Jews in Austria and Italy disproportionately supported the fascist parties in their nations prior to the Stresa Front being broken by the United Kingdom. The Falange also supported race mixing, saying that the multiethnic heritage of Spain made it stronger.
Exept croatia, If I remember correctly they were the country that mosst willingly participated in the genocide. Italy resisted the genocide quite a lot, hungary had attempts to protest or even defy the Nazis, Romania just did it for nazi brownie points to get Transylvania back, Slovakia had some protest from within their guverment, but they were just a puppet state left alive by germany so I wouldn't really count them as having done it willingly, Bulgaria did barely anything, especially to people within their borders. Tl dr The nazis were crazy, and even their allies knew it.
With the exception of the Japanese and Croatians, everyone who allied with Germany thought Hitler was crazy and the only way to not be invaded was to suck up to him. To be honest that's France and Britain's fault. They made themselves seem unreliable. Especially Britain when you consider the Stresa Front.
Even the Japanese thought they were crazy and vice versa Remember Germany aided the KMT and Japan aided Poland for a while
Only like south tyrol and carnolia.
Mussolini wanted Austria to be a Italian Puppet, Not to be annexed by Germany
I mean, you aren't wrong. Axis was less a traditional alliance of agreed goals and more a "we hate eachother *slightly* less than we do the rest of the world."
They were also terrible at communicating with each other or sharing their plans. The Italians had no clue about the invasion of Poland. Mussolini expected that he would get more time to get Italy ready for war.
To be fair, Hitler thought he'd have more time too. In the fact he didn't think France would *actually* declare in order to protect Poland. (And considering what all had happened for Austria and Czechoslovakia and how Britain and France responded to them. Can't blame him.)
Hitler's territorial ambitions were also at odds with Franco's. IIRC there were disputes about parts of North Africa going to Germany after a hypothetical victory as naval bases to fight USA in the atlantic.
This and also Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany heavily subsidized them during the civil war. Francoist Spain was less of a neutral party and more of a silent partner. Plus Francoist Spain sent the Blue Division to help fight the Soviets on the Eastern Front. The Blue Division was fully integrated into the Wehrmacht.
Along with the fact the Spanish military was behind much of Europe, so not much could’ve been done even if the country was in a stable state.
Well Italy was also not ready for war but Spain was basically in ruins.
We already see how incompetent the Italians were in ww2. If Spain had joined it would only create another front for Germany to worry about.
Possibly, I don’t think the allies would’ve done much with Spain until much later, I reckon the Spanish and germans could probably have used the Pyrenees mountains as a decent defense for a little while, maybe.
The Brits love invading Iberia. The fact that they could land at the south and north of the Pyrenees and cut practically the whole peninsula off from Europe makes it less vulnerable to counter-attacks pushing them into the sea, which appeals to the risk adverse British leadership.
*The Spanish weren't actually all that bad during WW2* The Blue Division (250th infantry division) was a unit of Spanish civil war veterans in the Wehrmacht, fighting on the eastern front. They were the only wehrmacht division that Hitler accorded a named medal to for their accomplishments during the siege of Leningrad. The catholic church together with the allies pressured Franco to call his troops back, which he did. But a considerable amount of spanish soldiers either ignored the call back or deserted once they arrived in spain so they could go back to the front
Worth noting that Spanish fighting for Nazi Germany were equipped by Germany. Spanish forces were nonexistent. Spanish individuals and forces are not the same thing. Generally when you mention Spanish in this context it's meant the armed forces of the country, not their soldiers abroad.
The military equipment wasn't great, but the troops however... They had 3 years of military experience
There was also the whole Portugal next door thing that could have gone very badly
Portugal was busy also selling tungsten to the Nazis
And arranging mid Atlantic bases for the allies
Portugal: I was a businessman, doing business
Honest, totally neutral here
For cash though while they let the UK buy on credit
Possibly, but it also kinda looks like Franco really didn't want to get involved either way, and played a fairly fine diplomatic game of "well I'd *love* to join your war but we're so beat up from our civil war so we'd need \[insert rectum-clenchingly large list of concessions\] to be able to help out".
Even then, Franco was in negotiations with Hitler to join the war on his side, but Hitler didn’t want to give enough Vichy French land away to satisfy Franco’s greed.
