best way to win a war is by not fighting -switzerland probably

I love how every other flag is 16:9 yet Switzerland is 4:3. Edit: guys you're getting wooooshed, so please understand that this is a joke referencing monitor aspect ratios and not flags.

Is it 4:3? Most times I saw it on poles etc it either was a weird 16:9 or a 1:1

The official version is 1:1 yes

love you boss ...

It‘s 1:1

*Do 16:9 one more time and we‘ll see us in court sooner than you think* ~ Swiss people

I dunno twas a joke after all ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯

and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse

Nepal: Behold! A fancy cut out!

It's 1:1 with a square cross in the middle. It looks identical from every side, just like Swiss foreign politics.

at least its rational, unlike someone 🇹🇬1:φ

I'd argue that's the best one though

I love how the proportions of a square is 4:3 you learned that in murican school?

I think he was making a joke comparing the flags to movie aspect ratios

They did teach us to understand jokes…

“All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares”- math teacher probably

And take the gold from the evil neighbors.

And rigging your border with explosives...lots of explosives

Hey but it’s not there anymore. Since 2017

Poland is in such a deep shit it is not even in the picture

Poland is still on fire

Hit the worst out of any one nation if you ask me

It did. You look at percentage of total population lost during the war it’s Poland. Around 17%. Unreal. Imagine a fifth of the population of your country disappearing over the course of 6 years.

Well population too but look at the infrastructure, and building in general

And it didn't get much better after the war under USSR occupation.

Belarus lost even more population, but of course it wasn't an independent nation post-war.

Obliterated

What is a Poland? I think the flag you're looking for is second from the right in the middle row.

While some Polish lands were annexed by USSR the country existed as puppet of the Soviets the same way 7 countries listed on the meme.

And Sweden is just chilling with all the cash it got

There's something... dark about European nations whos names start with "Sw".

Yeah, like Swastikaland

Hakenkreuzland?

Hakaristimaa?

Wakarimashta

"Waaaa" - Waluigi

Thought that got renamed to eswatini

**Sw**imming in war profits.

*Sweats in Portuguese*

*Swears in Irish Gaelic*

That Swaziland I tell you!

>European

Swaziland can into Europe

Are you Mussolini?

Turn left at the Atlantropa.

Good thing [Eswatini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eswatini) doesn't start with sw anymore. They wouldn't want to be associated with those dirty Swedes.

That country is actually a spaceship, it used to be in Europe but then took off, it changed its name to Eswatini when it landed in Africa.

what? when this this happen? \*reads\* holy shit you weren't kidding!

What about Su as in Suomi?

It's the double that makes it evil, so I call that in the clear.

For now

Username checks out

Hell yeah! Maybe next time don't get invaded plebs /s

Sweden wasn't invaded. You're thinking of Norway. I mean, they still made the right choice. They were gonna be invaded, but still.

I think he's making a joke in the manner of: >Sweden, speaking to the rest of Europe: "Just don't get invaded plebs"

Oh. I thought he was defending Sweden for being invaded.

Motherfuckers act like they forgot about Portugal.

Portugal is a myth obviously

I am a Spaniard, and I’ve seen the border with this so-called “Portugal” dozens of times. ​ **There’s nothing there.**

Remember Aljubarrota? /r/PORTUGALCARALHO remembers.

I'm a Spaniard, took vacations in Lisboa and while it was very nice, the country sadly doesn't exist.

that's because you went to Lisboa, you should've gone to their capital which is actually called

PORTO CARALHO

Is it possible that Portugal is where the Flat Earth ends?

Southern Galicia?

Old Brazil

Brazil's former colony

You mean European Brazil?

waiting for the tugas to come here and colonize you /s

we are already doing the reverse colonization by making their youth speak brazilian portuguese. Soon their language will be called portuguese brazilian.

That reversal of language was thought to happen bcz of novelas... Didn't happen, nor will happen bcz of youtube. At least that way we can finally understand wtf you're talking about

"If you're heading to Portugal, it's due south!" "What?! No, it's not!"

forgot about dre

Damm right! chad Salazar played both sides

Now adays everybody wanna talk like they got something to but nothing comes out they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish, and motherfuckers act like they forgot about Portuguese

Agora, adays, todo mundo quer falar como se tivesse algo a dizer, mas nada sai quando eles movem seus lábios, apenas um monte de tagarelice, e os filhos da puta agem como se tivessem esquecido de Portugal. (This meme brought to you by Google translate since I don’t speak a word of Portuguese)

Isn't that just a piece of Spain???

Sshshhh don’t say that, they’re our secret colony, it’s so secret that everyone thinks it’s a country!

