In August 1942, Hitler further described Switzerland as "a pimple on the face of Europe" and as a state that no longer had a right to exist, denouncing the Swiss people as "a misbegotten branch of our Volk."[3] From a Nazi viewpoint, Switzerland, as a small, multilingual, decentralised democracy where German-speakers felt more of an affinity with their French-speaking fellow Swiss citizens than towards their German brothers across the border, was the antithesis of the racially homogeneous and collectivised "Führer State".[4] Hitler also believed that the independent Swiss state had come into existence at a time of temporary weakness of the Holy Roman Empire, and now that German power had been re-established after the National Socialist takeover, the independent country of Switzerland had become obsolete.[4]