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As Russia-Ukraine has shown you can take stuff by force without creating big scale war. And remember how Hitler just went state shopping before there was a war?

• ekianjo 10y ago
  > And remember how Hitler just went state shopping before there was a war? Hitler went state shopping because the regions he started to invade had a majority of German speaking folks. As soon as he started to do something else (i.e. Poland) it started a war.
• 21 10y ago
  So you are saying that Germany would begin military action against Switzerland for $50 billion worth of gold (rough value of 1000 tons of gold). How much damage to the Euro and to the European stock markets would such action cause? Not to mention other costs
  • Iv 10y ago
    I think that if Germany tries again to invade a neighbor, EU is over.
  • celticninja 10y ago
    Switzerland don't have any German gold according to the article.
  • erikb 10y ago
    Not 100% what I'm saying. I'm saying that if Switzerland holds a lot of Germanys gold and has promised to give access whenever and don't hold up to that promise, Germany just moving some tanks over, then taking the gold, then moving the tanks back, is quite a possible scenario. Yes that would harm the EU in short term (1-5 years). But so would it get hurt if a powerful member of that alliance is not able to enforce rightful demands. Anyways if we include the EU into the discussion, it's very likely that a lot of other steps would convince Switzerland before the first tank needs to get manned.
    • NotSammyHagar 10y ago
      Such an action would destroy trillions of dollars of wealth. For less than apple has in cash. It doesn't make sense, $50 billion of gold is still just $50 billion.
    • vsl 10y ago
      The point is, not really possible, given Swiss defense system. Have you been to Switzerland? That country is a fortress.