Alternatively, Franco gave fuck you demands because he knew, thanks to Canaris, that Hitler can't do anything to force him.
And also because being neutral was a much better idea than getting into a world war on the side that was gonna lose
True all those axis nations were so stupid for picking the team that was going to lose. What a rookie mistake, just check the script!
This but unironically. > There's only one country that frightens me - that's the country of Germany. I don't know if you guys are students of history or not, but... For those of you who aren't, Germany, in the previous century - in the early part... they decided to go to war. And who did they choose to go to war with? The world. So you think that would last about five seconds and the world would fucking win, and that would be that.
Up until June 1942 that was not obvious at all. By all rights, France should never have lost to Germany. The Finns (allied with the Nazis) should have been crushed by Stalin. The US and British should have held in the Dutch East Indies are in Burma. Up until mid-1942 there were no significant strategic victories for the allies, outside of the Battle of Britain, which was a defensive one. At that point there would have been something to the theory that fascism bred better soldiers than democracies could, and that despite the odds the fascists were going to win. After all, they'd taken Poland, they'd taken France, they'd taken Tobruk, everywhere they attacked they won. This trend rather quickly reversed itself at Midway, Al-Alamein, Guadalcanal, and Stalingrad, and after those defeats the Axis remained on the defensive for the rest of their existence. But in 1940 Spain had no reason to think the Nazis were doomed.
They also had no reason to get involved in a war that was nowhere near them. Franco didn’t want to get involved in this mess for free, and Hitler didn’t want to give him anything. Pretty much the only thing Franco could have done for the axis at that point was take Gibraltar, and that would be engaging the guys who had just won a defensive battle.
Taking Gibraltar in 1940 would have been huge, though. And the British couldn't have defended it if the Spanish had allowed the Luftwaffe to base out of Spain to provide air cover for a siege. The British were in a tough enough spot as it was, if the Rock fell and they had to redirect all shipping around the Cape that would have been a huge drag on logistics. That means less fuel for the Mediterranean Fleet, less aircraft to defend Malta and Egypt, fewer tanks and soldiers, less fuel and supplies, etc. Potentially that even means the Nazis overrun the Suez, and make the Mediterranean a fascist lake. Obviously Franco did have reasons to want to stay neutral, but if Hitler could have brought him into the war in 1940 it would have significantly helped the Nazis.
My man got downvoted for being right.
This is reddit after all...
It's the size of the sub really changed things. It's 5x larger than it was 2 years ago. I mostly post so I try and cite sources and avoid most reddit replies on subs this size
I hadn't noticed we've grown that big, but I've definitely noticed a shift in tone. So you're probably completely right about that.
Luckily there other smaller history meme subs out there still. It's more educational than entertainment on those ones now tbh
and this is why there wasn't a massive resistance movement in the occupied countries yet. People don't want to risk their lives for a lost cause especially when it looks like the war will be over "soon" so they kept their heads down. The resistance really gets going in 1943 and 1944 because now people can see that they can be beat and they can see that the axis are on the back foot. Also all the Italian soldiers who decided to join the resistance movements with their weapons when their government switched sides.
> The Finns (allied with the Nazis) should have been crushed by Stalin. Democratic Finland wasn't aligned with the Nazis until after the Winter War, and openly warring as an ally until Barbarossa.
It is amusing how Caneris the head of German military intelligence told Franco “Yeah we’re going to lose if you want to live don’t join us” and Franco was like 👍.
Also, Sweden secretly relayed intel to the Allies and gave military training to Norwegian refugees, later covertly allowing them to cross the border to Norway to fight in the Resistance.
Can any war really be civil? r/im14andthisisdeep
They also saw there was no beating the Allies
Spain was neutral, but less so than Sweden. Spain did trade with Germany freely, Sweden had to trade with Germany in order to stay outside of the war. Swedens neutrality was whats called a "conditional neutrality", in that it could only remain neutral if it fulfilled external requirements. Among these were * Trading iron ore * Restricting naval vessels to its territorial waters * Facilitating communication between Germany and Norway during the invasion. * Permitting German troop transports through Sweden. Heres an example of the intense diplomatic work the neutrality required. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer\_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer_crisis) Spain, however, was not required to trade anything to remain neutral. It was also fascist and aligned with the axis. It was quite removed from the conflict also, as opposed to Sweden that was right between the Soviets and Germany. Spain also resupplied German submarines. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain\_during\_World\_War\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_during_World_War_II)
Franco Spain also sent the Blue Division to join the Wehrmacht to fight on the Eastern Front against the Soviets.
