Franco and the Axis Stigma

Franco and the Axis Stigma

David Wingeate Pike

Franco and the Axis Stigma

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Also by David Wingeate Pike:

VAE VICTIS!

LES FRANAIS ET LA GUERRE DESPAGNE

LATIN AMERICA IN NIXONS SECOND TERM (editor)

JOURS DE GLOIRE, JOURS DE HONTE

THE OPENING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (editor)

IN THE SERVICE OF STALIN

SPANIARDS IN THE HOLOCAUST

THE CLOSING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (editor)

ESPAOLES EN EL HOLOCAUSTO

MAUTHAUSEN, LENFER NAZI EN AUTRICHE

BETRIFFT: KZ Mauthausen, was die Archive erzhlen

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Franco and the Axis StigmaDavid Wingeate Pike

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Contemporary History and Politics, The American University of Paris Director of Research, American Graduate School of International Relations andDiplomacy

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David Wingeate Pike 2008

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmittedsave with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licencepermitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP.

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First published 2008 byPALGRAVE MACMILLANHoundmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010Companies and representatives throughout the world

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Pike, David Wingeate.Franco and the Axis stigma / David Wingeate Pike.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN-13: 978-0-230-20289-4 (alk. paper)ISBN-10: 0-230-20289-6 (alk. paper)

1. World War, 19391945Diplomatic history. 2. NeutralitySpain.3. SpainForeign relationsGermany. 4. GermanyForeignrelationsSpain. 5. SpainForeign relations19391975.6. GermanyForeign relations19331945. 7. Franco, Francisco,18921975. I. Title.

D754.S6P55 2008940.532546dc22

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to Charlne Quintane-Capdeville

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Contents

Introduction viii

1. The Civil War and France: Unsettled Accounts(19361939) 1

2. From Francos Victory to the Fall of France(1 April 193915 June 1940) 11

3. Vichy France and Britains Battle for Its Life( JuneSeptember 1940) 27

4. Hitlers Quandary: South-West or East?(September 1940June 1941) 39

5. From Barbarossa to Pearl Harbor(22 June7 December 1941) 56

6. The War in the Mediterranean( JanuaryNovember 1942) 70

7. Fortunes Reversed: Operation Torch and Italian Capitulation(November 1942September 1943) 84

8. The Tightening of the Allied Vice: Its Effect on Spain(September 1943June 1944) 97

9. From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge( JuneDecember 1944) 106

10. The Death of Hope ( JanuaryMay 1945) 113

Epilogue: Duplicity Rewarded (19451953) 133

Appendices 147

Notes 150

Bibliography 189

Index 203

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Introduction

To exactly what degree was Franco implicated in the Axis cause? Francosresponse, constantly repeated by his apologists, was that the SecondWorld War consisted of three separate conflicts. Firstly, a war betweenthe Axis and the Western democracies in which the role of Spain wasone of strict neutrality. Secondly, a war between the Axis and the SovietUnion in which Spain acted as a non-belligerent, sending a lone divisionas a token of the anti-communist stand of Catholic Spain. Thirdly, a warbetween Japan and the Western democracies in which Spain, having nointerests or influence in the region, maintained, once again, a perfectneutrality.

To begin with the first period, Spain was confronted with theMolotovRibbentrop Pact. As the head of Catholic Spain, and as a self-professed neutralist, Franco had certain responsibilities. First, as a Catholic,to denounce Germany for signing any form of partnership with atheistRussia. Second, again as a Catholic, to rally to the defence of CatholicPoland in its struggle to resist the joint forces of pagan Germany andgodless Russia. Third, as a neutralist, to show an absolute neutrality inthe struggle between Nazi Germany and the Western democracies.In this first period, then, when Germanys struggle against the SovietUnion was not yet engaged, we would not expect to find Spain tiltingthe balance in favour of the Axis. But that, in fact, is what we find. A very large part of Spains assistance to Dnitz in the supplying of hisU-boats in Spanish ports is provided precisely in that period when thestruggle against Communism was not engaged, or more precisely, in theperiod when Communism was not the enemy but the ally, and whenStalin is giving all the aid he can to Hitler in the hope of just keepinghim happy and away.1

In the second period Franco turns to non-belligerency, albeit claimingthe right to a tilt out of gratitude for services received and for a holycause. He offers Hitler the Blue Division. A single Spanish division mightnot count for much alongside 27 Romanian and 13 Hungarian divisions,but it is welcome nonetheless as a symbol of all Europe standing up todefend Western civilisation against the godless horde.

In the third period, Franco was being unduly modest in saying thatSpain had little national interest in South-east Asia. The Philippines,and Philippine Catholicism, were important considerations. During the

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Civil War, most Spaniards in the Philippines had taken a clearly pro-nationalist stance. When it came to the Japanese treatment of theirsubject Europeans, however, we find no distinction made betweenSpaniards and the rest. There was a distinction, however, between theacceptance, and even the welcome, that Spain showed the Japanese con-querors in their subjugation of the Philippines and the fierce protestsexpressed in 1945 as the Pacific War turned around.

The most visible and most dramatic contribution that Franco made tothe Axis was the sending of the Blue Division. Francos Axis stigma,however, does not rest primarily on this contribution, or on any othersingle contribution (submarine refuelling, deliveries of wolfram andpyrites) but rather on the myriad of little incidents, words of encour-agement and terms of abuse that reveal where Francos sympathies lay.Not, therefore, what he decided to do, in the circumstances, but whathe would have liked to do if the circumstances had been different andSpain was not exhausted and dependent upon certain Western supplies.Francos refusal to join Hitler was dictated to him by forces outside hiscontrol. The Allied power to distrain the Spanish economy, as DonaldDetwiler has pointed out, was like a loosened tourniquet which couldbe twisted tight on a moments notice, putting the British and Americansin a position to choke off the arteries of the Spanish economy almost atwill.2 Such was its economic and military weakness that Paul Prestonestimates that Spain could not have waged war for more than a fewdays.3

For a long period after 1945, the argument against Francos collusionwith the Axis rested on the assumption that Franco was deceivingthe Axis powers by seeming to comply with their wishes while, in fact,he was playing for time. Supporters of this argument naturally belittledthe value of correspondence exchanged between Franco and the Axisleaders, insisting that, on Francos side, it was insincere. This gave wayin time to a study of the so-called chaqueteo [turning of the coat]. Yes,ran the argument, Franco was pro-Axis in the early or middle rounds ofthe war, but he turned his coat. What this book intends to show is thatthere never was a time when Franco turned his coat. That is why Francowas the only major leader never to withdraw his diplomatic representa-tion from Vichy as long as there was a Vichy, and the only head of stateof a major country to send condolences on the death of Marshal Ptain.As for his judgment, the British ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare summed itup: This was the man who at every critical moment of the war had pub-licly insulted the Allies ... . No public man within this generation hadproved himself so continuously wrong about the course of the war.4

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Francos relations with Vichy, and his earlier relations with the FrenchThird Republic in its final two years, form an important appendage toany study of Francos pre-war and wartime relations with Nazi Germany.France was Spains only powerful neighbour, and Francos imperialambitions took primary aim at the French North African possessions.The relations between Franco and the Third Republic are not wellknown outside of France, and much of the material on France presentedhere is hitherto generally unknown. As for Ptain, he and Franco maynot have liked one another but they were certainly linked, not only bythe North African question but by their common concern about theResistance in France. Beyond that, Franco was deeply interested in thepost-war fate of the Vichy leaders.

The debate over the chaqueteo continued for some time and the fluc-tuations in Francos foreign policy gave rise to several interpretations.Franois Pitri, Vichys ambassador to Madrid, identified three stagesin that policy: from the Bordeaux Armistice up to July 1942, non-belligerency; between July 1942 and February 1944, absolute neutrality;and from February 1944, support of the Allies.5 Jules Stavnik saw fourphases: the first, from 12 August 1939 to l7 October 1940, while thePlaza de Santa Cruz was directed by Colonel Juan Beigbeder, marked thestart of German pressure on Spain; the second, from 18 October 1940 to3 September 1942, under the ministry of Ramn Serrano Ser, was thepolicy of appeasement; the third, from 4 September 1942 to 4 August 1944,was the policy of subtle disengagement conducted by the AnglophileCount Jordana up to the day of his death; and the fourth, from 12 August1944 to 20 July 1945, under Jos Flix de Lequerica, was characterisedby the break in diplomatic relations with Japan on 15 April 1945, fol-lowing the massacre of Spanish nationals in the Philippines.6 This for-mula needed to include the earlier period up to 10 August 1939, duringwhich the Plaza de Santa Cruz was under Count Jordanas first admin-istration. Like his predecessor Sangrniz and his successor Beigbeder,Jordana was too much of a conservative monarchist to satisfy thedemands of the Falange. Also overlooked was the period betweenOctober 1941 and November 1943 of moral [read active] belligerency,during which Francos troops were actually engaged in combat on theRussian front.

