Franco and the Axis Stigma

Franco and the Axis Stigma David Wingeate Pike Franco and the Axis Stigma Also by David Wingeate Pike: VAE VICTIS! ...

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Franco and the Axis Stigma

David Wingeate Pike


Also by David Wingeate Pike: VAE VICTIS! LES FRANÇAIS ET LA GUERRE D’ESPAGNE LATIN AMERICA IN NIXON’S 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) ESPAÑOLES EN EL HOLOCAUSTO MAUTHAUSEN, L’ENFER NAZI EN AUTRICHE BETRIFFT: KZ Mauthausen, was die Archive erzählen

Franco and the Axis Stigma David Wingeate Pike Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Contemporary History and Politics, The American University of Paris Director of Research, American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy

© 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 transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978-0-230-20289-4 ISBN-10: 0-230-20289-6

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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 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, 1939–1945––Diplomatic history. 2. Neutrality––Spain. 3. Spain––Foreign relations––Germany. 4. Germany––Foreign relations––Spain. 5. Spain––Foreign relations––1939–1975. 6. Germany––Foreign relations––1933–1945. 7. Franco, Francisco, 1892–1975. I. Title. D754.S6P55 2008 940.53’2546––dc22 2008011232 10 17

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

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Contents Introduction

viii

1. The Civil War and France: Unsettled Accounts (1936–1939)

1

2. From Franco’s Victory to the Fall of France (1 April 1939–15 June 1940)

11

3. Vichy France and Britain’s Battle for Its Life ( June–September 1940)

27

4. Hitler’s Quandary: South-West or East? (September 1940–June 1941)

39

5. From Barbarossa to Pearl Harbor (22 June–7 December 1941)

56

6. The War in the Mediterranean ( January–November 1942)

70

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

84

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

97

9. From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge ( June–December 1944)

106

10. The Death of Hope ( January–May 1945)

113

Epilogue: Duplicity Rewarded (1945–1953)

133

Appendices

147

Notes

150

Bibliography

189

Index

203

vii

Introduction To exactly what degree was Franco implicated in the Axis cause? Franco’s response, constantly repeated by his apologists, was that the Second World War consisted of three separate conflicts. Firstly, a war between the Axis and the Western democracies in which the role of Spain was one of strict neutrality. Secondly, a war between the Axis and the Soviet Union in which Spain acted as a non-belligerent, sending a lone division as a token of the anti-communist stand of Catholic Spain. Thirdly, a war between Japan and the Western democracies in which Spain, having no interests or influence in the region, maintained, once again, a perfect neutrality. To begin with the first period, Spain was confronted with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. As the head of Catholic Spain, and as a selfprofessed neutralist, Franco had certain responsibilities. First, as a Catholic, to denounce Germany for signing any form of partnership with atheist Russia. Second, again as a Catholic, to rally to the defence of Catholic Poland in its struggle to resist the joint forces of pagan Germany and godless Russia. Third, as a neutralist, to show an absolute neutrality in the struggle between Nazi Germany and the Western democracies. In this first period, then, when Germany’s struggle against the Soviet Union was not yet engaged, we would not expect to find Spain tilting the balance in favour of the Axis. But that, in fact, is what we find. A very large part of Spain’s assistance to Dönitz in the supplying of his U-boats in Spanish ports is provided precisely in that period when the struggle against Communism was not engaged, or more precisely, in the period when Communism was not the enemy but the ally, and when Stalin is giving all the aid he can to Hitler in the hope of just keeping him happy and away.1 In the second period Franco turns to non-belligerency, albeit claiming the right to a tilt out of gratitude for services received and for a holy cause. He offers Hitler the Blue Division. A single Spanish division might not count for much alongside 27 Romanian and 13 Hungarian divisions, but it is welcome nonetheless as a symbol of all Europe standing up to defend Western civilisation against the godless horde. In the third period, Franco was being unduly modest in saying that Spain had little national interest in South-east Asia. The Philippines, and Philippine Catholicism, were important considerations. During the viii

Introduction

ix

Civil War, most Spaniards in the Philippines had taken a clearly pronationalist stance. When it came to the Japanese treatment of their subject Europeans, however, we find no distinction made between Spaniards and the rest. There was a distinction, however, between the acceptance, and even the welcome, that Spain showed the Japanese conquerors in their subjugation of the Philippines and the fierce protests expressed in 1945 as the Pacific War turned around. The most visible and most dramatic contribution that Franco made to the Axis was the sending of the Blue Division. Franco’s Axis stigma, however, does not rest primarily on this contribution, or on any other single contribution (submarine refuelling, deliveries of wolfram and pyrites) but rather on the myriad of little incidents, words of encouragement and terms of abuse that reveal where Franco’s sympathies lay. Not, therefore, what he decided to do, in the circumstances, but what he would have liked to do if the circumstances had been different and Spain was not exhausted and dependent upon certain Western supplies. Franco’s refusal to join Hitler was dictated to him by forces outside his control. The Allied power to distrain the Spanish economy, as Donald Detwiler has pointed out, was like a loosened tourniquet which could be twisted tight on a moment’s notice, putting the British and Americans in a position to choke off the arteries of the Spanish economy almost at will.2 Such was its economic and military weakness that Paul Preston estimates that Spain could not have waged war ‘for more than a few days’.3 For a long period after 1945, the argument against Franco’s collusion with the Axis rested on the assumption that Franco was deceiving the Axis powers by seeming to comply with their wishes while, in fact, he was playing for time. Supporters of this argument naturally belittled the value of correspondence exchanged between Franco and the Axis leaders, insisting that, on Franco’s side, it was insincere. This gave way in 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 of the war, but he turned his coat. What this book intends to show is that there never was a time when Franco turned his coat. That is why Franco was the only major leader never to withdraw his diplomatic representation from Vichy as long as there was a Vichy, and the only head of state of a major country to send condolences on the death of Marshal Pétain. As for his judgment, the British ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare summed it up: ‘This was the man who at every critical moment of the war had publicly insulted the Allies ... . No public man within this generation had proved himself so continuously wrong about the course of the war.’4