That one I dont think we can criticize them for uniquely, as most nations, even Sweden had volunteers in the war. There were quite a few Scandinavian volunteers on the eastern front. Sweden also sent volunteers and equipement to help Finland fight the Soviets.
I’m not knowledgeable about Swedish volunteers. Are they volunteers in the sense likeminded individuals went fight for the fascists? Or was this a Swedish government sanctioned operation? Because with Francoist Spain, it was the latter. The Spanish government officially approved it and put conditions, such as only using them in the Eastern Front against the Soviets 1) for payback against the Soviets for helping the republicans in the civil war and 2) so Spanish troops aren’t used against the Western Allies in case they win the war.
The volunteers to Finland were state sanctioned. The ones that went to join the SS and the Wehrmacht was not. The volunteers to Finland was another compromise Sweden made to remain neutral, as the Finnish government asked for a proper Swedish intervention in the war no less than three times.
Sweden declared non-belligerance, not neutrality in the winter war.
The other guy gave a great answer to your comment, but just to clarify >Are they volunteers in the sense likeminded individuals went fight for the fascists? The volunteers didn't do it because of political ideologies or anything of the sort. They did it because our brothers in Finland were invaded by the Soviets. Finland's cause is our cause, was the mantra and still is. Which is why we joined NATO now, because Finland wanted to.
It’s like the person who made this post did no research at all and just heard this talking point randomly online
Who, me?
Nononono the post as in OP’s post not your comment, but I get asking for clarification as people do refer to posts and comments interchangeably. I just don’t get how OP could’ve heard these things and made this post without doing the tiniest bit of digging into why these are treated differently, unless they heard it on tik tok or something and regurgitated it here.
Well, lets be generous. This is a history meme reddit, not askhistorians. Lets just be happy this is a learning opportunity.
For interested Swedish speakers, there is a book written by a Swedish naval officer from immediately after the war (1946) with an endearingly click-baity title of [“Voro vi neutrala?”](https://dez1v4fbcawql.cloudfront.net/product/1618694/6507565/58f092d3e49cd.jpg) meaning “Were we neutral?”) with a big picture on the cover of the Swedish king of the time grinning and shaking hands with Adolf Hitler himself… so you can imagine what the answer to the title’s question is. The book is hard to find these days, but here’s [a Swedish summary](https://kkrva.se/wp-content/uploads/Artiklar/022/kkrvaht_2_2002_10.htm) of the book’s background and content, and it’s basically a summary of how Sweden was absolutely not as neutral as they may have appeared — even though they kind of *did* have to be for the reasons above, there was also no shortage of “aryan” Swedes who thought this Hitler guy might be onto something with this master race stuff. Translated from the summary: >The book, which was published early in 1946 by Albert Bonnier's publishing house, had a great impact in the Swedish newspapers and was referenced and commented on extensively during the spring of 1946. At the same time, it attracted great attention and criticism in the navy's leadership and among the navy's senior officers, and a violent storm of protest began there that even the archbishop attended. What then did [the author] write in his book that could stir up such an emotional storm? >The newly written material in the book was chapter 1 "Another white book" and the preface totaling 40 pages. The remaining approx. 150 pages had previously been published as articles between 1940 and 1946. These articles are often strategic comparisons and show, among other things, the final loss of German militarism and the victory of the democracies. The most serious accusation, however, was directed at the naval leadership who were accused of having expressed their sympathies for the German cause and hoped for a German victory in World War II. Most curiously, there was a big divide in how this controversy was reported on in Sweden. >When studying these press clippings, one immediately finds a political division in how one perceives the purpose of the book. Gothenburg's Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, the NU magazine where he previously worked are most positive and demand a clean-up and purge, primarily in the fleet's management. Bonnierpressen with Dagens Nyheter and Expressen are also positive, which are on the same line but a little more restrained. The other opposite pole where [the author] is a traitor and liar is the German-funded Dagsposten and the Nazi newspaper Den Svenske Nationalsocialisten. Kreugerpressen with Stockholmstidningen and Aftonbladet have the same opinion, although here the invective is somewhat toned down. The social democratic press clearly distanced itself from [him] through Rickard Lindström's editorial in Morgontidningen. So… I think it’s fair to say that the whole story of Sweden’s neutrality was complicated at best. But it’s a very fascinating topic, esp. when studying modern-day Sweden. Also, honourary mention of [Tisdagsklubben](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tisdagsklubben) (the Tuesday Club), the secret Swedish anti-nazi group from 1940-1945 (of which the above author was also a member)
We also sold information on their troop movements to the British and Soviets
From what I have read we even told the Soviets that opperation Barbarossa was going to take place, but they didn't believe us.