The period covering the initial policy of neutrality dates, in spite ofPitri and Stavnik, from 4 September 1939 up to 12 June 1940 only.7 Eventhere, German documents show that Spain was colluding with Germanyas early as May 1940. A meeting of the general staff of the Luftwaffe washeld in Berlin on 4 May, to which the Spanish minister of aviation,

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Major General Fernando Barrn y Ortiz, was invited. Colonel Kramer,the German air attach in Madrid, reported to ReichsmarschallGoering that at least one [German] submarine had been provisioned[in a Spanish port] to the knowledge of the Spanish Government. TheSpaniards permitted German weather-reconnaissance planes to flywith Spanish insignia, and the radio station at La Corua was workingfor the Luftwaffe.8

Once the policy of non-belligerency was announced (12 June 1940),we enter the world of supposed mystery and bluff in which Franco isdoing just enough to prevent Hitler from losing patience and invadingSpain. Francos apologist Jos Mara Doussinague wrote that all ofSpains attention was focused on giving Germany the fullest assuranceof her friendship, so that Germany could at no point reproach us foranything. Her great victories were played up in the press and on theradio ... while her representatives received the most lavish treatment.9

According to this formula, then, Franco was merely bluffing every timehe launched a tirade against the Allies.

The British ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare, on the other hand, wrote ofhis conviction (after listening to several of Francos speeches) that theCaudillo not only understood what he was saying but was speakingwith the set purpose of ingratiating himself with Hitler. As for hismotives, Hoare suggested that they were a mix of three ingredients: a desire to smooth the path that led to the Axis; a hope of escape bothfrom being drawn into the wolf pack and being devoured by it; and a determination to show his own people that he was, no less than theFhrer and the Duce, a freewheeling dictator who could say whateverhe liked.10 It was, Hoare added, the growing hostility of the Spanishpeople to war, even in June 1940 when the risk seemed smallest, thatmade the Caudillo hesitate.11 Stavnik, on the other hand, by selectingonly the second ingredient in Hoares mixture,12 proposed that Francowanted to avoid Spains entry into the war, and that this desire wasprompted by his secret pro-Allied sentiments. Stavnik even ascribed theopposite viewpoint to the so-called black legend, and suggested thatthe decisive operations of the Second World War, such as the landingsin North Africa, would have been more difficult had it not been for thecomportment of Franco.13

What remains to be seen, however, are the true feelings behind thiscomportment. Did the tirades against the Allies, for example, and thepaeans to Nazi Germany in Francos controlled press end long beforethe wars end, or did they continue to the very close? Pitri made the bestcase for Franco by arguing that the first step of Spanish diplomacy in

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favour of the Allies went as far back as July 1942.14 Guy Hermet datedthe chaqueteo only from 1 October,15 Dante Puzzo from 3 October,16

and Pierre Vilar from 26 November, when Count Jordana visitedLisbon.17 Meanwhile in August 1942, Franco had recreated the Cortes,but the importance of this democratic action is reduced when oneremembers that even Hitler had maintained some form of Reichstag.Serrano Ser himself denies in his memoirs that his resignation, on 2 September 1942, marked the transition. He was removed, he says,for purely domestic reasons, including his extramarital relationships towhich Doa Carmen de Franco was passionately opposed. Ser pointsout, accurately, that the Axis at that time had not yet suffered a defeat(other than the Battle of Britain), that both El Alamein and Stalingradwere ahead, that the situation for the Allies worldwide had never lookedworse and that the entire Spanish Cabinet was still convinced of a finalvictory of the Axis.18

This statement by Serrano Ser, showing that not even his resig-nation marked the transition in Spains policy, is supported by othertestimony. The return to the foreign ministry of the supposedlyAnglophile Count Jordana might seem to presage an abrupt change inFrancos policy, but the facts are there to show that Jordana collabo-rated equally with the Axis cause. Even his visit to Lisbon, which forVilar signalled the moment of the chaqueteo, did not mark the change,for it was under the cloak of this visit that Hitler signed a secret agree-ment with Hitler, under which Germany would defend Spain and itspossessions against any Allied incursion.19 At the moment that Francosigned this agreement, the British had just taken possession, on8 October 1942, of two air bases in the Azores, in accordance with anAnglo-Portuguese agreement. This agreement naturally exposedPortugal to the risk of reprisal on the part of the Axis. Douglas Wheelerhas shown, by his research in the Portuguese archives, that Salazargenuinely feared such reprisals, and clauses were added to the AzoresAgreement under which Britain would come to Portugals support inthe event that Portugal was invaded by Spain, or by German forcesoperating through Spain. Using the American archives, CharlesHalstead shows that Jordana gave significant help, even after that, tothe Axis cause.

Instead of searching for the key to any chaqueteo, this book faces upto the fact that there never was a time when Franco abandoned hisadmiration for the Axis cause. In its closing chapter, it asks whetherFranco, even in 1945, was still hedging his bets. Was it always with

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Franco a question of a bet? Was it similar to the pari [wager] of Pascal,with a new formulation:

If I wager on Hitlers victory and he loses, I will be at the mercy ofhis democratic enemies, whose ideology I despise but whoseconcept of compassion and hatred of Communism will work inmy favour.

If I wager against his victory and he loses, I have lost nothing butgained nothing.

If I wager on his victory and he wins, my gain surely cannot bedenied.

If I wager against his victory and he wins, my loss is infinite.

In this re-examination of where Franco really stood, two obviousopportunities are brought into play. The first are the German archives,the second Francos press. In researching the German records, there aretwo obvious targets. The Blue Division received wide praise in Spainduring the war, at least at the time it marched off and in its earlyengagements on the Russian front, but how did the Wehrmacht reporton its performance? The state of relations between the German highcommand and the Blue Division has already been addressed to someextent by Raymond Proctor, who has pointed out, alongside theDivisions exploits in the field, some problems in its military disci-pline.20 What the Wehrmacht documents show is a breakdown of disci-pline so extreme that, by 1943, not only the divisions corpscommander but even its army and army-group superiors were alerted tothe situation and eager to prevent the Blue Division from taking uppositions in their field of operations.

A second area of research in unexamined documents is moreimportant and more fruitful: the records of the German navy regardingthe supply of its submarines in Spanish ports. The threat from the U-boats was more agonising to Churchill than any other danger hefaced. Hitler always gave preference to U-boats over capital ships andhe made this clear on 30 January 1943, when Dnitz was made headof the Kriegsmarine and his superior Raeder was shunted off to serveinnocuously as inspector of the fleet. Fortunately, the German navalrecords remain almost intact. Although Hitler ordered the destructionof all records, and the Luftwaffe records were almost totally destroyed,Dnitz ordered the Kriegsmarine not to destroy the navy records on thegrounds that the navy had done no wrong and had nothing to hide.

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(Nremberg showed that to be a serious miscalculation.) The Germannavy records were subsequently classified and bound in volumes by theBritish admiralty and, in 1963, they were returned to the FederalRepublic of Germany. These archives, available in the Bundesarchiv-Militrarchiv in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, bear the cover Admiralty RecordOffice, captured Enemy Documents and bear the item numbers andpage numbers of the Admiralty.

The second source of primary information for this book is the Spanishpress. It is in the nature of a totalitarian stateas Spain was between1939 and 1945that its press, totally controlled, serves as mirror to theregime, allowing us a glimpse into its inner thoughts that might welldiffer from what its diplomatic statements claim. In examining thispress, emphasis has been given to those half-dozen critical moments inthe unfolding of the conflict. The reader may be surprised to find littledifference in viewpoint or intensity of argument between the Falangepress led by Arriba, the monarchist press led by ABC, the military pressled by Alczar and the Catholic press led by Ya. It might even be saidthat they vie with one another in their praise of Hitlers triumphs, theiradulation of Francos speeches, and their dismay over Hitlers adversi-ties. Here it should be remembered that Spains Ley de la Prensa [presslaw] of 22 April 1938, introduced by Ramn Serrano Ser, was basedon the Italian model that not only ended the independence of the pressbut set out to fuse all right-wing ideologies (Catholic, monarchist, tra-ditionalist, Falangist) into a single voice. That voice, as the Americanambassador put it, sounded remarkably German, and for cause. Fromthe time that Hans Lazar arrived in Burgos in September 1938 to setup his office in the German embassyand to head the Spanish office ofTransocean, the Nazi propaganda machine controlled by Paul KarlSchmidt in the Wilhelmstrassevast quantities of propaganda, not onlyfrom Berlin but also later from Tokyo, were poured into the Spanishnews agency known as EFE which then provided food to the entireSpanish press. It was fitting that the Spanish agency, having no life of its own, should take the name of EFE whose acronym stood fornothing.

