Quote Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars View Post
I agree that attacking the Netherlands was rather unnecessary (given my current knowledge of the situation), but there is the possibility that it did save lives in the long run. Rotterdam was not the only city left for the Germans to take. Right from wiki:
That's correct- the Germans had threatened that they'd level Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and possibly every last village until the Dutch surrendered. What's mindboggling is that you think a "Do yourself a favour and surrender, or else" strategy is somehow justified.

Next thing you're going to argue that random executions are justified if they succeed in deterring would-be rebels.

And yeah, occupying the Neth's was pretty useless as far as I know. Belgium was on the way around the Maginot line, but I never figured out why Hitler thought that taking the Netherlands was necessary or even desirable. The nazi's loved to preach their nonsense about a pan-germanic master race, but that doesn't explain why they let the Swedes and the Swiss get away with their quasi-neutrality.