x

Introduction

Franco’s relations with Vichy, and his earlier relations with the French Third Republic in its final two years, form an important appendage to any study of Franco’s pre-war and wartime relations with Nazi Germany. France was Spain’s only powerful neighbour, and Franco’s imperial ambitions took primary aim at the French North African possessions. The relations between Franco and the Third Republic are not well known outside of France, and much of the material on France presented here is hitherto generally unknown. As for Pétain, he and Franco may not have liked one another but they were certainly linked, not only by the North African question but by their common concern about the Resistance in France. Beyond that, Franco was deeply interested in the post-war fate of the Vichy leaders. The debate over the chaqueteo continued for some time and the fluctuations in Franco’s foreign policy gave rise to several interpretations. François Piétri, Vichy’s ambassador to Madrid, identified three stages in that policy: from the Bordeaux Armistice up to July 1942, nonbelligerency; between July 1942 and February 1944, absolute neutrality; and from February 1944, support of the Allies.5 Jules Stavnik saw four phases: the first, from 12 August 1939 to l7 October 1940, while the Plaza de Santa Cruz was directed by Colonel Juan Beigbeder, marked the start of German pressure on Spain; the second, from 18 October 1940 to 3 September 1942, under the ministry of Ramón Serrano Súñer, was the policy of appeasement; the third, from 4 September 1942 to 4 August 1944, was the policy of subtle disengagement conducted by the Anglophile Count Jordana up to the day of his death; and the fourth, from 12 August 1944 to 20 July 1945, under José Félix de Lequerica, was characterised by the break in diplomatic relations with Japan on 15 April 1945, following the massacre of Spanish nationals in the Philippines.6 This formula needed to include the earlier period up to 10 August 1939, during which the Plaza de Santa Cruz was under Count Jordana’s first administration. Like his predecessor Sangróniz and his successor Beigbeder, Jordana was too much of a conservative monarchist to satisfy the demands of the Falange. Also overlooked was the period between October 1941 and November 1943 of ‘moral [read active] belligerency’, during which Franco’s troops were actually engaged in combat on the Russian front. The period covering the initial policy of neutrality dates, in spite of Piétri and Stavnik, from 4 September 1939 up to 12 June 1940 only.7 Even there, German documents show that Spain was colluding with Germany as early as May 1940. A meeting of the general staff of the Luftwaffe was held in Berlin on 4 May, to which the Spanish minister of aviation,

Introduction

xi

Major General Fernando Barrón y Ortiz, was invited. Colonel Kramer, the German air attaché in Madrid, reported to Reichsmarschall Goering that ‘at least one [German] submarine had been provisioned [in a Spanish port] to the knowledge of the Spanish Government. The Spaniards permitted German weather-reconnaissance planes to fly with Spanish insignia, and the radio station at La Coruña was working for 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 is doing just enough to prevent Hitler from losing patience and invading Spain. Franco’s apologist José María Doussinague wrote that ‘all of Spain’s attention was focused on giving Germany the fullest assurance of her friendship, so that Germany could at no point reproach us for anything. Her great victories were played up in the press and on the radio ... while her representatives received the most lavish treatment.’9 According to this formula, then, Franco was merely bluffing every time he launched a tirade against the Allies. The British ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare, on the other hand, wrote of his conviction (after listening to several of Franco’s speeches) that the Caudillo ‘not only understood what he was saying but was speaking with the set purpose of ingratiating himself with Hitler’. As for his motives, 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 both from 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 the Führer and the Duce, a freewheeling dictator who could say whatever he liked.10 It was, Hoare added, the growing hostility of the Spanish people to war, even in June 1940 when the risk seemed smallest, that made the Caudillo hesitate.11 Stavnik, on the other hand, by selecting only the second ingredient in Hoare’s mixture,12 proposed that Franco wanted to avoid Spain’s entry into the war, and that this desire was prompted by his secret pro-Allied sentiments. Stavnik even ascribed the opposite viewpoint to the so-called ‘black legend’, and suggested that the decisive operations of the Second World War, such as the landings in North Africa, would have been more difficult had it not been for the comportment of Franco.13 What remains to be seen, however, are the true feelings behind this comportment. Did the tirades against the Allies, for example, and the paeans to Nazi Germany in Franco’s controlled press end long before the war’s end, or did they continue to the very close? Piétri made the best case for Franco by arguing that the first step of Spanish diplomacy in

xii

Introduction

favour of the Allies went as far back as July 1942.14 Guy Hermet dated the chaqueteo only from 1 October,15 Dante Puzzo from 3 October,16 and Pierre Vilar from 26 November, when Count Jordana visited Lisbon.17 Meanwhile in August 1942, Franco had recreated the Cortes, but the importance of this ‘democratic’ action is reduced when one remembers that even Hitler had maintained some form of Reichstag. Serrano Súñer 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 to which Doña Carmen de Franco was passionately opposed. Súñer points out, accurately, that the Axis at that time had not yet suffered a defeat (other than the Battle of Britain), that both El Alamein and Stalingrad were ahead, that the situation for the Allies worldwide had never looked worse and that the entire Spanish Cabinet was still convinced of a final victory of the Axis.18 This statement by Serrano Súñer, showing that not even his resignation marked the transition in Spain’s policy, is supported by other testimony. The return to the foreign ministry of the supposedly Anglophile Count Jordana might seem to presage an abrupt change in Franco’s policy, but the facts are there to show that Jordana collaborated equally with the Axis cause. Even his visit to Lisbon, which for Vilar 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 agreement with Hitler, under which Germany would defend Spain and its possessions against any Allied incursion.19 At the moment that Franco signed this agreement, the British had just taken possession, on 8 October 1942, of two air bases in the Azores, in accordance with an Anglo-Portuguese agreement. This agreement naturally exposed Portugal to the risk of reprisal on the part of the Axis. Douglas Wheeler has shown, by his research in the Portuguese archives, that Salazar genuinely feared such reprisals, and clauses were added to the Azores Agreement under which Britain would come to Portugal’s support in the event that Portugal was invaded by Spain, or by German forces operating through Spain. Using the American archives, Charles Halstead shows that Jordana gave significant help, even after that, to the Axis cause. Instead of searching for the key to any chaqueteo, this book faces up to the fact that there never was a time when Franco abandoned his admiration for the Axis cause. In its closing chapter, it asks whether Franco, even in 1945, was still hedging his bets. Was it always with