The question asked so many times about the presswhether it accu-rately represents public opinioncan be asked again in the case ofFrancos press. It is reasonable to reply that any newspapers editorialposition is as much the product of its readers views as it is the formulatorof their views. An interesting comment on Spanish public opinion wasmade on French television in 1994 when Jos Luis de Vilallonga,21 whohad fought for Franco in the Civil War and remained in his camp

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throughout the world war, was asked about public opinion during thatperiod. He replied that 80 per cent of Spaniards were Germanophiles. Hewas then asked to what extent this large majority believed that Hitlerwould win the war. He replied that up to the last moment they believedin the victory of Germany, at which point his French interviewerremarked, Unlike Vichy. Spaniards remained Germanophile, concludedVilallonga, there were only a few thousand Anglophiles.22

Francos apologists are today a shrinking race, but they do not give upeasily in their attempts to deny the evidence. It is hoped that the newrevelations contained in this book will lift the debate to a higher level.

In compiling this book, I wish to express my thanks to the followingpersons and institutions. In Germany, to Manfred Kehrig and KlausMeyer of the BundesarchivMilitrarchiv, and Oberst Dr Rohde of theMilitrgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, both in Freiburg-im-Breisgau;in France, to certain personnel in the Bibliothque de DocumentationInternationale Contemporaine and the Bibliotheque Nationale; in Spain,to all the personnel encountered in the Biblioteca Nacional; and inEngland, and in a class of his own, to Paul Preston, Professor ofInternational History at the London School of Economics. Finally, toCarol Lynn Tjernell, Gergana Hristova, and Irina Massovets, for theirvaluable help in the research and preparation of this work.

David Wingeate PikeParis, 21 September 2007

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Figure 1 Spanish Foreign Minister Serrano Ser, Franco and Mussolini convene inBordighera, 12 February 1941.Source: Roger Viollet/Getty Images. Photographer: LAPI/Contributor.

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Figure 2 Madrid, Palacio de Oriente, 20 February 1941. The Japanese AmbassadorYakichiro Suma presents his credentials to the Chief of State, Francisco Franco.Source: EFE. Photographer: Miguel Corts.

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1The Civil War and France:Unsettled Accounts (19361939)

1

It was just one day after the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, themilitary offensive alliance concluded between Germany and Japan, thatGermany and Italy agreed, on 18 November 1936, to grant recognition toFranco. Franco replied to this action on the same day by describingGermany and Italy, as well as Portugal and Nationalist Spain, as Europeanbastions of Christian culture and civilisation. This moment, he declared,marks the apex of the life of the world.1 On 25 April 1937, on the sameday that Manuel Hedilla, head of the Falange, was arrested on the ordersof Franco, the Roman salute was adopted as the national salute for allofficial ceremonies. With the arrest of Hedilla, Ramn Serrano Ser,Francos brother-in-law2 and an impassioned Germanophile, became sec-retary general of the new national movement.

Relations between Burgos and the Axis were not always smooth. TheGermans disliked Serrano Ser, for example, and the Italian fascists wereallegedly shocked by the brutality shown by Spanish conservatives.3

After the Civil War ended we heard glowing tributes, especially to theGermans, but during their presence in Spain there was frequent criticism.These reports were, of course, blown out of proportion by the left wingpress inside and outside Spain, but the moderate press in France testifiesto the gravity of the situation. La Dpche of Toulouse reported that theSpanish Nationalists were ashamed of the invasion of their country bythe Germans and Italians.4 General Juan de Yage Blanco made a state-ment in mid-April 1938, reported in El Diario of Burgos, that it was futileto denounce the International Brigades as long as Germans and Italianswere admitted into the Nationalist ranks; he added that the Germansand Italians were behaving in Nationalist Spain like beasts of prey.5

There were many reports of Italians strutting in the streets of Spain likeconquerors. Manuel Chaves Nogales, who had been editor-in-chief of

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the Madrid journal Ahora, and who was now writing for La Dpche,reported in late 1938 that if Mussolini were to send further massive rein-forcements he would risk antagonising the Nationalist Army, which wassecretly proud of the courage of the Republican Army, and that, if it hadto choose, it would prefer a victory of the Reds to a victory of theItalians.6 The term smacks of hyperbole, but there are reports thatthe popular song Guadalajara no es Abisinia, written in March 1937 afterthe Italian defeat, was being sung also in Nationalist Spain. The Frenchconservative writer and dput Henri de Krillis, who at the beginningof the war had offered a sword of honour to Franco, wrote in 1938 insimilar vein, insisting that the resentment felt in Nationalist Spaintowards the arrogance of the Italians continued to increase.7

Another centrist organ of the French press, LOrdre, reported in late1938 that the Germans were no better liked than the Italians by theman in the street in Nationalist Spain. It was said that a number ofNationalist officers, including General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, weredisgusted with the reputation they had won as common murderers bytheir alliance with the Germans and Italians. Two German officers wereattacked in Montilla. There was further trouble elsewhere in Andalusia(in Antequera, Utrera, La Linea and Estepona) as well as in Cceres.8

Nationalist officers were said to be more and more antagonised by theGerman technical specialists who talked as if they were the masters andwho treated the Spaniards like small boys. In Avila and Salamanca,German troops in groups of four were reported to be throwing theirmoney around, and very considerable money at that. Meanwhile, theirofficers were filling up the best hotels and lording it to the point ofimpertinence. At the same time, they were described, even by a Frenchconservative journal, as all quite disappointed by the way the womenreceived them.9 According to the diplomatic gossip that GeneviveTabouis picked up in Rome, there was talk now even among Nationalistofficers of the need for a holy war to purge Spain of the German infection.In the same Nationalist Spain where Mauricio Karl (alias Carlavilla) waswriting pamphlets on the question, Where would the world be withoutAdolf Hitler? there was talk of these German bastards who bombMadrid because its not their capital. Theyll pay for it one day. Oragain, The days coming when therell be a real war of independenceagainst these invaders.10

Whatever animosities existed in Nationalist Spain between Francoand his fascist allies, they did not affect an alliance based on need. In aninterview granted to the French senator Henry Lmery in April 1938,Franco declared: Nationalist Spain has made no appeal to any power.

2 Franco and the Axis Stigma


It was only when the Russian tanks made their appearance in Madrid ...that the Generalissimo of the Nationalist forces decided to allow foreignvolunteers to enlist.11 General Mola spoke in similar terms: We havenever sought to attract foreign volunteers, on account of the nationalcharacter of the movement,12 even though Mola himself had grandlyannounced in September 1936 that he would proceed to the enrolmentof such volunteers.13 According to the Paris right wing daily LActionFranaise, the insignificant number of foreign volunteers on theNationalist side was in keeping with Francos orders.14 On the otherhand, the importance to Franco of the German and Italian forces wasrevealed in November 1936 by Vittorio Cerruti, the Italian ambassadorin Paris, when he confided to his American counterpart, William Bullitt,that Francos forces were insufficient to allow him to conquer all ofSpain15 and by Baron Eberhard von Stohrer, the German ambassador tothe Nationalist authorities in Salamanca, according to whom CountFrancisco Gmez Jordana, the Spanish foreign minister, had told himthat Franco planned to keep the German volunteers until victory waswon.16 In May 1937, Stohrer added: [Franco] asks that the Germanvolunteers remain for some time longer; he expects the Reds to put upa stubborn resistance for some time ... . Only when the war reaches thestage of cleaning-up operations (and when the term police action can trulybe used) can Franco safely do without the German volunteers. Francoadded: The excellent German pilots could not possibly be replaced.17

After the Nationalist victory, a German staff colonel reported: Francois deeply convinced that his future lies at the side of Germany andItaly. He openly detests the French, and he does not like the British. Hethinks that if war should come the British would not be able to holdGibraltar.18

Meanwhile, in the course of the Civil War, the criticism in theNationalist press of the democracies, and especially France, mounted inabuse. A leading contributor to this campaign was Professor ErnestoGimnez Caballero, one of the founders of the Falange and an unoffi-cial spokesman for Franco. Gimnez boasted of never reading the arti-cles of Charles Maurras, founder of the French reactionary movementAction Franaise. Spain, he said, had no need of the friendship of theFrench right any more than it needed that of the French left. In a speechat Palencia on 15 April 1937, he declared: Germany, Italy and Spain willleap over the Rhine, over the Alps, over the Pyrenees to put an end toFrance.19 The real France is dead, wrote the Falangist daily Hierro andadded: That is the only way to explain the infamy of forcing Spaniardsfleeing from Spain to return to the Red zone. Poor France, how dearly

The Civil War and France 3


will she pay for what she has done!20 On 8 April 1938, Hierro repeatedits refrain: Ethnic and geographic groupings mean nothing in them-selves, and among the sad examples of peoples who have ceased to existwe find France, which was once our history-shaking neighbour, andtoday is nothing more than contiguous to us, as a foul and stinkinghovel [casucha infecta y mal oliente] might be attached to us in a com-mon patio.21 The victorious sword of Franco, added the daily El CorreoEspaol, in liberating Spain, is working also to liberate Europe from thefilth of democracy.22 Spaniards, it went on, have a feeling of hatredwhenever they look over the Pyrenees. They view the enemies of Francewith sympathy.23 Jos Flix de Lequerica, the future ambassador toParis, gave a speech in Florence in which he told his Italian audience:We are united by our hatred of the enemy, whether that enemy callsitself communism, Freemasonry, or democracy.24

As if to outdo all other Francophobes, General Alfredo Kindeln,commander-in-chief of Francos air force, issued a statement in Saragossain July 1938 which was clarity itself:

It could not have escaped the attention of the worthy members ofthe French defence committee, nor probably that of Blum andBoncour, that the dangerous policy that France was following washeading straight to war, a war for which France remains unprepared.To a world war very probably, which would mean the decline ofFrance to the rank of an insignificant third- or fourth-rate power. Butcertainly to a war with Spain, for our national dignity cannot acceptthat our territorial integrity, sacred and inviolable, be impinged uponby anyone.