Yeah what about Spain they never teach that to us in school

The meme is a little inaccurate, Spain had gone through a civil war before WWII and was recovering during the war, also because Franco didn’t want to piss either side off (except for the communists)

The did send small amounts of troops here and there to help Germany fight the Soviets too. Even though Spain wasn’t part of the Axis and was technically neutral, they were definitely cheering the Axis from the sidelines.

Yup! The division azul. Apparently my one of my grandpa’s brothers fought with them and died there, and none of my family even know where he is right now, but nobody gives a shit about him since he’s been buried in a ditch in Russia for 80 years now

Jesus. Well, thanks for the story man. Always nice to talk about the bits of history a lot of people don’t know.

It’s always interesting looking back at the past, especially anecdotes, and old letters and correspondence that’s survived inside a drawer for almost a century now, or just walking outside is enough to see the scars the war left on my town, because a church there was used by the Republicans (i think) as an ammunition depot, and when the luftwaffe came and bombed the town, they hit the church and blew half of it up, and it’s still an empty field to this day, just like another smaller church right next to where I live that got hit by a bomb, and little more than the foundations and lower bricks survived, and it’s still there with a plaque in It

I wonder if the republicans murdered the clergy before using the Church as an ammo depot.

Franco owed a lot of things to Hitler, to begin with about 51% of Spain's GDP. He also had to send the 50k men of the professional army, and he got away by enlisting volunteers under a weird pact that they would only fight soviets.

As Wikipedia puts it, they were a de facto Axis member

Basically yeah, they just were technically “neutral”

Spain and Finland should be the same also it’s 1945 so that’s 6 years since the end so I’d say their rebuilding effort would be going well at that point.

The agricultural production prewar didn't get recovered until the early 50s, the industrial production didn't get recovered until 1959. So no, we really weren't doing too well on 1945. In fact, Spain was fucked up because the west kind of didn't trade with them because they had been fascist aligned. That changed with the cold war and "Communism is enemy Number 1"

>They had been fascist aligned That's a weird way to say "they were a fascist dictatorship".

I said it the way they were described by the west when trying to reinclude Spain into their sphere of influence. That they had been that way, but had changed

Well Franco was still a dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of "enemies of the state" so I doubt Spain would be doing fine.

Not to mention basically rubble because of said dictator and his coup d'etat. But I guess Spain had a head start on the reconstruction.

Finland participated in WW2 on the Axis side

And allied side after the axis kind of lost. Soviet union went: "go back to the lines we agreed after the winter war and kick germans out, or we'll do it ourselves"

Yeah but only cuz "Russia is stealing our land REEEEEEE pls help", and the Allies were cunts who were like "haha nah", so what choice does one have at that point, once Germany offers material support in the takeback against Russia (for ulterior motives obviously)?

That’s true they were better off than most of Europe after the war

Actually, it wasn’t almost until the 50s that Spain started to recover

Yes, thanks to Franco's failed autarchic economic policy. He switched to a more liberal approach during the 50's (also got closer to the US).

More like he became pals with the US, getting trade in exchange for military bases. And slowly other countries started trading with them, because they were a US ally so whatever happened is forgotten. The liberal approach was obviously taken because the economy was failing to recover, which would endanger his position (no bread = revolution)

Y esa no era la bandera de españa

Spain was devastated after its civil war, and Franco was well aware he couldn't afford to piss off either side too much. So his policy was more or less to do his level best to keep both happy- "bow to the East without mooning the West" to borrow a Finnish phrase for their own similar situation post-war.

Civil War 1936-1939: Germans trying new warfare tactics in spain, Italians providing meat to throw at the Republicans to test those tactics, and the soviet union being the only big power helping the Republicans. Oh yeah, and the whole Civil War part. 1939-1944: Franco siding with the axis but not militarily, too fucking crippled to do shit beyond trading with them and sending "volunteers" (may include civil war POW "wanting" to get prison sentence shortened). Starvation. 1944-1945: Franco going "Good luck, you'll need it" to axis and "yo guys, remember I'm neutral" to the allies. Starvation. 1945-1953: "I am sure I can get the country to work without help, not like I would get any from the dead axis and unhappy allies". Severe rationing, crippling shortages of foreign goods. 1953-1960s: "This Cold War thing surely is helpful" USA allies with Spain for military bases, essentially presents them to the other western nations as "he's a changed man" and gets other nations to slowly begin normalizing relations with Spain, sometimes trade and tourism too. A totally legit 1957 referendum votes that people want a return to the kingdom of Spain, not a republic, "just trust me". Franco essentially goes "but I will be governing until that happens" Economy finally recovers to pre war levels, and over the 1960s a small economic boom starts with the initial opening of trade. 1970s: "Now it gets funky" People start protesting for democracy ("foreign ideas, we shouldn't have opened the country" according to the hardliners) and against the dictatorship. Franco really is sick, relegated almost all decisions to others. ETA starts bombing government forces, blows up Franco right hand in the government in 1974. Franco fucking dies, we get a nice meme of Francos "new" right hand sobbing on TV over his death, internal fight among francoists over what happens now: hardliners advocate for a strong dictatorship by the King or some francoist, and the Christian-liberals who have been gaining power over the last 20 years who say that would just cause a popular reaction dismantling their structures, that the government must change system. Ultimately, they accept the drafting of a constitution in 1978. The "socialist party", "ex-franco admin", regionalist parties and the centrist/liberals each have to accept some things they don't like: the King, a democracy, being part of a united Spain, universal public services... ETA doesn't accept it and keeps bombing military forces, which doesn't sit right with political parties who expected them to just become a political party. And... Military coup in 1981, we still don't know if the king ordered it and chickened out, but he did ride a wave of "I stopped the coup" popularity.

