Dr. Halbrook is an attorney who represented the sheriffs
in their successful challenge to the Brady Act before the
US Supreme Court.
FYI (copy below):
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/stagnaro5.html
AOL users click here

An Interview With Stephen P. Halbrook

by Carlo Stagnaro

When it comes to World War II, most people tend to figure
out only two actors: the Axis vs. the Allies. In modern
terms, it was a clash of civilization, so to speak, where
the champions of Good and Evil fought to the death. Of
course, reality is never so simple, as any individualist
could point out.

The “great history” is known to everyone. But few know the
role of Switzerland during the conflict. That small country
succeeded in preserving its traditional liberty even when
Hitler was supposed to win the war and establish a New World
Order. Swiss citizens were always united in opposition to
the Nazi dictatorship. Nor did they sign any sort of
alliance with Britain, the US, and the Soviet Union. They
had the policy of armed neutrality, and deterrence was their
major arm – leave aside the weapons privately owned, which
posed a major threat to any invading army, German, Soviet,
or otherwise.

Recently I talked about Swiss behavior during WW2, and tried
to learn something useful for our own future, with Stephen
P. Halbrook, author of Target Switzerland. Swiss Armed
Neutrality in World War II. Mr. Halbrook also authored
several books and articles about the right to keep and bear
arms: among them, the famous That Every Man Be Armed. The
Evolution of a Constitutional Right.

STAGNARO: Many people believe Switzerland was quite
“collaborationist” with Nazi Germany during the Second World
War. Your book shows things went differently. How could
the Swiss defend their independence without compromising
with the regime of Hitler?

HALBROOK: Every man in Switzerland had a rifle at home.
Shooting was the national sport. A look at a map shows
tiny, democratic Switzerland surrounded by the Axis powers
stretching all over Europe and into Russia and North Africa.
This nation of riflemen situated in the Alps managed to
remain neutral and to dissuade a Nazi invasion.

Winston Churchill, England’s wartime leader, wrote as the
Allies were engaged in conquering Germany in 1944: “Of all
the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right to
distinction. . . . She has been a democratic State,
standing for freedom in self-defence among her mountains,
and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side.”

By contrast, the year before, Adolf Hitler stated that “all
the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must
be liquidated as fast as possible,” and that if necessary he
would become known as the “Butcher of the Swiss.”

But Hitler knew that the Swiss were gun owners and that many
Nazis would be butchered in the process. Located in Bern,
American spy Allen Dulles, the head of the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS), explained: “At the peak of its
mobilization Switzerland had 850,000 men under arms or
standing in reserve, a fifth of the total population. . . .
That Switzerland did not have to fight was thanks to its
will to resist and its large investment of men and equipment
in its own defense. The cost to Germany of an invasion of
Switzerland would certainly have been very high.”

Incidentally, Italian partisan leaders would slip over the
border into Ticino, the Italian-speaking Swiss canton, and
arrange with the OSS for air drops of supplies to their
mountain bases.

STAGNARO: German generals studied several plans to invade
Switzerland. All of them worried about the strength of the
Swiss army, as well as about the ability of Swiss to make
them pay a very high price. Let’s play history-fiction:
had the Germans really tried an invasion, what fate would
they have been likely to find?

HALBROOK: When Hitler came to power in 1933, Nazi
propaganda depicted Switzerland as one of several countries
to be annexed as part of “Greater Germany.” Unlike the
other European neutrals, which spent money for the welfare
state, the Swiss immediately began military preparations to
repel an eventual German attack. In 1940, Switzerland was a
potential southern invasion route to France, while Belgium
and Holland were the northern invasion routes. The Germans
avoided Switzerland, where every man was armed and the
spirit of resistance predominated.

Just after the fall of France, the German forces devised
several new invasion plans against Switzerland – the Nazis
would occupy the German and French speaking areas, and
Fascist Italy would occupy the Italian speaking area. These
plans acknowledged that the Swiss were well-trained
marksmen, and recommended considerable forces for the
attack. While Hitler hated Switzerland – which he called a
“pimple” on the face of Europe – for refusing to join the
New Order, he was distracted by the Battle of Britain and
then by Operation Barbarossa, the battle with the Soviet
Union in 1941.