It is certain that our population centres near the frontier wouldsuffer from the inevitable air attacks of the French, despite our supe-riority in quality in the air, but such attacks would not go unan-swered. In the first week of a war with France, our bombers wouldreduce Bordeaux, Toulouse, Bayonne, Biarritz and Marseille to a heapof ruins and the French rail communications would be disrupted.

A war with France would develop our fighting spirit and wouldattract to our ranks the opinion and the support, tacit or expressed,of many adversaries of France who would feel their ancient and longdormant rancour rekindled in their souls, and feel, re-awakeningwithin them, the racial characteristics of that indomitable sense ofSpanishness.

However, with or without that succour, we could view war withFrance without pessimism and confront it without fear, given the



present circumstances that we would have a strong and battle-testedarmy of several hundred thousand men mobilized along a frontwhich is ideal for a war against our neighbour, who could scarcelyput into the field against usunless it were to commit the worst follyby reducing its garrisons on other frontiersmore than four or fiveuntrained army corps, a force easy to contain and even to repulse, ifour High Command acts on its calculations and sets up our defenceline inside French territory, along the only crossable part of thePyrenees that runs from the Bidasoa to Saint-Jean-Pied-de Port.25

In the same month, on 18 July 1938, a similar scene unfolded inAlcazarquivir when Serrano Ser, on a visit to Spanish Morocco, gave aspeech in the barracks of the Moorish Regulares. His audience, presidedover by the High Commissioner Juan Beigbeder, consisted mainly ofmilitary personnel and included General Franco. In the course of hisspeech Serrano said: Spain is feeling the weight of a foreign domina-tion, more precisely a French deformation [afrancesamiento] of our mindsand morals. At this point the officers and men began to cry out: Deathto France! Down with France! Long live Germany! Long live war! Thisuproar continued for nearly ten minutes while Beigbeder sat smilingwith approval and giving his comment: Lets have some calm here.Everything will be taken care of [todo se andar ].26

This surge of Francophobia did not abate. France oppresses Corsica,which is Italian and must be returned to Mussolini, wrote the weekly ElDomingo in 1939.27 Ernesto Gimnez wrote in the same paper: We lookforward to paying our debts with interest and, once the war is over, tosending our French friends not one hundred thousand but two hundredthousand Franco troops to help them implant the faith.28 As if to showthat none of this was mere bluster, when Francos troops enteredAlicante they arrested not only the French communist dput CharlesTillon but the French consul too.29 In Madrid, the French consul JacquesPigeonneau was the victim of an assault when, on the night of 89 July1939, Spanish officers dragged him into an alley and severely beat himup.30 Lequerica, by now Francos ambassador in Paris, presented hisapologies to Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet who had little reason, inthe light of Lequericas earlier statement, to believe in his sincerity.31

* * * * *

There had never been a time since 1713 when the power of Spain was amatch for the power of France. The difference in their stature was never



more obvious than in 1939, when Spain under Franco emergedexhausted from the Civil War. Nevertheless, certain factors were now inplay that gave Spain a measure of equality. France, with hostile neigh-bours to the north-east and the south-east and a bitter if not vengefulneighbour to the south-west, was strategically on the defensive. Addedto this was the little noted factor that modern war had reshuffled thecards. Certain commodities of vast importance to warfare were not eas-ily available. Spain happened to be blessed with resources that wereboth vital and rare.

It took the Civil War to prove to France the extent of its dependenceupon Spain for its most essential military provisions. At that time, oneof the elements for the manufacture of all gunpowder and of almost allexplosives was sulphuric acid. France, however, could not produce morethan small quantities of sulphur, notably on the outskirts of Narbonne.French sulphuric acid was consequently based almost entirely on pyrites.Certainly, as a result of the development of concentrated synthetic nitricacid, the dependence on pyrites could be reduced for an equal produc-tion of arms, but even so, the need would not be reduced to less than100,000 tons per month, and indeed, during the war of 191418 Francehad needed double that quantity. The fact remained that France couldnot hope to draw from its pyrites mines, even at their fullest produc-tion, more than 50,000 tons per month. It was thus necessary to importthe rest. The pyrites producers to which France could apply in time ofwar were few and far between. They were primarily Spain, Portugal,Norway and Greece. The pyrites produced in Norway and Greece, how-ever, were of inferior quality, being too hard to crush. From PortugalFrench imports of pyrites almost tripled in 1936, reaching not less than326,000 tons for the year, at the same time that France imported vastquantities of sulphur. Nevertheless, that still left Spain as the indispen-sable provider. Some of the more clairvoyant French leaders envisaged,from the moment that the Civil War opened in July 1936, that thissource could come to an end. During the last six months of that year,the import of Spanish pyrites was accelerated while at the same timeFrance searched the earth for other sources. Furthermore, with the assis-tance of the huge British enterprise Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI),recourse was now made to gypsum as a source material.

France could thus take it better in stride when in February 1937Franco issued a proclamation forbidding the export of pyrites to Franceor to any country that would re-export the material to France, but theproblem was still unsolved. Most of the detonators manufactured inFrance were produced with mercury fulminate. Obviously, if war were



to break out, France could not count on Italian mercury, or on import-ing mercury from Central Africa or Mexico or Australia. In this state ofaffairs, even if lead nitrate could, at a pinch, partially replace mercuryfulminate, France was nonetheless once again thrown back on a singlesource: Spain.

In March 1937, shortly after Francos ban on the export of pyrites toFrance, President Albert Lebrun held a private meeting with the engineerJohn Nicoltis, who was head of ICI in France and also vice-president ofthe Fdration des Officiers de Rserve Rpublicains, an anti-fascistorganisation formed after the Paris riots of 6 February 1934. ColonelNicoltis, who as a young officer had served on the staff of Marshal Fochduring the First World War, informed the president of his recent experi-ence in Republican Spain. He had taken it upon himself, in late August1936, to visit Barcelona and Madrid, where he found the arms industryin a dishevelled state as a result of the defection of most of its techni-cians. After discussing the matter with Jos Giral, the prime ministerand minister of war, and his son Francisco, who was then head of theoffice of chemical weapons, together with Admiral Matz, the navy min-ister, and other high Republican leaders, Nicoltis assembled a commis-sion which was given total authority over civil and military industries;it was the nucleus of the office of Undersecretary of State for Arms,which was later filled, in 1937, by Alejandro Otero, a professor ofgynaecology at the University of Granada.

With regard to the production of war explosives, the RepublicanGovernment in August 1936 depended almost entirely on trinitro-toluene (TNT). But TNT, a nitrate explosive, was expensive and rare.Nicoltis answered the problem by advocating the use of nitrate explo-sives (known by the name of Favier) and especially the mixing ofammonia nitrate with phlegmatising or sensitising materials chosen forthe desired properties of progressiveness and brisance or shatteringeffect. In this way a whole range of explosives was obtained, whether forpublic works, mining, army engineers, or loading shells or bombs. Forthe latter use, requiring a higher explosive, Nicoltis advocated a mix-ture known under the name of amatol, consisting of one part TNT andfour parts nitrate of ammonia, producing an impact almost equivalentto that of pure TNT. He thus achieved a considerable saving: while TNTwas expensive, and delicate to produce, ammonia nitrate was relativelycheap. The importation of nitrate of ammonia from France, where itwas abundant, was immediately begun and workshops to handle themixing and loading were built and entered service.32 Since nitrate ofammonia is in general useit is used especially as manureit could be



freely imported into Spain without violating the embargo imposed inNovember 1936 by the Non-intervention Committee in London on allexports to Spain of strategic materials.

In the course of his long discussion with President Lebrun, who washimself an engineer, Nicoltis insisted on the danger facing the Frenchpowder and explosives industries by the collaboration between Hitlerand Franco. In his opinion, it was the importance of Spain to France, assupplier of these raw materials, that explained in part why Hitler hadintervened in Spain, his aim being not only to obtain iron but above allto deprive France of the sulphur supplies which were essential to itsnational defence.

Towards the end of the Civil War, Franco used the question of pyritesupply to exert maximum pressure on the French Government, impos-ing terms of export for the future which the French Governmentrefused to accept. Lon Blum, the former prime minister, wrote in theToulouse daily La Dpche on 19 February 1939 that he was not reveal-ing any secret of national defence in pointing out that France hadfound that sulphuric acid could be produced easily enough with sub-stances other than pyrites. Stocks have therefore been built up, hewrote, the procedure for industrial production has been readapted.Franco has perhaps, unwittingly, offered France a gift. The supply ofpyrites or the ban on the export of pyrites has ceased to be a means ofexerting pressure on France.