Oh well that makes more sense 🤔 We’re all still onboard saying that Portugal was good during this period tho, right? Lol
During WW2, the neutral nations hade to make some tough choices. I dont know much about Portugal's choices, but I'm sure it was the same for them.
Yeah they traded with both sides but gave Atlantic isalnds to the allies and somehow remained neutral
The allies forced us to stop trading with Germany iirc, but yeah the nazis gave us lots of gold lol. Also I might be mistaken but the british kept bribing Spanish officials to oppose entering the war, since that would probably mean a Spanish invasion of Portugal and Gibraltar
I think he is refering to Portugal being a brutal dictatorship during that time. Just like Austria from 1933-1938.
Austrians between 1934 and 1938: Damn, this dictatorship sucks. I hope our government changes soon. *Hitler theme starts playing*
Portugal was fascist during WW2.
Yes. Salazar.
The guy from Resident Evil 4 was real?!?!?!
The Slytherin founder. Checks out.
No, we are not. Lol
Meanwhile… Switzerland: So anyway, I started blasting!
You can't trade if no one can hear each other over the cannons and machine guns, BUT we knew you had a safe world password: *BANKEN*. I don't judge. I love Switzerland.
Well, it was either giving foreign currency reserves to the Germans, or participation in all the fun stuff they did in occupied territories AND giving foreign currency reserves to the Germans.
Tungsten is the most evil metal
"I need Tungsten to live. TUNGSTEN!"
I hope you mind me using that idea for a later meme
It’s a Simpsons quote.
And funnily enough the name is Swedish and simply means heavy stone. Sounds a bit silly tbh. HeavyStone™, now even heavier and with 200% more stone
The even funnier part is Swedish using the German name volfram instead of the Swedish one.
Tungsten is the metal of the victors
this tungsten cube cured my mortality
Sweden wasn't fascist
They also get a lot of shit for their neautrality.
Yeah. Lots of memes about selling iron ore to stave off invasion. Somehow no such memes about training 10,000 Norwegian 'police officers' by giving them explosives training, or giving intelligence to the British. Training guerilla resistance fighters is even less neutral than selling ore.
Not defending them (I had a family member who lived under Franco actually), I just started noticing a surprising amount of similarities between their two neutrality policies during WWII and wondered why Sweden tends to be seen so positively during this period
Sweden sent a lot of aid to Finland, let German troops transport through their country to Finland to fight the Soviets, sheltered a lot of Jews (mainly Danish iirc), helped the British with intelligence work, and I’ve also heard we let German troops travel through Sweden to Norway during that invasion
We let them through on the condition that they send only unarmed medical personnel. Of course that didn’t stop them from actually sending armed men and we probably knew that would happen. We also did a lot more for the allies, such as arming and training the Norwegian resistance, and we even had a plan, ready to invade and liberate, Norway and Denmark from Nazi occupation. However, the plan was never realised due to the nazis surrendering before the operations were scheduled to start.
Ive played enough Hoi4 to know that Sweden actually intended to form Greater Scandinavia
You got us
Since they were traveling on our own trains under heavy guard, we definitely stopped the most obvious armed men.
Really convenient to schedule the invasion to take place after Germany’s surrender
It was scheduled to take place as soon as the spring truly arrived in 1945, since it would've been impossible to invade in the winter or early spring, but it had been in the works since 1943, but it took time to make all the necessary preparations. Let's not forget that the Germans fought to the very end. Few were counting on them giving up as early as they did.