Introduction

xiii

Franco a question of a bet? Was it similar to the pari [wager] of Pascal, with a new formulation: — If I wager on Hitler’s victory and he loses, I will be at the mercy of his democratic enemies, whose ideology I despise but whose concept of compassion and hatred of Communism will work in my favour. — If I wager against his victory and he loses, I have lost nothing but gained nothing. — If I wager on his victory and he wins, my gain surely cannot be denied. — If I wager against his victory and he wins, my loss is infinite. In this re-examination of where Franco really stood, two obvious opportunities are brought into play. The first are the German archives, the second Franco’s press. In researching the German records, there are two obvious targets. The Blue Division received wide praise in Spain during the war, at least at the time it marched off and in its early engagements on the Russian front, but how did the Wehrmacht report on its performance? The state of relations between the German high command and the Blue Division has already been addressed to some extent by Raymond Proctor, who has pointed out, alongside the Division’s exploits in the field, some problems in its military discipline.20 What the Wehrmacht documents show is a breakdown of discipline so extreme that, by 1943, not only the division’s corps commander but even its army and army-group superiors were alerted to the situation and eager to prevent the Blue Division from taking up positions in their field of operations. A second area of research in unexamined documents is more important and more fruitful: the records of the German navy regarding the supply of its submarines in Spanish ports. The threat from the U-boats was more agonising to Churchill than any other danger he faced. Hitler always gave preference to U-boats over capital ships and he made this clear on 30 January 1943, when Dönitz was made head of the Kriegsmarine and his superior Raeder was shunted off to serve innocuously as inspector of the fleet. Fortunately, the German naval records remain almost intact. Although Hitler ordered the destruction of all records, and the Luftwaffe records were almost totally destroyed, Dönitz ordered the Kriegsmarine not to destroy the navy records on the grounds that the navy had done no wrong and had nothing to hide.

xiv

Introduction

(Nüremberg showed that to be a serious miscalculation.) The German navy records were subsequently classified and bound in volumes by the British admiralty and, in 1963, they were returned to the Federal Republic of Germany. These archives, available in the BundesarchivMilitärarchiv in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, bear the cover ‘Admiralty Record Office, captured Enemy Documents’ and bear the item numbers and page numbers of the Admiralty. The second source of primary information for this book is the Spanish press. It is in the nature of a totalitarian state—as Spain was between 1939 and 1945—that its press, totally controlled, serves as mirror to the regime, allowing us a glimpse into its inner thoughts that might well differ from what its diplomatic statements claim. In examining this press, emphasis has been given to those half-dozen critical moments in the unfolding of the conflict. The reader may be surprised to find little difference in viewpoint or intensity of argument between the Falange press led by Arriba, the monarchist press led by ABC, the military press led by Alcázar and the Catholic press led by Ya. It might even be said that they vie with one another in their praise of Hitler’s triumphs, their adulation of Franco’s speeches, and their dismay over Hitler’s adversities. Here it should be remembered that Spain’s Ley de la Prensa [press law] of 22 April 1938, introduced by Ramón Serrano Súñer, was based on the Italian model that not only ended the independence of the press but set out to fuse all right-wing ideologies (Catholic, monarchist, traditionalist, Falangist) into a single voice. That voice, as the American ambassador put it, sounded remarkably German, and for cause. From the time that Hans Lazar arrived in Burgos in September 1938 to set up his office in the German embassy—and to head the Spanish office of Transocean, the Nazi propaganda machine controlled by Paul Karl Schmidt in the Wilhelmstrasse—vast quantities of propaganda, not only from Berlin but also later from Tokyo, were poured into the Spanish news agency known as EFE which then provided food to the entire Spanish press. It was fitting that the Spanish agency, having no life of its own, should take the name of EFE whose acronym stood for nothing. The question asked so many times about the press—whether it accurately represents public opinion—can be asked again in the case of Franco’s press. It is reasonable to reply that any newspaper’s editorial position is as much the product of its readers’ views as it is the formulator of their views. An interesting comment on Spanish public opinion was made on French television in 1994 when José Luis de Vilallonga,21 who had fought for Franco in the Civil War and remained in his camp

Introduction

xv

throughout the world war, was asked about public opinion during that period. He replied that 80 per cent of Spaniards were Germanophiles. He was then asked to what extent this large majority believed that Hitler would win the war. He replied that ‘up to the last moment they believed in the victory of Germany’, at which point his French interviewer remarked, ‘Unlike Vichy.’ ‘Spaniards remained Germanophile,’ concluded Vilallonga, ‘there were only a few thousand Anglophiles.’22 Franco’s apologists are today a shrinking race, but they do not give up easily in their attempts to deny the evidence. It is hoped that the new revelations contained in this book will lift the debate to a higher level. In compiling this book, I wish to express my thanks to the following persons and institutions. In Germany, to Manfred Kehrig and Klaus Meyer of the Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, and Oberst Dr Rohde of the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, both in Freiburg-im-Breisgau; in France, to certain personnel in the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine and the Bibliotheque Nationale; in Spain, to all the personnel encountered in the Biblioteca Nacional; and in England, and in a class of his own, to Paul Preston, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. Finally, to Carol Lynn Tjernell, Gergana Hristova, and Irina Massovets, for their valuable help in the research and preparation of this work. David Wingeate Pike Paris, 21 September 2007

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

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

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1 The Civil War and France: Unsettled Accounts (1936–1939)

