WHAT IF. . .
A Spain joined with Germany would have ruined the Allied campaign in the Middle East, but doomed the Francoist state to an earlier collapse
As Hitler’s army marched into Poland on 1 September 1939, beginning the Second World War, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco struggled to consolidate power in Madrid. His Nationalist Army had been heavily reliant on Nazi arms, tanks and planes to gain victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936 -39), yet Franco did not fall in with the rest of fascist Europe to support the German war effort, instead taking a cautious and relatively neutral approach. The prospect of Spain joining the war remained a concern for the Allies throughout the conflict, terrified by the prospect of losing control of Gibraltar and, as a result, the Mediterranean.
What was the relationship between Francoist Spain and Nazi Germany during and after the Spanish Civil War?
The first and only personal encounter between Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler took place at the Hendaye railway station in Germanoccupied France in October 1940. A frustrated Hitler later told Benito Mussolini that he would rather have several teeth extracted than endure another meeting with Franco. Hitler had travelled to Hendaye to assess the impact that building a closer relationship with Spain might have on stability in Vichy France. No agreement was reached, simply because Hitler could not accept Franco’s demands for handing over to Spain large parts of the French North African empire. That said, Hitler clearly saw Franco as a useful ally for increasing pressure on Britain and diverting part of the enemy’s war efforts to the threat of hostilities with Spain.
The Nazis had provided Spain with arms, tanks, troops and Luftwaffe air support during the Spanish Civil War that effectively ensured a Nationalist victory. The Germans had been eager to test new equipment in the field and Spain also provided a convenient sideshow to distract Britain and France from Germany’s skulduggery in Eastern Europe. After Franco’s victory, in 1941 the Generalissimo approved the recruitment of Spanish volunteers to Germany on the guarantee that they only fight against the Soviet Union and not the Western Allies. Once the tide of war started to turn against the Axis, Franco, with a wink and a nod, cleverly adopted a policy of ‘strict neutrality’.
Was Franco invited or pressured to join the Axis alliance prior to the outbreak of the Second World War? And why did Spain remain neutral? Franco’s gambit was always to err on the side of