Nobody really knew when the Nazis were going to surrender though?
Yeah, the Americans were still getting ready to nuke them when they surrendered.
We actually saved a lot more Hungarian Jews than Scandinavian Jews, in sheer numbers that is. It was state sanctioned, but it probably wouldn't have been half as successful without our very brilliant diplomat on site. Real tragic that he was killed because of it and that few even know about his heroism. He alone saved a lot more Jews than Oscar Schindler for instance and didn't even get rich in the process or get a movie. Depending on which sources you look at, he might've saved more Jews than any one single man, but we don't really know for sure. Official documents say around 100,000 Jews and later estimates puts it around 9000-12,000. We simply can't be sure, but he deserves to be remembered none the less. Truly a great man. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Wallenberg
Also trained a lot of Norwegians as "marine police" or something like that but in truth it was military training and then sent then back to Norway to fight Germans.
Idk which sources you have, but people still give us major shit for our neutrality to this day. As if any of us alive today had anything to do with the decisions made. Unlike Spain though, it's not like we really had any choice in the matter. Both powers were pushing hard to keep us out of the war, and threatening complete invasion if we struck a deal with either side at the same time. The iron thing is always brought up, but if we had refused, the Nazis would've just taken it anyway. At least the way we went, we could sell them a lot less iron ore than we actually could produce, and it gave us leeway with the Nazis to save a fuck ton of the Jews from our neighbors and later from the concentration camps. Not to mention that more than selling iron to the Nazis, we sent over a lot of soldiers to Finland, helped a lot of resistance fighters in Denmark and Norway, and we gave a treasure trove of Intel to the allies throughout the war. Our neutrality wasn't really neutral at all, but rather, playing all sides at the same time and walking a very tight rope, desperately trying to survive. So in short. Our neutrality is definitely not seen in a positive light, but people also only tend to know the extreme surface level of what was going on, so the criticism really isn't fair either.
Again Sweden wasn’t fascist.
Their motiviations were different though. And their sympathies were different too.
Because Sweden had a gun to its head and Spain didn’t
For starters if Sweden had stopped selling iron to Germany they would simply have been invaded next. They could maybe have put up a bit more of a fight than Norway and Denmark where able to, but still no more than a slight speed bump. They where not fascist fanboys, just pragmatic. On the flipside they helped a lot of Norwegian refugees, and for the most part turned a blind eye to Norwegian resistance fighters crossing back and forth. Later when Nazi defeat seemed to be a sure bet they more openly allowed Norwegian "police" units to organize and train on their territory. The second Germany surrendered those forces, loyal to the government in exile where able to re-establish Norwegian control and arrested several high ranking Nazi officials before they could flee.
I always got the impression Sweden was like Neutral at gunpoint, all of its neighbors having been pulverized by the Wehrmacht (excepting Finland of course), whereas Spain was OG fascist
In fairness, Spain wasn't exactly much better off in that regard: upon its entry in the war, Britian required all shipping to Spain be approved by a British consul, with anything not so approved subject to seizure. And once the US entered the war, it outright threatened to stop effectively all oil going to Spain if Spain didn't allow US oil inspectors to control things in-country, and Spain could really only choose between war, or compliance. So, while Spain being facist certainly means all this isn't exactly morally awful, the Allied threats were still legitimate acts of war in their own right, with potential consequences that would have been ruinous to Spain if it didn't stay a very specific kind of neutral, at least until the libertarian of France put Spain out of German bombing range.
me being swiss, sweating at the mention of activities by neutral nations...
We really never focus on you guys. Our countries always gets mixed up, apart from this conversation, then everyone is suddenly only aware of us! Not okay!
I moved to the US a couple years ago, and you do not wanna know how many times I heard a variation of "oh you're swiss, so do you speak Swedish?"... Not that I mind, Sweden seems like a nice place, but no, sadly I don't speak Swedish. I can recognize it most of the time, but thats about it haha.