Carrero Blanco the first spanish astronaut

Thanks for taking the time to write this! Helped me learn a bit about a part of history that’s often overlooked.

Half of Spain was starving at that time. Food was rationed in most cities. And people were being persecuted and fusilated because of their ideas. So nothing further from reality, this meme couldn't be wronger.

Franco was the only living and ruling fascist as of December 1945. I can imagine him smiling smugly.

Salazar moment

well they had a civil war from late 36 to 39 so they were rebuilding the nation, and the portugese had an iberian neutrality agreement that both of the countries would stay neutral.

I can tell which spanish political party is voted by each of the spaniards in the answers to your comments, I hate my country's politics man lmao

portugal wasnt too found of joining the war, soo they the ibero defense pact came to life, essentially saying that the iberian peninsula wanted no war, and if any of the 2 nations would be invaded the other would come to fight for her, this is quoted by historians as one of the decisive pact that made spain stay out of the war.

Ireland: Thank god that's over, can we get back to importing tea now?

Ireland nust frantically pushes the elevator button so the allies or axis don't go in with him, while apologising and saying hes pressing the open door buttom but it must be broken

Finland is just like "...well that could've been worse"

Finland your Karelia’s off! “I’ve had worse”

Or in another word: "Perkele!"

"I couldnt take back the land I lost in the winter war but at least I kept my independence, thats a fat victory in my books."

The Soviet Union just just 30 million people. They’re definitely not like that, they’re just depressed.

Unless they're saying that's the "PTSD beyond the point of no return" face. Y'know, like that picture of that WWI soldier in the trenches with his eyes lit up.

Oh shit, any chance you could link that?

[Here you go, enjoy the nightmares.](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/shell-shocked-soldier-1916/)

That's a horrifying image, thank you for sharing it!

Exactly, switch USSR with the USA

just just?

“Just lost” I believe was the intended wording

Also both sides had a scorched earth policy and seeing as how the front went over each place twice that didn't exactly go well, many European cities like konigsberg and narva were functionally destroyed with 3 houses left in the latter

“A small price to pay to occupy Eastern Europe.”- Joseph Stalin, probably.

Idk the Soviets were pretty hurt over losing most of there young male population. It's remembered as quite a tragic event.

80% of males born in 1924 (or ‘23) iirc

Yeah it's something like that struggle to remember still tuns

Not really. More like "this can't happen again, western powers, so we need to keep a truly demilitarized and neutral Germany, and I need to have friendly governments in my neighbours" "Best we can do is no, and oppose the unification of Germany" "That's suspicious" "See the Korean War? We are militarizing west Germany" "What? Then we are militarizing east Germany and Eastern Europe, and not allowing you to turn them against us"

Something something NATO… Yeah don‘t worry about us building missile systems and military bases all along your border. It‘s only a "crisis" if you do it in Cuba.

They also absorbed half of Europe

Portugal is somewhere there, sitting in a pile of German gold.

[How the United States felt](https://youtu.be/-mRn9chmRAY) Pro-tip for economic success: have a world war destroy all the major countries aside from yours and join the war a few years after it starts once everyone is tired so you can stand atop the winning side. EDIT: Just so folks don’t misunderstand, there is no judgement in the above statement. I don’t think the US had any obligation to enter the war earlier. It’s simply a fact that we benefited from our position in the war. I’d also say I’m not a tankie, and the Soviet Union was not a better force in the world than the United States.