It was just one day after the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, the military offensive alliance concluded between Germany and Japan, that Germany and Italy agreed, on 18 November 1936, to grant recognition to Franco. Franco replied to this action on the same day by describing Germany and Italy, as well as Portugal and Nationalist Spain, as European bastions 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 same day that Manuel Hedilla, head of the Falange, was arrested on the orders of Franco, the Roman salute was adopted as the national salute for all official ceremonies. With the arrest of Hedilla, Ramón Serrano Súñer, Franco’s brother-in-law2 and an impassioned Germanophile, became secretary general of the new national movement. Relations between Burgos and the Axis were not always smooth. The Germans disliked Serrano Súñer, for example, and the Italian fascists were allegedly shocked by the brutality shown by Spanish conservatives.3 After the Civil War ended we heard glowing tributes, especially to the Germans, but during their presence in Spain there was frequent criticism. These reports were, of course, blown out of proportion by the left wing press inside and outside Spain, but the moderate press in France testifies to the gravity of the situation. La Dépêche of Toulouse reported that the Spanish Nationalists were ashamed of the invasion of their country by the Germans and Italians.4 General Juan de Yagüe Blanco made a statement in mid-April 1938, reported in El Diario of Burgos, that it was futile to denounce the International Brigades as long as Germans and Italians were admitted into the Nationalist ranks; he added that the Germans and Italians were behaving in Nationalist Spain like beasts of prey.5 There were many reports of Italians strutting in the streets of Spain like conquerors. Manuel Chaves Nogales, who had been editor-in-chief of 1

2


the Madrid journal Ahora, and who was now writing for La Dépêche, reported in late 1938 that if Mussolini were to send further massive reinforcements he would risk antagonising the Nationalist Army, which was secretly proud of the courage of the Republican Army, and that, if it had to choose, it would prefer a victory of the Reds to a victory of the Italians.6 The term smacks of hyperbole, but there are reports that the popular song Guadalajara no es Abisinia, written in March 1937 after the Italian defeat, was being sung also in Nationalist Spain. The French conservative writer and député Henri de Kérillis, who at the beginning of the war had offered a sword of honour to Franco, wrote in 1938 in similar vein, insisting that the resentment felt in Nationalist Spain towards the arrogance of the Italians continued to increase.7 Another centrist organ of the French press, L’Ordre, reported in late 1938 that the Germans were no better liked than the Italians by the man in the street in Nationalist Spain. It was said that a number of Nationalist officers, including General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, were disgusted with the reputation they had won as common murderers by their alliance with the Germans and Italians. Two German officers were attacked in Montilla. There was further trouble elsewhere in Andalusia (in Antequera, Utrera, La Linea and Estepona) as well as in Cáceres.8 Nationalist officers were said to be more and more antagonised by the German technical specialists who talked as if they were the masters and who treated the Spaniards like small boys. In Avila and Salamanca, German troops in groups of four were reported to be throwing their money around, and very considerable money at that. Meanwhile, their officers were filling up the best hotels and lording it to the point of impertinence. At the same time, they were described, even by a French conservative journal, as ‘all quite disappointed by the way the women received them’.9 According to the diplomatic gossip that Geneviève Tabouis picked up in Rome, there was talk now even among Nationalist officers of the need for a holy war to purge Spain of the German infection. In the same Nationalist Spain where Mauricio Karl (alias Carlavilla) was writing pamphlets on the question, ‘Where would the world be without Adolf Hitler?’ there was talk of ‘these German bastards who bomb Madrid because it’s not their capital. They’ll pay for it one day.’ Or again, ‘The day’s coming when there’ll be a real war of independence against these invaders.’10 Whatever animosities existed in Nationalist Spain between Franco and his fascist allies, they did not affect an alliance based on need. In an interview granted to the French senator Henry Lémery in April 1938, Franco declared: ‘Nationalist Spain has made no appeal to any power.

The Civil War and France 3

It was only when the Russian tanks made their appearance in Madrid ... that the Generalissimo of the Nationalist forces decided to allow foreign volunteers to enlist.’11 General Mola spoke in similar terms: ‘We have never sought to attract foreign volunteers, on account of the national character of the movement,’12 even though Mola himself had grandly announced in September 1936 that he would proceed to the enrolment of such volunteers.13 According to the Paris right wing daily L’Action Française, the ‘insignificant number’ of foreign volunteers on the Nationalist side was in keeping with Franco’s orders.14 On the other hand, the importance to Franco of the German and Italian forces was revealed in November 1936 by Vittorio Cerruti, the Italian ambassador in Paris, when he confided to his American counterpart, William Bullitt, that Franco’s forces were ‘insufficient to allow him to conquer all of Spain’15 and by Baron Eberhard von Stohrer, the German ambassador to the Nationalist authorities in Salamanca, according to whom Count Francisco Gómez Jordana, the Spanish foreign minister, had told him that Franco planned to keep the German volunteers until victory was won.16 In May 1937, Stohrer added: ‘[Franco] asks that the German volunteers remain for some time longer; he expects the Reds to put up a stubborn resistance for some time ... . Only when the war reaches the stage of cleaning-up operations (and when the term police action can truly be used) can Franco safely do without the German volunteers.’ Franco added: ‘The excellent German pilots could not possibly be replaced.’17 After the Nationalist victory, a German staff colonel reported: ‘Franco is deeply convinced that his future lies at the side of Germany and Italy. He openly detests the French, and he does not like the British. He thinks that if war should come the British would not be able to hold Gibraltar.’18 Meanwhile, in the course of the Civil War, the criticism in the Nationalist press of the democracies, and especially France, mounted in abuse. A leading contributor to this campaign was Professor Ernesto Giménez Caballero, one of the founders of the Falange and an unofficial spokesman for Franco. Giménez boasted of never reading the articles of Charles Maurras, founder of the French reactionary movement Action Française. Spain, he said, had no need of the friendship of the French right any more than it needed that of the French left. In a speech at Palencia on 15 April 1937, he declared: ‘Germany, Italy and Spain will leap over the Rhine, over the Alps, over the Pyrenees to put an end to France.’19 ‘The real France is dead,’ wrote the Falangist daily Hierro and added: ‘That is the only way to explain the infamy of forcing Spaniards fleeing from Spain to return to the Red zone. Poor France, how dearly