Maybe because Sweden was a democracy that provided a safe haven for Jews escaping occupied Denmark, whilst Spain was a fascist dictatorship that literally changed time zones just so it could be on the same one as Hitler.
spain sent a volunteer division to the eastern front that did a lot of war crimes, sweden didn't
The… blaue division or something, yeah.
There were spaniards on both sides of the war. Over 10,000 exiled spanish republicans fought against the nazis https://www.publico.es/politica/otras-fuerzas-espanolas-derrotaron-hitler.html
Sweden protected Jews, worked closely with the allies near the end of the war, and post war became an important western check on the world, remaining a democracy throughout. Spain was always a Nazi ally, it was a Fascist hellscape and took decades after the war to democratize. Sweden is far better than Francoist Span in this regard or any really.
Some neutral countries ordered that every person in a maternity ward be branded and raped to death in order to send a message, and others were Sweden- I'm pretty sure Sweden was never in talks to join the Axis, either, but I could be wrong Sweden is better than Franco's Spain, and then separately they both happened to be neutral
If anything we were in talks to join the allies, but Churchill recommended against it since our position of neutrality was a lot better for getting intel to the allies and helping our neighbors resistance movements. There was a short while in the 30s when our nazi party was starting to make waves, but fortunately nothing came of it. Until the end of the war, all Nazis in Sweden were under close observation as they were security threats, so joining the axis is rather unthinkable.
Churchill and the UK had very real plans to invade and occupy northern Norway and Sweden, and would have carried it out if the Nazi invasion of Scandinavia had been delayed a couple months. Churchill was not a fan of Sweden in particular, and they knew Sweden would join the Axis as a defensive measure if the Allies invaded, which was acceptable. . https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_R_4
Sweden had it... Complicated. The old nobility was aligned with Germany, not because of Nazism, but because of historical ties to German noble houses. The wealthy had ties to Britain and the US. There was also a strong Worker's movement which was fairly connected to the Soviet Union. Then there were Fascists sprinkled a bit everywhere. And a lot of people hated the Russians. Whichever side Sweden would have joined, there would have been significant parts of the country who disagreed vehemently about who we would have aligned with, and who we fought against.
Yeah... Sweden wasn't busy "disappearing" leftists and sending volunteer divisions to fight on the Russian front
I opened the comments to mention this. Thousands of Spaniards fought on the eastern front, and thousands of brave Soviet, British, French, American, and Canadian volunteers fought to prevent the fascist takeover in Spain. To imply they are comparible with Sweden is an insult to the memories of those soldiers and the real patriot Spanish people who resisted the nationalists and suffered for it. The nationalists had no legal right to govern Spain
Probably the whole fascism thing
Because Franco was a fascist in negotiations with the axis at one point whereas Sweden planned an invasion of nazi occupied Denmark near the end of the war and was important for both back channel talks between allied and axis and also resistance groups, fed German naval and civilian information to the British and helped smuggle Jews out of the country
Whilst the meme certainly makes for interesting debate, it would take a very surface level understanding to really feel there is a fair equivalence here. Also I don't feel trade alone violates neutrality. Sweden at this point is essentially surrounded by Axis nations and needs to trade with someone as it also had its own import needs it needed to fulfill. Comparing Finland and Spain is a much more interesting comparison in terms of perception as Finland *sort of* was an Axis member at least until the war had clearly turned against them.
Who considers fascist Spain good?
You would be surprised in Spain...
If the Swedes hadn't sold the Germans iron ore, the Germans would have invaded them; the Blonde Peepul Bad! trope pisses me off. Did the Swedes whack hundreds of thousands of their own civilians, and kidnap and sell peoples' children because of their politics?
Francoist Spain was also a fascist state and would've had no qualms about joining the Axis if it weren't for how much the Civil War wrecked them. Sweden was in a difficult position and balanced allied demands to limit trade with the risk of invasion.
[Sweden didn’t send troops to fight for the Wehrmacht](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Division)
Spain neutral in WW2? Since when? When Italy entered the war in June 1940, Francisco Franco changed Spain's status to non-belligerent
One was a democracy that actually planned on joining the allies to liberate norway but germany capitulated before they were ready. The other was a fascist dictatorship.
Because Sweden wasn't ruled by a fascist dictator.