Yet just days before the assault on Russia, Hitler and
Mussolini met on the Brenner. The record states: “The
F?hrer characterized Switzerland as the most despicable and
wretched people and national entity. The Swiss were the
mortal enemies of the new Germany.” The Duce called
Switzerland “an anachronism.” Attack plans against
Switzerland continued to be made.

When the Fascist government collapsed and the liberation of
southern Italy began, Germany occupied northern Italy –
which greatly increased the risk to Switzerland. Germany
wanted the Swiss Alpine routes to ship soldiers and weapons,
and the Swiss refused. But Switzerland provided sanctuary
to Italian and French partisans and refugees.

A Nazi invasion of Switzerland during any of the above
periods would have faced the following: The Swiss border
forces would have fought to the death and would have been
eliminated. But the bridges and roads were charged with
explosives and would be destroyed, as would the Gotthard and
Simplon tunnels on the Alpine routes to Italy.

The Swiss forces were concentrated in the Alpine R?duit.
Panzers and the Luftwaffe could not operate in these steep
mountains. Wehrmacht infantry would have been subjected to
murderous fire from artillery hidden in mountain sides.
Swiss forces could hold out indefinitely in the Alps.

Any German occupation of parts of Switzerland would have had
extreme costs in blood. Unlike any country Germany
occupied, every Swiss man had a rifle at home. The Swiss
government and military ordered that no surrender would take
place, and any report of a surrender was to be regarded as
enemy propaganda. The Swiss would have waged a partisan war
unequaled in European history. While many Swiss would have
been killed, the invaders would have faced a Swiss sniper
behind every tree and every rock.

STAGNARO: You make a strong point in defense of the Swiss
military organization: Switzerland could resist against
Germany thanks to its armed citizenry. Do you believe this
system is still good, despite the dramatic changes we have
experienced in the last decades, both in the kind of enemies
(e.g., terrorism) and in the ways of waging wars?

HALBROOK: Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was
the guest of the Swiss government to observe military
maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: “You are
500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000
men what will you do?” The soldier replied: “We will shoot
twice and go home.”

Still today, every Swiss male on reaching age 20 years old
is required to attend recruit school and issued a Fucile
d’assalto 90 (model 1990, 5.6 mm selective fire rifle) to
keep at home. Many women also participate in the shooting
sports, as do teenagers and elderly persons. Weapons are
carried so commonly on public transportation, around towns,
and to hotels – especially when a shooting match is about to
occur – that foreigners think a revolution is occurring.
For an example of a contemporary shooting match which took
place in the Swiss canton of Ticino, visit my websitem
(http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/) and look for “An Armed
Society.”

The Swiss militia army consists primarily of an infantry of
the armed populace, but also includes modern artillery –
some of which is hidden in Alpine fortifications – and
fighter jets. As for terrorism, depending on the
circumstances, a vigilant and armed populace may be
instrumental in stopping a massacre. If terrorist acts
occur on Swiss soil, the citizenry will resist however
possible.

STAGNARO: Most RKBA supporters assert that gun control is
the key to tyranny. In fact, Hitler disarmed his enemies
(starting from German Jews) before they could organize a
resistance. Do you believe there’s a link between the Swiss
tradition of an army of the people, and the tradition of
liberty of that country?

HALBROOK: Machiavelli said it best: the Swiss are
“armatissimi e liberissimi.” From 1291, when the Swiss
Confederation was born, armed Swiss peasants and herdsmen
resisted the aggression of some of the great armies of
Europe. Every man was expected to provide his own arms and
to defend against any invasion.

When Hitler came to power, his henchmen burned the Reichstag
and blamed it on the Communists – the excuse to suspend all
constitutional rights and to disarm all political
opposition. Under the gun control laws passed by the
liberal Weimar republic, the Nazis began disarming Jews.
Then came Reichskristallnacht in 1938, in which the Nazis
smashed up businesses and homes with the excuse that the
Jews were dangerous and must be disarmed. Gestapo chief
Heinrich Himmler threatened 20 years in the concentration
camp for any Jew caught with a gun.