4


will she pay for what she has done!’20 On 8 April 1938, Hierro repeated its refrain: ‘Ethnic and geographic groupings mean nothing in themselves, and among the sad examples of peoples who have ceased to exist we find France, which was once our history-shaking neighbour, and today is nothing more than contiguous to us, as a foul and stinking hovel [casucha infecta y mal oliente] might be attached to us in a common patio.’21 ‘The victorious sword of Franco,’ added the daily El Correo Español, ‘in liberating Spain, is working also to liberate Europe from the filth of democracy.’22 ‘Spaniards’, it went on, ‘have a feeling of hatred whenever they look over the Pyrenees. They view the enemies of France with sympathy.’23 José Félix de Lequerica, the future ambassador to Paris, gave a speech in Florence in which he told his Italian audience: ‘We are united by our hatred of the enemy, whether that enemy calls itself communism, Freemasonry, or democracy.’24 As if to outdo all other Francophobes, General Alfredo Kindelán, commander-in-chief of Franco’s air force, issued a statement in Saragossa in July 1938 which was clarity itself: It could not have escaped the attention of the worthy members of the French defence committee, nor probably that of Blum and Boncour, that the dangerous policy that France was following was heading straight to war, a war for which France remains unprepared. To a world war very probably, which would mean the decline of France to the rank of an insignificant third- or fourth-rate power. But certainly to a war with Spain, for our national dignity cannot accept that our territorial integrity, sacred and inviolable, be impinged upon by anyone. It is certain that our population centres near the frontier would suffer from the inevitable air attacks of the French, despite our superiority in quality in the air, but such attacks would not go unanswered. In the first week of a war with France, our bombers would reduce Bordeaux, Toulouse, Bayonne, Biarritz and Marseille to a heap of ruins and the French rail communications would be disrupted. A war with France would develop our fighting spirit and would attract to our ranks the opinion and the support, tacit or expressed, of many adversaries of France who would feel their ancient and long dormant rancour rekindled in their souls, and feel, re-awakening within them, the racial characteristics of that indomitable sense of Spanishness. However, with or without that succour, we could view war with France without pessimism and confront it without fear, given the


present circumstances that we would have a strong and battle-tested army of several hundred thousand men mobilized along a front which is ideal for a war against our neighbour, who could scarcely put into the field against us—unless it were to commit the worst folly by reducing its garrisons on other frontiers—more than four or five untrained army corps, a force easy to contain and even to repulse, if our High Command acts on its calculations and sets up our defence line inside French territory, along the only crossable part of the Pyrenees that runs from the Bidasoa to Saint-Jean-Pied-de Port.25 In the same month, on 18 July 1938, a similar scene unfolded in Alcazarquivir when Serrano Súñer, on a visit to Spanish Morocco, gave a speech in the barracks of the Moorish Regulares. His audience, presided over by the High Commissioner Juan Beigbeder, consisted mainly of military personnel and included General Franco. In the course of his speech Serrano said: ‘Spain is feeling the weight of a foreign domination, more precisely a French deformation [afrancesamiento] of our minds and morals.’ At this point the officers and men began to cry out: ‘Death to France! Down with France! Long live Germany! Long live war!’ This uproar continued for nearly ten minutes while Beigbeder sat smiling with approval and giving his comment: ‘Let’s have some calm here. Everything will be taken care of [todo se andará ].’26 This surge of Francophobia did not abate. ‘France oppresses Corsica, which is Italian and must be returned to Mussolini,’ wrote the weekly El Domingo in 1939.27 Ernesto Giménez wrote in the same paper: ‘We look forward to paying our debts with interest and, once the war is over, to sending our French friends not one hundred thousand but two hundred thousand Franco troops to help them implant the faith.’28 As if to show that none of this was mere bluster, when Franco’s troops entered Alicante they arrested not only the French communist député Charles Tillon but the French consul too.29 In Madrid, the French consul Jacques Pigeonneau was the victim of an assault when, on the night of 8–9 July 1939, Spanish officers dragged him into an alley and severely beat him up.30 Lequerica, by now Franco’s ambassador in Paris, presented his apologies to Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet who had little reason, in the light of Lequerica’s earlier statement, to believe in his sincerity.31 ***** There had never been a time since 1713 when the power of Spain was a match for the power of France. The difference in their stature was never

6


more obvious than in 1939, when Spain under Franco emerged exhausted from the Civil War. Nevertheless, certain factors were now in play that gave Spain a measure of equality. France, with hostile neighbours to the north-east and the south-east and a bitter if not vengeful neighbour to the south-west, was strategically on the defensive. Added to this was the little noted factor that modern war had reshuffled the cards. Certain commodities of vast importance to warfare were not easily available. Spain happened to be blessed with resources that were both vital and rare. It took the Civil War to prove to France the extent of its dependence upon Spain for its most essential military provisions. At that time, one of the elements for the manufacture of all gunpowder and of almost all explosives was sulphuric acid. France, however, could not produce more than 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 nitric acid, the dependence on pyrites could be reduced for an equal production of arms, but even so, the need would not be reduced to less than 100,000 tons per month, and indeed, during the war of 1914–18 France had needed double that quantity. The fact remained that France could not hope to draw from its pyrites mines, even at their fullest production, more than 50,000 tons per month. It was thus necessary to import the rest. The pyrites producers to which France could apply in time of war were few and far between. They were primarily Spain, Portugal, Norway and Greece. The pyrites produced in Norway and Greece, however, were of inferior quality, being too hard to crush. From Portugal French imports of pyrites almost tripled in 1936, reaching not less than 326,000 tons for the year, at the same time that France imported vast quantities of sulphur. Nevertheless, that still left Spain as the indispensable provider. Some of the more clairvoyant French leaders envisaged, from the moment that the Civil War opened in July 1936, that this source could come to an end. During the last six months of that year, the import of Spanish pyrites was accelerated while at the same time France searched the earth for other sources. Furthermore, with the assistance 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 1937 Franco issued a proclamation forbidding the export of pyrites to France or to any country that would re-export the material to France, but the problem was still unsolved. Most of the detonators manufactured in France were produced with mercury fulminate. Obviously, if war were


