Thursday, February 23, 2006

One last note

I know I said I was done with this subject, but re-reading one of the comments (which may well have been a spoof because it was so ridiculous, but anyway..)

Commenter "porcupine" said...Why did Hitler call Switzerland the "small porcupine"? Why did he not attack them? The populace is armed.

Riiiiight. Let's think about it. Germany attacks the leading industrial powers of the world, and has the Luftwaffe and, you know, panzer tanks, but avoids Switzerland because Bruno and Gerhardt have squirrel rifles.

Thanks for playing.

1 comment:

schmidlap said...

Yes, it was hunting rifles that kept them safe in die Schweiz.

I'm sure Hitler leaving them alone had nothing to do with the fact that the Swiss banking system was where the Nazis kept all the loot they stole from Jewish families, businesses, etc. as they were savagely butchered.

I wonder if it's also possible that "porcupine" might refer to the fact that Switzerland is almost entirely composed of extremely mountainous terrain? A relief map of Switzerland is, indeed, very pointy. This would have presented enormous tactical difficulties for the very "heavy" German army of that time. Taking over the Alps with Panzers would have been a real bitch.

But I am just another weak-kneed America hater, so what do I know.