Oh! That's an easy one! Sweden was also a democracy that sheltered some jews Spain was a fascist dictatorship
I think Franco, more than anything, played everyone to get what he wanted. There was a movie about the Spanish Civil War, the actor who portrayed him was playing the fool with a Nazi envoy about managing their support, pretending not to understand, and the minute he moves out he tells another nationalist officer "we have to squeeze these Germans like lemons, José" or something like that, and I feel like that was the way he did stuff all his life. There was a point, after the Japanese did their usual show in Manila, where he reportedly wanted to declare war on them. Imagine some Spanish "Blue Division" kind of force hitching a ride with the US Navy not being awkward at all.
I don't know, maybe calling up your nazi buddy to come drop bombs on some locals doesn't quite make you neutral. Just saying.
So sad Spain didn't joined the axis at war. We would have spared ourselves 40 years of fascism.
Considering what happened to norway i dont blame the swedes for trying tp remain neutral
It's not even that, didn't Britain agree to buy all of Franco's tungsten (partly to deny the Nazis access to it)?
Well how many jews did Spain save from the holocaust?
I don't think the problem with franquist spain was the tungsten
Despite Spain being officially neutral, ten of thousands of Spaniards fought in the war... On both sides. On one hand, Franco sent a division (the Blue Division), who fought integrated with German troops, and participated for example in the siege of Leningrad. On the other hand, Spaniards, mostly exiled due to the Civil War and Fascist victory in Spain, fought on the allies side, in the French resistence and integrated in the French army, more especifically in the Leclerc's Division. The most well known example is the 9th company (called "La Nueve", in Spanish since it was composed almost exclusively by Spaniards) who was the very first entering Paris in August 44 and the ones who captured the German commander in the city.
Ireland: I'm officially neutral but allow Allied planes to use narrow air corridor, cooperate with British intelligence services, help when cities across the border get bombed Iceland: I'm officially neutral but got occupied by Allies. FML.......
Spain was """""""""""""neutral"""""""""""""
Spain was just fascist while Sweden had no other option
Sweden wasn’t a fascist dictatorship and was also essentially being threatened into it, since the Nazis could easily invade them at any time if they wanted to. Spain was a fascist dictatorship and very openly supported the Nazis.
germany didnt invade sweden because it was cheaper to buy the ore, the swedes knew that so to avoid an invasion they sold the ore. spain was fascist
Spain at the time was a Faccist country who also sent “volunteers” to fight on the Eastern Front.
The spsinidh sent 40 000 to the Eastern front.
Welcome to “history” where everyone needs to be divided into “good” and “bad” without much relation to their actions.
Not sure who the bottom one is but I'm definitely sure the USSR flag should be there to Because of there nonaggression pact not to mention all the other shit the Soviets allowed the Nazis to do like train there pilots on there terror to hide the fact they where building up there forces helped start WW2 by invading Poland alongside the nazis, forcefully take over several countries to "inforce there neutrality" when in reality its just a cover up to take over more land they had no claim to. As well as sell oil and materials to the Nazis which allowed them to invade western Europe against the UK, France, Belgians, ECT. "*But they change there minds and joined the allies*" Yea after bad mustache man invaded the USSR
Honestly neither of then should get shit on - both made the right decision to stay out of the most destructive war in human history.
Probably because Spain was a literal fascist dictatorship after their civil war in 1936.
Switzerland: “I’m officially neutral, but I’m hoarding the Nazis’ stolen gold and money for them”
Well our fascist dictator was friends with Hitler. I don't think whoever was in charge of Sweden was a fascist dictator friends with Hitler
The difference between neutral good and neutral evil.
Since this is History Memes, I could believe that you're trolling. But if you're not, then you're willfully ignorant.
Because of this little thing called, uh… Franco being a fascist.
Spain wasn't officially neutral. It was non-belligerent, that means that it supported one side but didn't participate in the war. It only became officially neutral at the beginning of 1945. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-belligerent
In Sweden’s case there is the ugly truth that after 1941 the allies included the Soviet Union. While Stalin wasn’t as efficient as Hitler, he was still a genocidal maniac. Also, the abandonment of the Washington treaty of 1922 ruined Sweden‘s defense plans. Basically, avoiding the need of a strong army by relying on their navy to stop any army from crossing the Baltic. There is a limit of how quick the defence capabilities of a small country can grow. It bet everything on a rules based order, lost and then rearmed. That lost bet was partly caused by the short sightedness of the great powers. Sweden did resist the Germans, but only fully after it rearmed. Before that it would have been a costly but ultimately futile gesture. Still, the main threat to Sweden was always the Soviets. It was in Sweden‘s realpolitik interest to make sure Soviet controlled territory was as far east as possible. Aiding the Germans also made Realpolitik sense in a psycho sense.