to break out, France could not count on Italian mercury, or on importing mercury from Central Africa or Mexico or Australia. In this state of affairs, even if lead nitrate could, at a pinch, partially replace mercury fulminate, France was nonetheless once again thrown back on a single source: Spain. In March 1937, shortly after Franco’s ban on the export of pyrites to France, President Albert Lebrun held a private meeting with the engineer John Nicolétis, who was head of ICI in France and also vice-president of the Fédération des Officiers de Réserve Républicains, an anti-fascist organisation formed after the Paris riots of 6 February 1934. Colonel Nicolétis, who as a young officer had served on the staff of Marshal Foch during the First World War, informed the president of his recent experience in Republican Spain. He had taken it upon himself, in late August 1936, to visit Barcelona and Madrid, where he found the arms industry in a dishevelled state as a result of the defection of most of its technicians. After discussing the matter with José Giral, the prime minister and minister of war, and his son Francisco, who was then head of the office of chemical weapons, together with Admiral Matz, the navy minister, and other high Republican leaders, Nicolétis assembled a commission 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 of gynaecology at the University of Granada. With regard to the production of war explosives, the Republican Government in August 1936 depended almost entirely on trinitrotoluene (TNT). But TNT, a nitrate explosive, was expensive and rare. Nicolétis answered the problem by advocating the use of nitrate explosives (known by the name of Favier) and especially the mixing of ammonia nitrate with phlegmatising or sensitising materials chosen for the desired properties of progressiveness and brisance or shattering effect. In this way a whole range of explosives was obtained, whether for public works, mining, army engineers, or loading shells or bombs. For the latter use, requiring a higher explosive, Nicolétis advocated a mixture known under the name of amatol, consisting of one part TNT and four parts nitrate of ammonia, producing an impact almost equivalent to that of pure TNT. He thus achieved a considerable saving: while TNT was expensive, and delicate to produce, ammonia nitrate was relatively cheap. The importation of nitrate of ammonia from France, where it was abundant, was immediately begun and workshops to handle the mixing and loading were built and entered service.32 Since nitrate of ammonia is in general use—it is used especially as manure—it could be

8


freely imported into Spain without violating the embargo imposed in November 1936 by the Non-intervention Committee in London on all exports to Spain of strategic materials. In the course of his long discussion with President Lebrun, who was himself an engineer, Nicolétis insisted on the danger facing the French powder and explosives industries by the collaboration between Hitler and Franco. In his opinion, it was the importance of Spain to France, as supplier of these raw materials, that explained in part why Hitler had intervened in Spain, his aim being not only to obtain iron but above all to deprive France of the sulphur supplies which were essential to its national defence. Towards the end of the Civil War, Franco used the question of pyrite supply to exert maximum pressure on the French Government, imposing terms of export for the future which the French Government refused to accept. Léon Blum, the former prime minister, wrote in the Toulouse daily La Dépêche on 19 February 1939 that he was not revealing any secret of national defence in pointing out that France had found that sulphuric acid could be produced easily enough with substances other than pyrites. ‘Stocks have therefore been built up,’ he wrote, ‘the procedure for industrial production has been readapted. Franco has perhaps, unwittingly, offered France a gift. The supply of pyrites or the ban on the export of pyrites has ceased to be a means of exerting pressure on France.’ Unfortunately for France, this statement was not in line with the facts. All substitutes for pyrites were either of long-term application or purely theoretical. From February 1937, in spite of every effort made, French stocks of sulphuric acid were never, at any moment, sufficient for the needs of national defence. Colonel Nicolétis thought for the rest of his life that if there had been no armistice in June 1940, France would have exhausted its sulphur reserves at the end of that year. In the course of his meeting with President Lebrun, Nicolétis also expressed his concern over the vulnerability of French war factories to air attack. Certainly, defensive measures were being undertaken by evacuating arms factories, but the measures were being taken as if there was no risk of attack from the air. Certain factories of vital strategic value had been found impossible to evacuate and remained in very exposed positions. Others which had indeed been evacuated were not necessarily in a safer place. It was now necessary—and this was a new element entirely—to think of the poorly defended frontier in the south-west, where privately owned industries evacuated from the Paris region, the north and the east had been set up. Beyond that, a good number of large


French war factories, such as those in Toulouse, Bergerac, Angoulême and Saint-Médard were also situated in this region. In the event of war across the Pyrenees, one of these factories was in an exceptionally precarious situation: that in Toulouse, not only because of its manufacture of powder, but also because it was the site of one half—the other was in the North—of France’s production of ammonia-based nitric acid, of such vital importance, as we have seen, to national defence.33 It should be borne in mind that the distance between the peaks of the Pyrenees and Franco’s airfields, most of them situated along the Ebro between Logroño and Saragossa, ranges from a mere 100 to 150 kilometres. This means that a bomber taking off from the Ebro had not exceeded a fifth of its range at the time of crossing the French frontier. Senator André Morizet (Seine) described in the Paris daily L’Oeuvre how frenzied were the efforts underway to improve the Spanish airfields, when they were of no further value for the Civil War, being in places where future military operations against the Spanish Republic seemed improbable.34 In L’Ordre, another daily of the centrist Parti Radical, its director Émile Buré also insisted that Germans and Italians were engaged in militarising the Pyrenees frontier.35 The question was a source of concern, too, to General Paul Armengaud of the Air Force. The range of fascist planes based south of the Pyrenees encompassed Bordeaux and Marseilles.36 The article written by Senator Morizet was based on a plan he had received on 25 May 1938 from the Republican Air Force authorities in Barcelona, while he was heading a French parliamentary investigation of German air force activities in the Nationalist zone. In a report to Guy La Chambre, the minister of aviation, Lieutenant Colonel QuirMontfollet, air attaché at the French Embassy in Barcelona, underscored certain military measures, ‘not justified by the present conflict’, that were underway in Nationalist territory. He mentioned several projects under construction, among them the intensive work on airfields situated to the east of Vitoria (on the road to San Sebastian) and at Recajo (Logroño), and an entire system of airfields intended for use by heavy bombers, on a line closely following the Ebro. Conspicuous in this system of air bases were those between Saragossa and Tudela. The Germans were thought to have a plan of penetrating the Cerdagne valley along the line of Lérida—Seo de Urgel. From January 1938, an air base had been set up in San Sebastian, and no unauthorised person could visit the nearby airfield at Lasarte which contained, according to the same report, huge underground hangers. The unloading point for most of the German matériel was Pasajes, which had been ‘perfectly set