Unfortunately for France, this statement was not in line with thefacts. All substitutes for pyrites were either of long-term application orpurely theoretical. From February 1937, in spite of every effort made,French stocks of sulphuric acid were never, at any moment, sufficientfor the needs of national defence. Colonel Nicoltis thought for the restof his life that if there had been no armistice in June 1940, France wouldhave exhausted its sulphur reserves at the end of that year.

In the course of his meeting with President Lebrun, Nicoltis alsoexpressed his concern over the vulnerability of French war factories toair attack. Certainly, defensive measures were being undertaken by evac-uating arms factories, but the measures were being taken as if there wasno risk of attack from the air. Certain factories of vital strategic valuehad been found impossible to evacuate and remained in very exposedpositions. Others which had indeed been evacuated were not necessar-ily in a safer place. It was now necessaryand this was a new elemententirelyto think of the poorly defended frontier in the south-west,where privately owned industries evacuated from the Paris region, thenorth and the east had been set up. Beyond that, a good number of large



French war factories, such as those in Toulouse, Bergerac, Angoulmeand Saint-Mdard were also situated in this region. In the event of waracross the Pyrenees, one of these factories was in an exceptionally pre-carious situation: that in Toulouse, not only because of its manufactureof powder, but also because it was the site of one halfthe other was inthe Northof Frances production of ammonia-based nitric acid, of suchvital importance, as we have seen, to national defence.33

It should be borne in mind that the distance between the peaksof the Pyrenees and Francos airfields, most of them situated alongthe Ebro between Logroo and Saragossa, ranges from a mere 100 to150 kilometres. This means that a bomber taking off from the Ebro hadnot exceeded a fifth of its range at the time of crossing the Frenchfrontier. Senator Andr Morizet (Seine) described in the Paris dailyLOeuvre how frenzied were the efforts underway to improve theSpanish airfields, when they were of no further value for the Civil War,being in places where future military operations against the SpanishRepublic seemed improbable.34 In LOrdre, another daily of the centristParti Radical, its director mile Bur also insisted that Germans andItalians were engaged in militarising the Pyrenees frontier.35 The ques-tion was a source of concern, too, to General Paul Armengaud of the AirForce. The range of fascist planes based south of the Pyrenees encom-passed Bordeaux and Marseilles.36

The article written by Senator Morizet was based on a plan he hadreceived on 25 May 1938 from the Republican Air Force authorities inBarcelona, while he was heading a French parliamentary investigationof German air force activities in the Nationalist zone. In a report toGuy La Chambre, the minister of aviation, Lieutenant Colonel Quir-Montfollet, air attach at the French Embassy in Barcelona, under-scored certain military measures, not justified by the present conflict,that were underway in Nationalist territory. He mentioned several proj-ects under construction, among them the intensive work on airfieldssituated to the east of Vitoria (on the road to San Sebastian) and atRecajo (Logroo), and an entire system of airfields intended for use byheavy bombers, on a line closely following the Ebro. Conspicuous inthis system of air bases were those between Saragossa and Tudela. TheGermans were thought to have a plan of penetrating the Cerdagne val-ley along the line of LridaSeo de Urgel. From January 1938, an airbase had been set up in San Sebastian, and no unauthorised personcould visit the nearby airfield at Lasarte which contained, according tothe same report, huge underground hangers. The unloading point formost of the German matriel was Pasajes, which had been perfectly set



up as a military port, and all this within 10 kilometres of the Frenchfrontier.37

Summing up, it was clear to Colonel Nicoltis that, if the Germanswanted to destroy all Frances powder factories, they could achieve itwithin days, supposing of course that Franco agreed, or that Hitlerwould consider such a plan, which was not exactly part of his vision.It is in this context of French vulnerability, however, that the address byGeneral Kindeln in Aragon in July 1938 should be interpreted. It wouldhave been an error for the French authorities to dismiss his speech asmere bombast, and it amounted to one more hostile frontier for Franceto contemplate.



2From Francos Victory to the Fall of France (1 April 193915 June 1940)

No country was more concerned than France with the direction ofSpains foreign policy under its new leadership. In its anxiety over secu-rity on its south-western frontier, France needed a reliable intelligenceservice. In fact, the erratic quality of French intelligence during thedecline of the Third Republic was one of the keys to the success ofthe Nazi offensive. French intelligence covering Spanish affairs was noexception. Occasionally it was illuminating, but too often it confusedreality with its dreams.1

From the moment that the Spanish Civil War ended on 1 April 1939,the victorious Spanish Nationalists set about building an image ofnational independence while they sought to maintain the close tiesnow forged with the Axis powers. French intelligence soon claimed thatit detected an increasing tension in relations between Spain andGermany. It reported in June 1939 that the Nazi government was revis-ing in its favour certain commercial treaties it had signed with Franco:it had upped the ante on a bill for supplies by as much as 30 per cent,demanded 30 per cent payment of the same in fruit and then placedthis fruit on the European market at 15 per cent below the price fixedby Spain.2 That the Germans increased their demand for tropical fruitand vegetables is shown in the official report for 19369 of the Germantrading company Hispano-Marroqu de Transportes (HISMA), whichshows that exports of these commodities to Germany doubled in thatyear, from RM 14 million3 in 1938 to RM 28 million in 1939. But thesuggestion that there was already an increase in tension between Spainand Germany is misleading, because the German leaders were deter-mined not to allow it.

Germany had had good reason for its confidence that after the CivilWar she would fill the economic role in Spain previously reserved for

11


Britain, France and the United States. HISMA, headed by JohannesBernhardt, had duly moved into exports of ore from the Anglo-FrenchRiff mines of Spanish Morocco, which had been expropriated by theSpanish Nationalists. In March 1937 the Germans and Spaniards hadsigned a secret protocol at Salamanca, providing not only for coopera-tion against communism but for intensified economic relations. In thefall of 1938, when the Burgos government was still faced with stiffRepublican opposition and feared that a European war would result inFrench intervention in Spain, Franco finally yielded to the Montanademands of Bernhardt, permitting German ownership of five Spanishmining companies, as the price for obtaining additional German warmatriel. But no sooner had Franco brought his Catalan campaign toa successful conclusion than he again reasserted his independence fromGerman control. From that time on, German pressure on Franco wasvirtually ineffective. In April 1939 Joachim von Ribbentrop, theGerman foreign minister, himself realised that the Reichs bargainingposition with Franco was now weaker. He therefore gave instructionsthat the Spaniards were to be treated chivalrously and that, in the mat-ter of the Spanish debt of some RM 400 million,4 the account might bementioned to them, but compensation was not to be demanded.Eberhard von Stohrer, the German ambassador to Spain, freely agreedthat the Reich must now observe caution and moderation and refrainfor a while from making further requests. German negotiators, there-fore, were to agree to a debt settlement most acceptable to Spain and tostress friendly cooperation between Germany and Spain in Spainsreconstruction. Only in this way would Germany prevent Spain fromturning to Britain and France at the expense of the Reich.5

The French government was now concerned that Germany was suc-ceeding in consolidating her position in Spain. Although wide publicitywas being given in Spain to the departure of Axis troops, French intelli-gence reported that by June some 60 Germans were engaged in theactivities of the press agency known as Transocean, centred inValladolid and working in collaboration with the Spanish agency EFE;their task was to filter the news by suppressing anything that wouldshow France in a good light and portraying the French government asunfaithful to the BrardJordana agreements.6 In Madrid the dailyInformaciones was virtually in German hands. While the nominal ownerwas the Chilean-born Vctor de la Serna, he made no secret of the factthat his profits were connected to his close friendship with the GermanEmbassy. Momentarily in May 1940 it was noticed that the Spanishpress was violently anti-British while neutral towards France. This



merely reflected Germanys policy of attempting to split the Allies, foranti-French attacks were resumed soon afterwards.