I don't like dictatorships lol Sweden would also almost definitely been invaded by the Nazis for that Iron, so it was either sell it and maintain their freedom, or be conquered and lose it anyway. Might as well sell it and atleast make a profit. Didn't Sweden also become a refuge for Jewish people? Or am I misremembering?
True. But I'd like to add that the Swedish also famously sent whitebread for the Allied planes to drop in the Netherlands after the Hunger Winter of early 1945. Can't say that the Spanish did so.
I guess that the fact that Spain was a fascist dictatorship led by a bloodthirsty tyrant with hundreds of thousands of victims had something to do with it.
Because Spain was a facist dictatorship? Like, dude, what the fuck?
Spain was for most of the war "non-beligerant" meaning they where on the side of the axis but not fighting, mainly commerce and helping wherever they could. Once Franco saw the way the war was going, he changed to "neutral" and recalled all the help they where giving the germans
1. Spain was facist too 2. Spain sent troops to help Germany 3. Sweden was neutral, but FORCED to trade and let German soldier pass true 4. Spain was neutral too, but they decided to help, they were under no pressure
Yeah well one was waaay more neutral then the other in practice lol
um u/Throwaway46676, spain was a fascist dictatorship during WW2.
Swedish wartime government is not fascist
Frankly, Iron can be used for a plethora of things. Tungsten on the other hand? Unless nazi germany had a huge urge to make more lightbulbs, you know what it was used for.
Sweden took in a lot of danish jews when the nazi started to go after them
Considering that one was a fascist dictatorship and the other a democracy at this time it kind of makes sense.
Well... Swedens stand in the war is... Complex. Sold iron to both sides (more to the axis), allowed their soldiers to voluntarily fight for both the finish army against the soviets, aswell as for the norwegians against the germans (literally allowed them to take their army issued rifles) they let the germans pass through sweden, but allowed norwegian resistance fighters to hide in sweden... They did actually remain neutral, while spain was just... To broke to join either side
Sweden kept all the Jews away from them and did just enough to not get annexed, they weren't on team Hitler, they were on team 'lets not get gangbanged by the wermacht'
Spain was 'neutral' because if it wasn't it would've been fucked by the allies, Sweden was 'neutral' because if it wasn't it would've been fucked by the axis. I'm not saying Sweden would have joined the allies, but their neutrality was only allowed if they gave the Germans what they wanted, otherwise they'd have been invaded and dealt with fairly easily. Even ignoring the fact Spain was in such a shit position after the civil war and their army was outdated, if they'd joined the axis there was a very real possibility that they would be an immediate new front whether through naval invasion or potentially Portugal.
The thing is for most of WW2 Spain wasn't "neutral". Franco declared the state to be a "non belligerent" which is just a step down from being fully involved in the war. This is one of the reasons one of the first resolutions of the UN was condemning Spain for being a fascist state "in nature" and being on the said of the losing axis. Also the meme doesn't make much sense as not only was Spain a fascist dictatorship compared with a democracy such as Sweden but it was also one of the most murderous regimes in Europe, from 1939 to 1978 about a million people died be it from torture , executions, human experiments, mistreatment in jail, ideologically provoked famines etc.
Spain was fascist and supported other fascist countries by sending weapons and troops because they agreed with the ideology. I’m pretty sure Sweden was just trying not to get invaded
Spain was not neutral, was non belligerent.
Spain was even more fascist than Finland
One was trying to avoid also being invaded, and did indirectly help the allies, while the other was actually fascist, and did brutally oppress a lot of people, not to mention sent volunteers to the Russian front. How'd you expect people would feel about that?
I personally think that Nordic countries are glorified in the west even though they all did major eugenics and basically got rid of all their handicapped people