10


up as a military port’, and all this within 10 kilometres of the French frontier.37 Summing up, it was clear to Colonel Nicolétis that, if the Germans wanted to destroy all France’s powder factories, they could achieve it within days, supposing of course that Franco agreed, or that Hitler would consider such a plan, which was not exactly part of his vision. It is in this context of French vulnerability, however, that the address by General Kindelán in Aragon in July 1938 should be interpreted. It would have been an error for the French authorities to dismiss his speech as mere bombast, and it amounted to one more hostile frontier for France to contemplate.

2 From Franco’s Victory to the Fall of France (1 April 1939– 15 June 1940)

No country was more concerned than France with the direction of Spain’s foreign policy under its new leadership. In its anxiety over security on its south-western frontier, France needed a reliable intelligence service. In fact, the erratic quality of French intelligence during the decline of the Third Republic was one of the keys to the success of the Nazi offensive. French intelligence covering Spanish affairs was no exception. Occasionally it was illuminating, but too often it confused reality 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 of national independence while they sought to maintain the close ties now forged with the Axis powers. French intelligence soon claimed that it detected an increasing tension in relations between Spain and Germany. It reported in June 1939 that the Nazi government was revising 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 placed this fruit on the European market at 15 per cent below the price fixed by Spain.2 That the Germans increased their demand for tropical fruit and vegetables is shown in the official report for 1936–9 of the German trading company Hispano-Marroquí de Transportes (HISMA), which shows that exports of these commodities to Germany doubled in that year, from RM 14 million3 in 1938 to RM 28 million in 1939. But the suggestion that there was already an increase in tension between Spain and Germany is misleading, because the German leaders were determined not to allow it. Germany had had good reason for its confidence that after the Civil War she would fill the economic role in Spain previously reserved for 11

12


Britain, France and the United States. HISMA, headed by Johannes Bernhardt, had duly moved into exports of ore from the Anglo-French Riff mines of Spanish Morocco, which had been expropriated by the Spanish Nationalists. In March 1937 the Germans and Spaniards had signed a secret protocol at Salamanca, providing not only for cooperation against communism but for intensified economic relations. In the fall of 1938, when the Burgos government was still faced with stiff Republican opposition and feared that a European war would result in French intervention in Spain, Franco finally yielded to the ‘Montana’ demands of Bernhardt, permitting German ownership of five Spanish mining companies, as the price for obtaining additional German war matériel. But no sooner had Franco brought his Catalan campaign to a successful conclusion than he again reasserted his independence from German control. From that time on, German pressure on Franco was virtually ineffective. In April 1939 Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, himself realised that the Reich’s bargaining position with Franco was now weaker. He therefore gave instructions that the Spaniards were to be treated chivalrously and that, in the matter of the Spanish debt of some RM 400 million,4 the account might be mentioned to them, but compensation was not to be demanded. Eberhard von Stohrer, the German ambassador to Spain, freely agreed that the Reich must now observe caution and moderation and refrain for a while from making further requests. German negotiators, therefore, were to agree to a debt settlement most acceptable to Spain and to stress friendly cooperation between Germany and Spain in Spain’s reconstruction. Only in this way would Germany prevent Spain from turning to Britain and France at the expense of the Reich.5 The French government was now concerned that Germany was succeeding in consolidating her position in Spain. Although wide publicity was being given in Spain to the departure of Axis troops, French intelligence reported that by June some 60 Germans were engaged in the activities of the press agency known as Transocean, centred in Valladolid and working in collaboration with the Spanish agency EFE; their task was to filter the news by suppressing anything that would show France in a good light and portraying the French government as unfaithful to the Bérard–Jordana agreements.6 In Madrid the daily Informaciones was virtually in German hands. While the nominal owner was the Chilean-born Víctor de la Serna, he made no secret of the fact that his profits were connected to his close friendship with the German Embassy. Momentarily in May 1940 it was noticed that the Spanish press was violently anti-British while neutral towards France. This

From Franco’s Victory to the Fall of France

13

merely reflected Germany’s policy of attempting to split the Allies, for anti-French attacks were resumed soon afterwards. Propaganda activity was not the only interest of the German government in Spain. In May 1939, the Axis troops finally left the Peninsula. Before they left there were grandiose farewell ceremonies. Not only were the German and Italian contingents, under Colonel Wolfgang von Richthofen and General Gastone Gambara, present at Franco’s victory parade in Madrid on 19 May but they were also fêted at others, the Italians at Logroño on 11 May and the Condor Legion at León on 22 May. In the same month, on 8 May, Spain followed the démarche of Japan, Germany and Italy in resigning from the League of Nations. Coincident with the noisy departure of the Axis troops was the highly discreet arrival of German officials and technicians, few in number but important in function. French intelligence now reported that these were taking full control of Spain’s telephone and telegraph systems, radio network and police organisation. The basis of the French report was the fact that no telephone or telegraph services were available in Madrid for the first three days after its capture. Representatives of the International Telephone & Telegraph Company, which owned and operated the Spanish system, were barred from entering their property. Spaniards were given charge of the company, and it was only their incapacity to handle the system that restored it, 18 months later, to American hands.7 The French report assumed that the purpose of the interruption was to allow the Germans to install their own systems. During the Second World War the British and Americans also came to believe that the Germans were able to monitor their communications, while ironically the Germans believed 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 broadcasting was limited or at least subtle, because the Spanish authorities stressed Spanish tradition more than ever. There was, however, the matter of the Germans’ establishing radio and weather observation posts along the coasts and near Gibraltar.9 Certainly, by the time Heinrich Himmler visited Madrid on 19 October 1940, Gestapo members were installed at police headquarters in the capital and a close collaboration existed between the two police systems; Gestapo agents moved about in uniform, and vehicles marked with the swastika were a common sight. Well might the new British ambassador, Sir Samuel Hoare,10 report to Lord Halifax that the Germans and the Italians were solidly entrenched in 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

