Switzerland garrison there to the end of the war Sweden therefore prudently signed a “transit agreement” to permit its ore to be shipped to Germany from Norwegian ports Sweden lost 241 ships in the German ore trade, which provided 40 percent of Hitler’s needs in 1939–1940 and 25 percent in 1941–1943 Swedish shipyards accepted Kriegsmarine contracts during the war, and Swedish arms factories thrived on the German export trade More guns were shipped to Finland to aid its fight against the Soviet Union, during the Finnish–Soviet War (1939–1940) and the “Continuation War” (1941–1944) Stockholm canceled the transit agreement with Germany in August 1943, bringing policy in line with dominant, pro-Allied public opinion while responding to rising Allied pressure and declining German ability to effectively retaliate The shift was made possible by a fatal decline in German military fortunes, and by improved Swedish military capability By the end of the war Sweden’s armed forces numbered over 600,000 well-trained and well-equipped troops A modern air force was expanded ten-fold from 1939 levels, while the Swedish navy was more than twice again as large as before the war The government was more active in resisting German demands in the last years of the war, including repatriating and thereby saving 10,000 Scandinavian Jews Its diplomats issued another 20,000 passports to Jews escaping from the Nazis in Hungary in 1944 and 1945 A scholarly and political debate took place in later decades over the degree to which Swedish ore was critical to Germany’s war effort A majority view among historians is that it was important but not as vital as either side thought at the time Another important export that the Western powers and Germans alike thought vital to the Nazi war effort was provided in quantity by Sweden until the end of 1944: ball bearings See also blockade SWITZERLAND At over 430,000 men, the Swiss Army was numerically large for country of such small size and a population of just 4.2 million However, the Swiss Army was not well-armed in 1939 The Air Force was small and obsolete, with about 200 mostly outmoded fighters The Swiss nevertheless went on full military alert during the FALL GELB invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940 The government was prepared to fight the Germans if necessary and to permit French forces into the northern cantons There were some violations of Swiss air space and a number of Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down As the French Army collapsed, a National Redoubt was proclaimed by the Swiss and actively prepared in the south for final defense against a German, or possibly Italian, invasion Within hours of his armistice with France coming into effect on June 25, 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered his war planners to prepare to invade Switzerland The plan they devised was code named Operation TANNENBAUM Hitler planned to partition Switzerland north–south, with Italy receiving the lower one-fifth of the country Then he changed his mind, concluding and boasting that he could invade Switzerland anytime he chose The Swiss demobilized most of their Army in a placatory gesture Increased German and Italian pressure from 1942 compelled the Swiss to impose blackout conditions in their cities, to prevent Western pilots and crew using 1057