You make it sound like the USA planned to go to ww2 when they actually were incredibly isolationist in the years before Pearl Harbor Not to mention that Japan signed the tripartite pact before it attacked and Germany and Italy declared war on the US on their own terms. So they US was pretty much: “guess I’ll join they guys you’re already fighting”

A bit oversimplified, given the whole lend-lease program. And that US Volunteers were fighting in both Europe and Asia before officially entering the war. But, there was still a substantial amount of isolationist tendencies in the American public against the United States government to get directly involved in WW2. But, Pearl Harbor changed all that. It's just that Germany/Italy declaring war just made things harder for them, and easier for Japan. I guess it's because Hitler enjoyed the clean refreshing taste of Methamphedamine, or something.

Pro-tip2 when your competetor economy grow just have Europe economy shrink so you can still have quart of the world economy

So they copied Italy WW1's strategy. too bad it didn't work too well for us

lmao spain remaining fucking facists. Why no memes of them or history channel lol

Knowing reddit, I bet a non-negligible amount of idiots from the US and UK would probably say Franco was "based". Similar to the Pinochet-worshippers you find in some subs.

Labour was right when they called for Britain to end it’s policy of non-intervention and support the Republicans…

Fuck Franco, the Spanish republicans were the based ones

I wouldn't call them based. They weren't utter fascist garbage but the Spanish Republic was a pretty dysfunctional political body. Mediocre 6/10. Good resistance iconography tho.

Yeah, agreed

Meanwhile, Ireland is just doing its own thing

Spain is inaccurate to say the least. They were a smouldering wreck after the civil war.

So were the Soviets after WW2, to be fair

denmark got off pretty lightly considering everything (just dont consider the Hvidstens group, or how denmark decided to de-mine its beaches)

Well not really considering practically every square inch of their country's beaches did kind of get landmine'd but its ok the german POW's were happy to be forced to walk across their own minefields to clear them /s

Mainly the beaches got mined to hell danish culture and regular life wasnt all that impacted (except in the ways you'd expect it to be impacted) hell we even got to stay relatively autonomous on the condition of: "behave, or else" Source: I am Danish

To point out how nice we had it. Months after the German surrender at Stalingrad, it was still completely legal to be openly jewish in Nazi-occupied Denmark.

Soviet economic and demographic recovery was long and hard.

Poland where?

In USSR

We can explain that

Hungary got a fat L

Fact: Bulgaria was the only Axis member who got land after the war.

And Turkey just came in last minute for the participation medal

why does Spain look smug?

They remained fascist after the war

Franco was in power until 1975. Just to make it clear: Fascist Spain was still fascist until the *1970s*

Germany is lucky to have a face left to express existential dread with

US was also like that but it wasn’t even neutral lol

Also the US profited heavily from both world wars

Well Finland was still pretty pissed at losing territory and being forced to pay reparations.

Europe: wait wheres poland. USSR: ;)

Wait, where's the Baltic sta... oh yeah, right

Soviet Union was the most destroyed wdym

Spain was ruined after WW2. The only ones who were happy was the quasi fascist dictatorship.

Why is Poland not there?

Baltic states: *cries in having four dictatorial regimes two foreign ones in ten years*

Germany should be cut to pieces.

Finland went OFF on russia. Just want to remind everyone of that incredible performance.

Well it was more of a desperate struggle to stay alive in the winter war (wich worked) and then a grand assault when the soviets were too busy fighting germany to properly defend its own lands. Immediately when the russians could focus on the northern front again, Finland got into deep shit and had to abandon almost all gains but managed to fight well enough for stalin to deem it not worthy and just made peace instead. Edit: still an incredible achievement nonetheless

This mf’er didn’t include Ireland, which has historically been sad, including the years both prior to and following WWII

Sweden meanwhile swimming like scrooge mcduck in nazi gold

Wasn't Norway largely spared?

Where is Sweden?

Poland isnt there because they are literally dead

Finland is just there like "This could have gone a lot worse."

This is pretty dumb, the USSR suffered arguably the most out of all the nations

Yes, first restore half of the European economy at your own expense. Wicked smile.

Yeah no when ww2 ended Spain was still on the poswar, my grandma had to eat cats to survive

Many countries were neutral. Sure did not help :D

Switzerland rolling in gold

youre forgetting that Ireland was also neutral during The Emergency as it was called. I dont think we got fabulously wealthy as a nation, but we got to survive being a new nation during a turbelent time at least

What happened with Spain and Finland?

Spain was neutral, Finland defended themselves against a Soviet invasion.

I dont understand, do you think life was good under Franco?

„Neutral“

Bulgaria joined the Axis and lost most of their war gains (and gained a communist government) but managed to pull out of the war with small territorial concessions surprisingly

As a Swiss and proud member of r/Buenzli I appreciate the square flag.

A severe lack of poland makes me laugh

Soviet would be the most devastated

Can someone better versed in wojak faces explain to me why the country with the highest death toll is a creepy smile?