The question of the relationship between General Franco in Spain and Hitler had a controversy for many years. The “conservative” view is that dealing with the German dictator Franco was pragmatic, based on what works best for Spain and that Spain has done with great skill during the Second World War. Are the “left” view is that much closer Franco, Hitler was much admired, and go to war alongside Hitler, the conditions were right.
The links between Franco and Hitler began early in the Spanish Civil War. In July 1936, after the election of a leftist government, a group of right-wing officers in a coup launched. However, it was possible, many officers remained loyal to the Republic. The rebels were left in control of a little over one third of Spain, and none of industrial towns. Spanish colony in northern Morocco was now crucial. The Moroccan colonial troops are military power only serious thing in Spain. Commissioned by Franco, they were cut off from the continent, was for the small fleet of the Spanish State.
Franco immediately sent an urgent request for help in the airlift to Hitler. The German dictator sent transport planes to Spain Moroccan army crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, where they consolidated power in the south of Spain, and began in Madrid in March ferry. Position without the Moroccan troops had been the rebels would be much lower, and the coup had even been beaten. For Hitler, the decision marks his overseas adventure first.
Three years of bloody civil war in which Hitler and Mussolini provided substantial assistance in both equipment and fighters, the Franco followed. The elected government refused aid from France or England, turned to the only power that would help the Soviet Union. Stalin provided the Republic with the main military aid, while his “advisors”, has many characteristics of his reign of terror in Russia founded. But in the end, in April 1939, the republic was defeated.
Why Hitler aid Franco? In part geopolitics, he welcomed the establishment of another right-wing authoritarian regime of right to the limit of his greatest enemy, France. But he also Spain as a testing ground for the German armed forces, especially its air force, which was bombed Guernica in 1937 – the first time a European city destroyed by carpet bombing.
Franco is currently working on establishing his rule throughout Spain. He led a coalition of forces, army, linked many of its officers in the old monarchy, the Catholic Church and the fascist Falange party. There were tensions between the Falange and the monarchists, but first, the Phalange had the upper hand.
Franco’s victory came as tensions rose Europe – the outbreak of the Second World War was months. At that time, Spain and Germany have been very close. The German forces took pride of place on the victory of Franco in Madrid in March during the summer. Franco himself at this stage greatly admired Hitler. He held a picture of the Fuhrer, Mussolini and the Pope, on his desk. German advisers were visible in the army, police and the press. Heinrich Himmler visited Spain and was surprised by the violence against opponents of the Franco regime.
In September 1939 began World War II. First Spain, like Italy, have remained neutral. Then in June 1940, Hitler’s crushing and unexpected victory over France. Britain was alone, and he seemed on the verge of defeat. At this moment, Mussolini declared war in the hope that it will kill and enjoy the peace treaty. Franco had similar ideas, but do not go that far. Spain has been declared as “non-belligerency” and not as neutral, and Franco had the opportunity to conquer and annex to Tangiers in Morocco, the first under international control. He also wrote to Hitler, expressed in terms roundabout, a desire to join the victory of fascism. Franco dreamed of by the French culture of Morocco and parts of the Democratic People’s Republic of Algeria in a peace treaty. But this time, Hitler was not interested, he knew that Spain, ravaged by civil war, could provide military aid and some believed he did not need.
Until the fall of 1940, however, the situation had turned around 180 degrees. Hitler’s Luftwaffe had been defeated at the Battle of Britain, and Great Britain is obviously far from complete. Here is a decisive factor in Spain, the powerful British Navy. Britain has used its ships to the blockade of Spanish ports and the amount of essential materials, including fuel in the United States followed their lead in limiting exports helped Franco. Franco was the son of a naval officer, he knew the power of the British naval blockade and a full case of war, Spanish lace, could already at subsistence level, in an uproar. But Hitler wanted Franco in war, so he used to Gibraltar.
The two dictators gathered at the border between Spain and France, in October 1940. Franco, Hitler asked to go to war, Franco said he asked for, but in return for the French colonial territory and a huge amount of supplies one, complete a British blockade. Hitler took the Vichy regime in France, always friendly and would not tell a part of the French Empire. He was also able to meet the stringent requirements of Franco for the provision of food and fuel. Hitler left the session with promises vague and insubstantial Franco, and said that in any such negotiations, he would have preferred to return three teeth pulled.
It seems that the issue was the provision of crucial importance, Franco knew he needed them when he declared war. It may not have realized that too little fuel in Germany or in areas that had defeated Hitler, but agriculture in rich countries like France, food production is already down in a dive. Another aspect that makes it prudent that many pro-monarchists were English, Great Britain were substantial bribes to senior monarchists opposed to Spain entering the war.
This was the end of any prospect in Spain are on the side of Hitler. Franco not only supported the invasion of Russia in 1941, but has organized thousands of volunteers serving on the Eastern Front. But at the end of 1942, with Russia and a strong opposition from the United States in the war, it was clear that Germany would lose. Franco moves now so characteristic crab to a diplomatic post, where he saw “two wars” – a crusade against Russian communism, he argues, and Germany, the war with the forces of democracy, where neutrality increasingly pro Allies. But it was pragmatism, not principle, the situation. When the Anglo-American forces occupied the French North Africa in Operation Torch, Spain has offered no resistance and may have supported the Allies with intelligence.
In 1944, when the Allies occupied France and occupied Europe, with nerves breathtaking, Churchill wrote to provide support to democratic forces victorious in the future struggle against communism. Churchill, who had looked in the early years of the war to overthrow Franco, took the bait and argued against many older Americans, the Franco regime should be left. That’s what happened. The images of Hitler and Mussolini, Franco disappeared inside, and although the Spanish press controlled mourned the death of Hitler in 1945, Spain has joined the West during the Cold War, and remained under the authoritarian regime of Franco for the next thirty years. The Falange was an important element of the scheme until the end, although decreased over the years, given its importance.
A related issue has generated debate over the years, Franco’s attitude toward the Holocaust. Like Mussolini, Franco’s fascism is not anti-Semitism as an important component of their ideology. But during the civil war and years of reign of Hitler – until 1942 – as Franco, Mussolini enjoyed a vicious anti-Semitic rhetoric against the Nazis. In practice, however, Jews who tried to flee occupied France to Spain could be in the Portuguese ports of the cross, even if they snatched on the road. Franco also intervened to give asylum to Jewish Sephardic, of Spanish origin, who lived in Greece and elsewhere, were murdered by the Nazis. Spain’s fascist Franco regarded as a “nation” and not as a race. However, anyone who opposed the Spanish government, especially in its early years, was a fate as brutal as those who resisted the Nazis in Europe.