When the Nazis occupied France and other countries, they
found the registration lists of firearm owners in the police
departments. Gun owners who did not turn in their firearms
within 24 hours were shot, as were those who failed to
inform on their friends and relatives. For whatever reason,
historians have shown no interest in highlighting the cruel
fate of Jews and subjects in the occupied countries who were
firearm owners. And yet some of these gun owners who eluded
the Nazis were able to use their firearms to save their
families, refugees, and others and even to mount armed
resistance. The Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943 was
initiated with only a half dozen illegal handguns.

In Switzerland, the only “gun control” law was that every
man must shoot accurately at 300 meters. Had they attacked,
the Nazis would have needed no gun registration records –
they could have assumed that every man had a gun. As war
clouds approached, in 1938 at the World Shooting
Championships held in Luzern, Switzerland, Swiss Federal
President Philipp Etter declared:

“There is probably no other country that, like Switzerland,
gives the soldier his weapon to keep in the home. . . .
With this rifle, he is liable every hour, if the country
calls, to defend his hearth, his home, his family, his
birthplace. The weapon is to him a pledge and sign of honor
and freedom. The Swiss does not part with his rifle.”

The Nazis heard this message in countless other venues.
They knew that they could not execute every Swiss for having
a weapon – instead, they knew that countless German soldiers
would die from Swiss snipers. The powerful German army
could make Switzerland into a wasteland, but the German
blood that would be spilled was unacceptably high, and the
country would be ungovernable.

STAGNARO: The American Founding Fathers warned that a
professional standing army could be a threat to liberty,
because it induces a strong temptation to imperialism. In
your vision, is there any correlation between the peculiar
military organization of the Switzerland, and its
neutrality?

HALBROOK: America’s Founding Fathers recognized that
standing armies were dangerous to liberty because such
armies oppressed the population domestically and engaged in
wars of imperialist aggression. That is why the United
States originally followed the Swiss model of republicanism,
a militia army, and neutrality. America’s founders wished
to avoid “entangling alliances” in Europe, and the US
entered World Wars I and II reluctantly.

A militia army includes virtually all able-bodied males
under arms in a country, and thus challenges any invader
with unending guerilla warfare. A standing army consists of
professional soldiers forming a small proportion of a
country’s population. Numerous standing armies in Europe
collapsed before the onslaught of Hitler’s blitzkrieg – the
governmental elites surrendered and ordered the soldiers to
lay down their arms. An attack on Switzerland would have
encountered no elite to surrender, and instead armed
resistance at every turn.

The organization of the Swiss military as a militia meant
that, while it could protect its country, it could not have
invaded another country. This was the experience since
medieval times. Armed Swiss commoners defeated the
mightiest armies of invading knights at numerous battles –
they left Charles the Bold in a ditch with his head crushed
by a halberd at Nancy in 1477 – but were themselves defeated
when they ventured into foreign lands, such as at Marignano
in 1515.

The above is the key to Swiss neutrality. Militia armies
are good at defending their own countries, but are no good
at attacking other countries, and thus avoid foreign wars.
Both militia defense and neutrality thus promote the ideals
of peace.

One last thought. The Second Amendment to the US
Constitution declares: “A well regulated militia, being
necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the
people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Besides being influenced by the Swiss example, America’s
Founders were also inspired by Cesare Beccaria’s Dei Delitti
e delle Pene (1764), which characterized as “false idee di
utilit?” the laws that prohibit peaceable citizens from
carrying arms, which encourage attacks by armed criminals
against unarmed victims.

As the world community enters an uncertain 21st century, the
lessons of history will either be learned or its mistakes
will be repeated.

December 2, 2002

Carlo Stagnaro co-edits the libertarian magazine “Enclave”
and edited the book “Waco. Una strage di stato americana.”
Here’s his website.