Propaganda activity was not the only interest of the German govern-ment in Spain. In May 1939, the Axis troops finally left the Peninsula.Before they left there were grandiose farewell ceremonies. Not only werethe German and Italian contingents, under Colonel Wolfgang vonRichthofen and General Gastone Gambara, present at Francos victoryparade in Madrid on 19 May but they were also fted at others, theItalians at Logroo on 11 May and the Condor Legion at Len on 22 May.In the same month, on 8 May, Spain followed the dmarche of Japan,Germany and Italy in resigning from the League of Nations. Coincidentwith the noisy departure of the Axis troops was the highly discreetarrival of German officials and technicians, few in number but impor-tant in function. French intelligence now reported that these weretaking full control of Spains telephone and telegraph systems, radionetwork and police organisation. The basis of the French report was thefact that no telephone or telegraph services were available in Madrid forthe first three days after its capture. Representatives of the InternationalTelephone & Telegraph Company, which owned and operated the Spanishsystem, were barred from entering their property. Spaniards were givencharge of the company, and it was only their incapacity to handle thesystem that restored it, 18 months later, to American hands.7 TheFrench report assumed that the purpose of the interruption was to allowthe Germans to install their own systems. During the Second World Warthe British and Americans also came to believe that the Germans wereable to monitor their communications, while ironically the Germansbelieved that the Americans, having recovered possession of the system,were doing precisely that at the Germans expense.8

As far as radio is concerned, German influence on Spanish broadcast-ing was limited or at least subtle, because the Spanish authoritiesstressed Spanish tradition more than ever. There was, however, the mat-ter of the Germans establishing radio and weather observation postsalong the coasts and near Gibraltar.9 Certainly, by the time HeinrichHimmler visited Madrid on 19 October 1940, Gestapo members wereinstalled at police headquarters in the capital and a close collaborationexisted between the two police systems; Gestapo agents moved about inuniform, and vehicles marked with the swastika were a common sight.Well might the new British ambassador, Sir Samuel Hoare,10 report toLord Halifax that the Germans and the Italians were solidly entrenchedin all branches of government as well as in all aspects of national life.11

The Italians had continued to lose face, and the song Guadalajara was

From Francos Victory to the Fall of France 13


now a current hit,12 but they were nonetheless reported to be pouringback into Spain, even if the Axis now sent only civilian technicians andinstructors.

French intelligence claimed that some 15,000 Italians had returned bymid-February 1940 and that in the following two months this wasdoubled; at the same time another 10,000 Germans had also returned,13

presumably in accordance with a pact of friendship signed by Hitler andFranco on 29 November 1939, which obligated close relations betweenthe signatory powers. In the next two months the French Ministry ofthe Interior insisted that the number of Germans in Spain had risen to50,000 by mid-May14 and to 80,000 by June, at which time the numberof Italians was reported to have fallen to 11,000.15 At one point, Frenchintelligence contended that access to the Balearic Islands had beenclosed to all outsiders except Germans and Italians.16 Certainly CharlesFoltz Jr, Madrid bureau chief for the Associated Press, was to find him-self barred from the islands from 1941 to 1943, while Italian submarineswere reported to be refuelling there.

Meanwhile, Spain sought to satisfy German expectations in regard tothe indemnities contracted during the Civil War. Despite reports thatSpanish industry at large was in a state of stagnation, due to war dam-age and the lack of raw materials,17 war production was continued,especially the production of items for German use, ranging from para-chutes to submarine engines. But French intelligence reports were againerratic. One of these contended that a Messerschmitt factory had beenin operation in Seville since the beginning of the Civil War,18 andthere were reports of Willy Messerschmitt in Spain, but these wereunfounded. Messerschmitt was confused with the German entrepreneurEberhard Messerschmidt, who had visited Seville on 28 August 1936and in a report to the Wilhelmstrasse complained that HISMA held anofficial monopoly which barred him, as a representative of Reich indus-try, from opening any business enterprise in Spain.19 The same Frenchintelligence report spoke of the completion of 200 aircraft whose con-struction had allegedly been started by the Republicans in Barcelonabefore the city fell.20 In fact, there was no aviation factory in Barcelonaor anywhere else in Republican Spain during the Civil War, nor even anassembly plant for Soviet planes. The most that existed were workshopsfor repair jobs,21 or for the manufacture of aircraft engines, at Sabadell,Elizalde and Reus.22 This plant at Reus was, according to the FrenchMinistry of the Interior, in full production by April 1940,23 but there isstill no evidence that there was a Messerschmitt factory in Reus or any-where else in Spain in the Second World War.24 Again, the FrenchMinistry of the Interior contended that a sugar factory at Tudela had been



refitted for the production of poison gas,25 but in a town as small asTudela the fact could hardly have been concealed. Nonetheless, it is con-ceivable that Spain was manufacturing either fluorine gas or a mixture ofmethane gas and coal dust for use against Gibraltar; fluorine gas is toxicand highly aggressive against metal, and the Germans built a fluorine fac-tory at Falkensee for that purpose and continued their experiments onthe gas until 1941.26 As for the food supply, while a large proportion ofthe Spanish people faced dire hunger and even starvation27conditionsbeing worse than at any time during the Civil Warconsiderable quan-tities of oil and rice were being exported to Germany, labelled Excess.In fact good quality oila Spanish staplewas fetching $4.50 a quarton the black market, while bad oil was very hard to find at the officialprice of $1.10.28 The estimate of French intelligence, however, that theexports of rice in 1940 amounted to three entire harvests sufficient tofeed the whole of Europe for one year29 was highly exaggerated, sinceSpain lacked sufficient fertiliser to produce such a quantity. But thesame report contends that such a store was made possible by the factthat every political party in Spain during the last half of the Civil Warhad laid up stocks in secret, despite the near-famine that prevailed. Andindeed, when in March 1939 the Anarchists in Madrid raided theCommunist headquarters opposite the Arco de la Independencia theyhad found huge stores of foodstuffs.30

Outwardly Spain presented an air of confidence. Even before theCivil War had officially ended (1 April 1939), it had joined the Anti-Comintern Pact on 27 March 1939 (made public on 6 April 1939) andsigned the Hispano-German Pact (or Treaty of Friendship withGermany) on 31 March. On 8 May 1939, even while the Non-interventionCommittee was still in existenceit met for the last time on 18 MayFranco, the great beneficiary of all the humbug in which that committeewas wrapped, withdrew his country from the League of Nations.

On 13 June 1939 Serrano Ser, as minister of the interior, was inRome for talks with Mussolini and Ciano, telling them that, in theevent of war, Spain would be at the side of the Axis because she wouldbe guided by feeling and by reason. A neutral Spain, he explained,would be destined to a future of poverty and humiliation, but he alsowarned that Spain would require at least two years to prepare itselfmilitarily.31 Press reports subsequently appeared to the effect that Romehad invited Madrid to sign a military alliance with Germany and Italy.In Paris, Flix Lequerica, the former mayor of Bilbao and now theSpanish ambassador, hastened to inform Georges Bonnet, the Frenchforeign minister, that the Spanish government had rejected the invita-tion from Rome. Lequerica also repudiated the statement by General



Kindeln, commander-in-chief of the Spanish air force, in an interviewwith the Italian newspaper La Stampa, to the effect that it would beimpossible for the Spanish armed forces to remain neutral if Italybecame involved in a war. Such statements, Lequerica told Bonnet, inno way corresponded to the views of the Spanish government.

In mid-August 1939, as the war clouds gathered, posters appeared allover Spain carrying a statement by Ramn Serrano Ser who, on10 August, had become foreign minister and leader of the Falange: Weare enemies only of Russias friends. Two days later, with the signing ofthe MolotovRibbentrop Pact, the posters were hastily torn down.32 Theshock that the Pact registered was evident on all sides. Poland, the bul-wark against the godless threat from the East, now saw itself as thevictim of a replay of 1795, its very existence denied. In the Catholicdaily Ya, Augusto Assia expressed its bewilderment:

Most probably the situation will acquire a clarity later today that itlacks at the moment that I write this column ... . If Mr Chamberlainrecognizes that the Non-Aggression pact changes the situation inEurope, and as a result requires a realistic revision of British policy,the international tension will automatically decline. If, on the con-trary, the stubborn head of the British Government delivers a speechmarked by intransigence, then the tension will automatically rise, towhat level God knows.33

The next day the same writer continued:

In reality, for the worst to be avoided, the world tonight waits uponthe bold intervention of the Duce. To the hard and serene rock ofRome all eyes now are turned.34

A week later came Hitlers invasion, when the resistance of an unques-tionably Catholic people to a pagan invasion caused visible embarrass-ment in the Spanish press.35 Hours before Hitler made the irreversibledecision, ABC had reported from Berlin:

If the calm of yesterday and today can last forty-eight hours more,peace will have been definitively saved.

