Ignoring Switzerland's status as a sovereign state, these maps frequently showed its territory as a German Gau.[1] The author of one of these textbooks, Ewald Banse, explained, "Quite naturally we count you Swiss as offshoots of the German nation, along with the Dutch, the Flemings, the Lorrainers, the Alsatians, the Austrians and the Bohemians ... One day we will group ourselves around a single banner, and whosoever shall wish to separate us, we will exterminate!"[7] Various Nazis were vocal about the German intent to "expand Germany's boundaries to the farthest limits of the old Holy Roman Empire, and even beyond."[8]