During World War II, many countries claimed to be neutral countries in order to avoid being attacked by war, but unfortunately, these countries claimed to be neutral countries were more or less occupied by Germany. For example, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, but internationally recognized permanent neutrals were mostly pro-German during World War II, such as Sweden and Switzerland. Specifically, why the Netherlands soon perished.

I. Geographical location

The geographical location of the Netherlands

Geographically, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany are neighboring countries, and Germany will inevitably fight France after playing Poland. In eastern France, the French army invested a lot of money, material resources and manpower in the construction of maginot line, so it was impossible for the Germans to attack maginot line. At this time, the two small countries, the Netherlands and Luxemburg, became the excellent springboard for the German army to bypass maginot line and attack the French mainland. So in terms of geographical location alone, if the Germans want to bypass maginot line smoothly, they must occupy the Netherlands, whether it is a neutral country or not, Hitler will occupy it.

Second, the Manstein Plan.

The plan is to distribute the main force of the German army in the Ardennes mountains and make a sudden attack on France, while the north is responsible for attracting the attention of the French army, eventually forming a siege and capturing France as soon as possible. On May 1940 and 10, the Germans decided to adopt the manstein Plan. The Germans were divided into three legions, A, B and C, with Army A as the main attack, crossing the Ardennes and the Maas River until France.

As a blitzkrieg, Army B in the north occupied the whole Netherlands and northern Belgium, prevented the Dutch army from converging with the allied forces, and broke through the defense line established by the Belgian army on the Albert Canal, creating conditions for Army A to invade northern France smoothly and reach the flank of the main force of the Anglo-French allied forces, while Army C attacked maginot line from the front as a feint. It can be seen that the invasion of the Netherlands was to cooperate with the implementation of the manstein Plan and successfully invaded France.

So the invasion of Holland was only Hitler's first move to attack France in the future. It was only when he invaded these small neighboring countries that he used it as a springboard to attack France.