These hopes are threatened, however, by the frenzied and senselessattitude of a single country: Poland. If war should break out, withouta minimum regard for the enormous efforts that have been made tobring us to where we are, only Poland and its leaders will carry the



guilt for the catastrophe. But if it is possible to force this turbulentcountry, without history or traditions, to see reason, then perhaps onthe horizon of Europe an aurora borealis will emerge, to last at leastlong enough for the span of our poor generation, tired of conflictand saddened by memories too recent and too bitter.36

The following day Hitlers decision was known. ABC responded virtu-ally with a shrug: We know that in the rotation of history war is anineluctable fact.37 Arribas response was to make excuses for Hitler; itsedition of 3 September ran the headline: Germany does not seek to reignover the world but to defend its independence, citing Point 5 in theresponse of the German government to the British ambassador in Berlin,Sir Neville Henderson.38

With the declaration of war on Germany by the British and Frenchgovernments on 3 September 1939, Spain responded the next day witha declaration of neutrality which was similarly expressed by the UnitedStates, Turkey and Japan. Romes response was to declare Italy a non-belligerent. El Correo Cataln took the occasion to declare that Spain hada war industry second to none.39

Compared with the frequent threats and invective hurled at France byFrancos controlled press towards the end of the Civil War, its coverageof the democratic side in the opening week of the Second World Warwas remarkably mild,40 but the lightning success of the Germanonslaught on Poland brought a reversal in the Spanish attitude to theWestern democracies. Their failure to go to Polands aid revived theSpanish authorities contempt for these democracies and for liberalismin general. In the Catholic Ya, Augusto Assia wrote of Warsaws cruci-fixion, but his own article fell short of expressing any real dismay overthe destruction of Catholic Poland by pagan Germany.41 In an editorialin ABC, Jos Mara Salaverria expressed his dismay at how much wealthwas being wasted on war, when it could be so well spent on providingfood, schools and hospitals: Man has not yet sufficiently developed forhim to direct his ideas and his works exclusively to doing good.42

He added the next day: Rarely has a war opened with such impressivefrigidness ... . This war can truly be classified as calculated.43 And atmid-month:

We ourselves cannot adopt an attitude of indifference, whether realor feigned.

This war in front of us is the most difficult of all wars ... . For themoment the struggle seems unintelligible, even absurd.



The people today are perplexed. The battles which the Poles arelosing are not of any special interest to us.

This is because few wars have been so cerebral, so intellectual, sodeeply calculated ... . Today Hitler announces that for him the ques-tion of Alsace is settled, and that he has no desire to re-annex thatprovince ... . There is the matter of Polands defence. But Poland,whose misfortunes and enslavement in the first half of the 19th cen-tury aroused romantic feeling, today inspires no romanticism butonly political interest.

This is so far not a war of passion but of calculation; a war in whichthe heart plays little part, and the brain very much indeed.

We can expect and fear that this war will not end as simply as itstarted.44

For the Falange organ Arriba, the situation was even more disturbing.Under the headline German and Soviet troops in contact, Arriba hid itsfeelings, making no comment except to say that at Brest-Litovsk theleaders of the respective armies exchanged the customary greetings.45 ItsBerlin correspondent, Pizarro, put a brave face on the encounter:

Certainly, the entry of the Soviets into Poland is a surprise to no one.It was expected, not simply since the moment of Russias mobilisa-tion, but ever since 24 August, following the GermanRussian Pact.If it has really caused a sensation in Paris and London, it is becausethe democratic press has given itself over to Panglossian cabbalasregarding the extent of the collaboration which is now made clear,and the joint declaration from Moscow, which affirms the totalagreement between the two governments in respect to the generalproblem of Eastern Europe.46

Arriba then presented a front-page photo of the Polish Uhlan cavalry atthe moment of their charge against German positions in the vicinity ofAdz, calling it a marvellous military image that recalls battle scenes inpast centuries.47

Arriba took the opportunity to present Trotskys reaction to the event:

It now becomes clear that while the Comintern was waging a noisycampaign in favour of an alliance with the democracies against fas-cism, the Kremlin was preparing a military agreement with Hitleragainst the democracies. Even idiots will now have to admit that theMoscow trials against the old Bolshevik guard were a hypocritical



preparation for Stalins alliance with Hitler. The Kremlin deceivednot only Chamberlain and Daladier but also the working classes ofthe Soviet Union and the whole world. The words of Molotov, whoclaims the Red Army is covering itself with glory in Poland, reveal theignominy of the Kremlin. The Red Army has been ordered to subju-gate a Poland that is already subjugateda vile and criminal missionassigned to the Army by the jackal in the Kremlin.48

On 20 September, under the headline Hitler speaks to Dantzig, Arribaquoted the Fhrer as follows: May God illuminate the peoples and makethem see that this struggle is leading nowhere ... . We have no hostileintentions either against England or against France.49 Another of itsheadlines on the same day announced an Anti-British demonstration inWarsaw, in which the demonstrators tried to burn down the BritishEmbassy.50 This was followed by a brief reference to the Polish composerand former prime minister Ignacy Paderewski, who was currently in Parisand had just delivered a radio message to his country.51 At the verymoment that Warsaw capitulated and Polish resistance ended, ManuelAznar wrote in Arriba: There were in Eastern Europe, on the borders ofRussia, 20 million Catholics whose fate was not a matter of indifferenceto Spanish Catholic thinking ... . Why not suggest to the Poles that theyagree to an honourable surrender, one in which the prestige of the Polishcombatants will be safe-guarded and, at the same time, all possibility ofSoviet intervention will be eliminated?52 Aznars proposal is astonishingfor its timing. While he was writing, the Soviets, like the Germans, wereeliminating the last vestiges of Polish resistance to the joint occupation.At the same time, Aznar makes no mention of an equal number ofCatholics subjugated in the German-occupied zone.

While Hitler bathed in his triumph, Ya ran a front-page headline:Hitler offers peace for the last time. Under a large portrait of the Fhrerit reproduced the Nazi version of who to blame for the destruction ofPoland, presenting extracts from his speech of 6 October to the Reichstag:

A State with 36 million inhabitants, with an Army made up of 50infantry and cavalry divisions, rose up against us. Its intentions wereunrestricted and its confidence that it could destroy our Reich was fargreater than we calculated.

The cradle of the Polish State was Versailles ... . In this State, con-stituted at the expense of the former Russia, Austria and Germany,the non-Polish inhabitants were barbarously maltreated, oppressed,tyrannized and tortured.53



The Catholic Ya found no fault in any of that. Meanwhile in Spain, the threats thrown out by General Kindeln dur-

ing the Civil War were in no sense abstract. Manuel Ros Agudo hasshown that the Spanish air force under Yage was not simply defensivein its planning. Shortly after the Anglo-French declaration of war,a report that had Francos backing listed the large number of targets inthe three military regions in south-western France that Spain had selectedfor air attack.54 These included, in the XVIth Military Region, factoriesand depots in Albi, Amlie-les-Bains, Lzignan, Montpellier, Perpignanand Villeneuve-ls-Bziers; in the XVIIth Military Region, factories anddepots in Agen, Boussens, Castelsarrasin, Fumel, Lannemezan, Lavardac,Lavelanet, Moissac and Toulouse; and in the XVIIIth Military Region,unspecified targets in Anglet, Bidart, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Dax, Oloronand Tarbes.55

Whatever inaction there was on the Western front, there was no lack ofaction on the worlds high seas, and Franco was ready to play his part. On30 November 1939, he pledged to provide help to German submarines.56

Already, according to Willard Beaulac, who in 1941 could make inquirieson the spot, the German tanker Nordatlantik had dropped anchor in Vigoharbour in July 1939, before the war had even begun, for no apparent pur-pose other than to prepare for supplying fuel to U-boats.57 Then, in thefirst week of war, on 9 September, Admiral Salvador Moreno, the navyminister, had visited Vigo and El Ferrol in order to inspect personally thefacilities available in those ports. He reported to the German Embassy thatpreparations for the supply operation were sufficiently completed for theGermans to begin supplying their submarines.58

Nothing, however, worked quite to the German plan. On 1 November1939, the following message was sent out by Grossadmiral Karl Dnitz,commander-in-chief U-boats:

I have been informed by Skl [Seekriegsleitung Supreme NavalCommand] that the supply-servicing of U25 cannot take place onthe Spanish coast, because the Spaniards of late are creating politicaltrouble. Only in the most extreme emergency would a refuelling inFerrol still be possible. I have decided against sending the boat there,while keeping open the option of using this facility in cases of realurgency. I was aware from the beginning of the grave uncertainty inthis matter.59

Then, in late December, Admiral Dnitz informed Captain Kurt Meyer-Dhner, the German naval attach in Madrid, that the U-25 and the



U-44 were ready to be refuelled in Spain. Meyer-Dhner, however, hadto reply that only one supply ship, the Thalia, anchored in Cadiz, wassuitably prepared. Even then there was a delay, until on 18 January 1940Dnitz sent the following order.

