But you do have to admit that Sweden, Switzerland and other neutral countries were essentially just buying time, there was no way that Hitler would have let them stay independent if they would have conquered he rest of Europe.
While Poland did make a stand against them, if every country in Europe had the same mentality of Sweden and Switzerland, we will just give them what they want and hopefully they will leave us alone, what would have happened to the world? Also do you think on a personal level what Switzerland and Sweden did was right?
Yes, they were buying time. If, and I say again, IF, Barbarossa had been a sucess, Sealion had been done with and the war would have been won, I'm pretty sure Hitler would want at least cooperative regimes in all european countries, ideally nationalists.
However, that's not how things turned out. Now, in retrospect, I see no issues on the neutrality of Sweden/Switzerland. I mean, the war would have been won without the military aid of either of these countries.
As whether or not it is right or not, see it like this. A Swedish/Swiss military intervention before 1940 would have failed miserably, and an attack after 1941 would not have mattered, as the war was lost as soon as Hitler commenced Barbarossa.
It would have caused thousands of deaths while accomplishing next to nothing. So yes, I do believe that staying neutral was the way to go, and I earnestly believe we would have seen alot more neutral european countries during this era if Hitler had not attacked the first. Denmark and Norway, for example, did not want to join the war, the war came to them.
Also, regarding as to why, there were sound, tactical reasons for the invasion of norway ( From the nazi's perspective), Hitler wanted to avoid having his navy trapped in the baltic sea as in WW1, and the Norwegian ports were of huge strategic importance to the Nazi, as they could use them to intercept convoys headed for Murmansk.
Much as I hate to defend the Nazis, and make no misstake, I do not symphatize with their ideology, I remember reading that hitler had no interests in Western Europe, and he had plans of releasing the french under a cooperative government, which is likely what he would have done with the British as well, had he invaded them.
I'm going to post a reply I wrote on another website a few weeks back:
Spoiler
Hitler was a nationalist. His ideas was of a Aryan, or Germanic, race superior to others. When the Germans went to war, a major reason was room to live, or "lebensraum". This would encompass modern day Germany and everything west of the Urals , give or take. Hitler wasn't into World dominance, he wanted to establish a nation for the Germans.
With this in mind, it is rather easy to imagine the alliance and seeing it as natural. Both Japan and Germany were nationalistic, meaning that they shared rather similiar ways on immigration, assimilation and the kind.
This meant that, if things went Hitler's way, the Germans would have a nation in Eurasia, and the Japanese one in Far-east Asia. As both of them have ideas that their own people is superior, immigration and cultural mixing will be minimal, to the benefit of both.
