git checkout master does not switch branch - repository broken?

Question

tl;dr: git checkout master does not switch to master branch, gives no error or any output at all and I have no clue why. Any other branch works

Answer 1

I have seen something similar when there is a folder master in the source tree. Unfortunately I didn't find a way to tell git to interpret the value as a branch. Renaming the folder fixed the problem for me.