The lack of clarity still to be seen as to the real possibilities of sup-ply-servicing in Spain makes it absolutely necessary to conduct apractical experiment. The U44, currently heading for Spains westerncoast, is eminently suitable for this purpose, because it can operate incoordination with the U boats putting to sea in the 14-day periodafter it sets out. The supply-servicing is therefore ordered for Cadizon the night of 2526 January.60

Accordingly, on 24 January 1940, Meyer-Dhner informed Beigbeder, tothe foreign ministers clear satisfaction, that the first refuelling opera-tion was about to take place in Cadiz, using the Thalia. On the night of3031 January 1940, the U-25 duly entered the port, leaving within sixhours without having been detected.61 Meanwhile, in Vigo, GermanU-boats were now freely refuelling from German merchantmen, and on6 February the operation was discovered. The British admiralty and theFrench navy protested furiously to Admiral Moreno. Predictably, Morenoand Beigbeder affected astonishment and flatly denied all knowledge ofsuch practice.62

The first naval battle of the war was fought in the South Atlanticoutside the estuary of the River Plate, between the German pocket bat-tleship Admiral Graf von Spee and three British light cruisers. In thecourse of the action the battleship suffered damage that forced thecaptain, Hans Langsdorff, to seek repairs in the harbour of Montevideo.A high drama was then played out between the president of Uruguayand the British and German ambassadors, at the end of which thepresident insisted that Langsdorff respect the tenet in internationallaw requiring his ships departure within the customary 72 hours.Rather than continue the fight against the British force waiting forhim in the estuary, Langsdorff obeyed Hitlers order to scuttle his ship.He then committed suicide. Ya reported the scuttling but not thesuicide, and clearly gave its support to the German argument that thefault lay with Uruguay: The German Minister in Montevideo lodgeda protest to the Uruguayan Foreign Minister, Dr Alberto Guani, againstthe action of forcing a damaged warship to put out to sea when it wasnot seaworthy. In the circumstances, it should have been alloweda deferment.63



As 1940 opened, Franco, cautious by temperament, uncertain howthe great conflict would evolve, maintained his above-the-battle stance.When Hitler presented Franco with an automobile worthy of a gener-alissimo, an order went out from the press office on 17 January 1940forbidding all newspapers to make any reference to the gift.64 All ques-tions as to Hitlers purpose ended dramatically in April with the Germanattack on Denmark and Norway, followed by the Blitzkrieg launched inthe west on 10 May. Its immediate result was the replacement ofChamberlain by Churchill. In London, Augusto Assia paid a tribute tothe new premier as he assumed office on 10 May:

His energy, his imagination and his toughness show him to be in theeyes of his nation the one man capable of rousing the Empire ... . In theCuban War he fought as a lieutenant on the side of the Spaniards,earning the Cruz del Mrito Militar. It is one of my most preciousdecorations, he told me one day.

He is 65 years of age, but he retains the moral fibre and the men-tal alertness of a youth. His bulldog look, his nonchalance and hispatriotism have made him the most popular political figure thatEngland has known for generations.

The way he went on denouncing the unhappy state of British armsand the clairvoyance with which he foretold the events of todayafford him a matchless authority to summon his people to make thesacrifices that in this grave hour are indispensable.65

In Berlin, Ramn Garriga presented a different point of view:

Just one month ago there was a real concern in well informed circlesin Berlin that London and Paris would decide to occupy Belgium andHolland, as a response to the German action undertaken in Norway.The Allies lacked the necessary resolution to carry it through. Onceagain audacity and decisiveness have triumphed over indecision anddelayflaws inherent in democratic regimes ... .

The Fhrer ended his speech by saying that the struggle which hasnow begun will decide the national destiny of Germany for the nextone thousand years.66

In London, Assia preferred to repeat the opinion of the Daily Express:Hitler knows that if he does not win the war between now andSeptember, he has lost it.67 While the comment was prophetic, andChurchill himself described the imminent Battle of Britain in almostthe same words, it is doubtful that Hitler agreed with it.



As France staggered under the German onslaught, Arriba suddenlyshowed a striking compassion:

The whole calamity which, for the second time in forty years, hasbeen visited on the soil of France should be regarded by the Spanishpeople in a pious and human spirit that overlooks, as far as possible,the jibes and humiliations of the past ... . Our rigorous Christian feel-ing calls upon us to cast a warm eye of compassion on those parts ofnorthern France that suffer in flesh and bone the consequences oftwenty years of French foreign policy.68

Then, as the battle unfurled, and the winner and the loser became evermore obvious, Arriba added: The State, the priceless and lasting instru-ment, the synthesis of a unanimous national will. When all is said, thismore than all things else is Germanys great secret weapon.69

The arrival in Madrid that week of the new British ambassador,Sir Samuel Hoare, drew warm applause, especially from La VanguardiaEspaola in Barcelona. Augusto Assia wrote: Never, not even in thedays of our great age of empire, has England been represented inMadrid by a person of such prestige, for Sir Samuel is one of the mosteminent figures in British politics, having been mentioned many timesas a future prime minister. He has served as Secretary of State for Air,Secretary of State for India, Foreign Secretary, First Lord of theAdmiralty, Home Secretary, Lord Privy Seal, and in the last Chamberlaingovernment again as Air Minister-designate.70 His well-known pro-Nationalist stance during the Civil War was no handicap either to hispopularity in Madrid. Meanwhile, the fate of the British ExpeditionaryForce in Belgium hung in the balance, especially when Leopold III ofthe Belgians decided on 28 May to capitulate without giving anyadvance warning to his French and British allies. Here La VanguardiaEspaola responded with obvious satisfaction: At the front of his Army,showing himself to be a model of sound prudence, he decided uponcapitulation, knowing that resistance would be useless and wouldmerely prolong the shedding of blood and the suffering of his subjectsin front of the rolling and relentless advance of the invading army.71

The journal, whose purpose was clearly to encourage the French armyto do the same, made no mention of the disastrous effect this had onAllied strategy, imperilling not only the British Expeditionary Force butalso those French divisions that had been moved north to help inBelgiums defence. For the rest of the war and after the Liberation,Leopold III was to face accusations of treason, and on 16 July 1951 hewould be forced to abdicate.



Any evacuation from Dunkirk was considered a lost cause. Arriba on30 May ran a subhead: Re-embarcation is now almost impossible.72

Ramn Garriga was equally pessimistic: Britain and France, with thefinest fleets in Europe, now find themselves incapable of saving themajority of their men.73 On 1 June Arriba ran the headline: The BritishExpeditionary Force in Flanders has been almost entirely annihilated.74

The reality, that the Royal Navy succeeded in evacuating no fewer than340,000 Allied troops, must have come as a grave disappointment toArriba. Augusto Assia, on the other hand, had some kinder things to say.He wrote from London:

The organisation was truly perfect and impressive. Every train was wait-ing for the troops, to leave immediately for another station whereeverything had been prepared: refrigerated foods, tinned goods, ham,biscuits, beer and tea, without the slightest confusion or the very short-est delay ... . The observer can only form the impression that an armyhas returned from Flanders without its weapons and deeply scarred bybattle, but an army capable of facing up once again to the enemy.75

A colleague on La Vanguardia Espaola added: This enormous army hasbeen liquidated as an army in the space of three weeks, even if in thisdisaster there have been examples of energy and bravery worthy ofrespect and admiration.76

The miracle of Dunkirk did not change the overall fact that the Frencharmy was facing the worst defeat in its history and France was facingcollapse. Franco wrote to Hitler on 3 June: My people ... watch withdeep emotion the glorious course of a struggle which they consider theirown, and which fulfils all the hopes kindled in Spain in the days whenyour soldiers were fighting by our side against enemies who, eventhough masked, were the same as now.77 The glorious course was theAllied debacle and the death agony of the French Third Republic. JosMara Alfaro, Undersecretary for Press and Propaganda, reminded Spainhow much the glorious course owed to the Nationalist movement: Wewere the first belligerents in this great revolutionary and civilizing strug-gle to annihilate an era redolent of decay, fear, egoism and cruelty.78

Germanys shattering success allowed the strategic planners in Berlinto move ahead with plans long in readiness. The Seekriegsleitung inBerlin issued a message on 6 June addressed to M.Att. (Military Attach),stamped Top Secret and marked for delivery only by an officer. It read:

It is requested that the following be transmitted to the Navy Attachin Rome in reply to his telephone inquiry of today.



The supplying of German U-boats in Spain and the Canary Islandsmust be carried out exclusively [ausschliesslich] by German mer-chantmen without any collaboration from the Spanish side. It will becarried out in every case inside the harbour, alongside the Germanvessel and during the night, in order to ensure that the operation,both in docking and putting to sea, sailing submerged if necessary,passes unobserved. Every request for re-supply must be addressed toSupreme Naval Command in Berlin; the time limit for preparationbetween the receipt of the message at Supreme Naval Command andthe actual supply is six days in the case of El Ferrol, Vigo and Cadiz,and eleven days in the case of Las Palmas. Supplies available in bothVigo and Las Palmas consist of 250300 cubic metres of fuel oil,15 cubic metres of top-quality lubricating oil, and food suppliessufficient for one U-boat Type U-45 for six weeks. In Cadiz: 300 cubicmetres of fuel oil, 2 cubic metres of the same lubricating oil, and foodsupplies for one U-boat for the same period. And in El Ferrol: 6,000cubic metres of fuel oil, 30 cubic metres of the same lubricating oil,and food supplies for two U-boats for the same period. The minimumdepth of water at the supply points is 15 metres. The technical refer-ences of the fuels and lubricants correspond to the norms of theGerman Navy (see also E.V.) Supply of the fuel is carried out bypumps and hoses, at a rate of about 11 cubic metres per hour, withthe lubricant oils provided by barrels each containing 200 litres. Therefilling of fuel and foodstuffs is not an easy process.

Verified text: signed, Kapitnleutnant (Commander), illegible [vonWallenstein?]

Per pro: Admiral Fricke79

On 12 June, as German forces