Operation Tannenbaum Operation Tannenbaum Operation "Tannenbaum ("Fir Tree"), known earlier as Operation "Grün ("Green"), was a planned but cancelled invasion of Switzerland by Nazi Germany and Italy during World War II. For tactical reasons, Adolf Hitler made repeated assurances before the outbreak of the Second World War that Germany would respect Swiss neutrality in the event of a military conflict in Europe. In February 1937, he announced that "at all times, whatever happens, we will respect the inviolability and neutrality of Switzerland" to the Swiss federal councillor Edmund Schulthess, reiterating this promise shortly before the Nazi invasion of Poland. These were, however,
Samuel A. Tannenbaum Samuel A. Tannenbaum Samuel Aaron Tannenbaum (1874–1948) was a literary scholar, bibliographer, and palaeographer, best known for his work on William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Tannenbaum was born in Hungary, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; he emigrated to the United States in 1886, the year he turned fourteen, and became a citizen in 1895. Graduating from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1898, he pursued a career in psychotherapy, with a strong interest in the work of Sigmund Freud. He was part of the circle of early Freud supporters that included Ernest Jones and Sándor Ferenczi,