14


now a current hit,12 but they were nonetheless reported to be pouring back into Spain, even if the Axis now sent only civilian technicians and instructors. French intelligence claimed that some 15,000 Italians had returned by mid-February 1940 and that in the following two months this was doubled; at the same time another 10,000 Germans had also returned,13 presumably in accordance with a pact of friendship signed by Hitler and Franco on 29 November 1939, which obligated close relations between the signatory powers. In the next two months the French Ministry of the Interior insisted that the number of Germans in Spain had risen to 50,000 by mid-May14 and to 80,000 by June, at which time the number of Italians was reported to have fallen to 11,000.15 At one point, French intelligence contended that access to the Balearic Islands had been closed to all outsiders except Germans and Italians.16 Certainly Charles Foltz Jr, Madrid bureau chief for the Associated Press, was to find himself barred from the islands from 1941 to 1943, while Italian submarines were reported to be refuelling there. Meanwhile, Spain sought to satisfy German expectations in regard to the indemnities contracted during the Civil War. Despite reports that Spanish industry at large was in a state of stagnation, due to war damage and the lack of raw materials,17 war production was continued, especially the production of items for German use, ranging from parachutes to submarine engines. But French intelligence reports were again erratic. One of these contended that a Messerschmitt factory had been in operation in Seville since the beginning of the Civil War,18 and there were reports of Willy Messerschmitt in Spain, but these were unfounded. Messerschmitt was confused with the German entrepreneur Eberhard Messerschmidt, who had visited Seville on 28 August 1936 and in a report to the Wilhelmstrasse complained that HISMA held an official monopoly which barred him, as a representative of Reich industry, from opening any business enterprise in Spain.19 The same French intelligence report spoke of the completion of 200 aircraft whose construction had allegedly been started by the Republicans in Barcelona before the city fell.20 In fact, there was no aviation factory in Barcelona or anywhere else in Republican Spain during the Civil War, nor even an assembly plant for Soviet planes. The most that existed were workshops for repair jobs,21 or for the manufacture of aircraft engines, at Sabadell, Elizalde and Reus.22 This plant at Reus was, according to the French Ministry of the Interior, in full production by April 1940,23 but there is still no evidence that there was a Messerschmitt factory in Reus or anywhere else in Spain in the Second World War.24 Again, the French Ministry of the Interior contended that a sugar factory at Tudela had been


15

refitted for the production of poison gas,25 but in a town as small as Tudela the fact could hardly have been concealed. Nonetheless, it is conceivable that Spain was manufacturing either fluorine gas or a mixture of methane gas and coal dust for use against Gibraltar; fluorine gas is toxic and highly aggressive against metal, and the Germans built a fluorine factory at Falkensee for that purpose and continued their experiments on the gas until 1941.26 As for the food supply, while a large proportion of the Spanish people faced dire hunger and even starvation27—conditions being worse than at any time during the Civil War—considerable quantities of oil and rice were being exported to Germany, labelled ‘Excess’. In fact good quality oil—a Spanish staple—was fetching $4.50 a quart on the black market, while bad oil was very hard to find at the official price of $1.10.28 The estimate of French intelligence, however, that the exports of rice in 1940 amounted to three entire harvests sufficient to feed the whole of Europe for one year29 was highly exaggerated, since Spain lacked sufficient fertiliser to produce such a quantity. But the same report contends that such a store was made possible by the fact that every political party in Spain during the last half of the Civil War had laid up stocks in secret, despite the near-famine that prevailed. And indeed, when in March 1939 the Anarchists in Madrid raided the Communist headquarters opposite the Arco de la Independencia they had found huge stores of foodstuffs.30 Outwardly Spain presented an air of confidence. Even before the Civil War had officially ended (1 April 1939), it had joined the AntiComintern Pact on 27 March 1939 (made public on 6 April 1939) and signed the Hispano-German Pact (or Treaty of Friendship with Germany) on 31 March. On 8 May 1939, even while the Non-intervention Committee was still in existence—it met for the last time on 18 May— Franco, the great beneficiary of all the humbug in which that committee was wrapped, withdrew his country from the League of Nations. On 13 June 1939 Serrano Súñer, as minister of the interior, was in Rome for talks with Mussolini and Ciano, telling them that, in the event of war, Spain would be at the side of the Axis because she would be guided by feeling and by reason. ‘A neutral Spain’, he explained, ‘would be destined to a future of poverty and humiliation,’ but he also warned that Spain would require at least two years to prepare itself militarily.31 Press reports subsequently appeared to the effect that Rome had invited Madrid to sign a military alliance with Germany and Italy. In Paris, Félix Lequerica, the former mayor of Bilbao and now the Spanish ambassador, hastened to inform Georges Bonnet, the French foreign minister, that the Spanish government had rejected the invitation from Rome. Lequerica also repudiated the statement by General

16


Kindelán, commander-in-chief of the Spanish air force, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, to the effect that it would be impossible for the Spanish armed forces to remain neutral if Italy became involved in a war. Such statements, Lequerica told Bonnet, in no way corresponded to the views of the Spanish government. In mid-August 1939, as the war clouds gathered, posters appeared all over Spain carrying a statement by Ramón Serrano Súñer who, on 10 August, had become foreign minister and leader of the Falange: ‘We are enemies only of Russia’s friends.’ Two days later, with the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the posters were hastily torn down.32 The shock that the Pact registered was evident on all sides. Poland, the bulwark against the godless threat from the East, now saw itself as the victim of a replay of 1795, its very existence denied. In the Catholic daily Ya, Augusto Assia expressed its bewilderment: Most probably the situation will acquire a clarity later today that it lacks at the moment that I write this column ... . If Mr Chamberlain recognizes that the Non-Aggression pact changes the situation in Europe, and as a result requires a realistic revision of British policy, the international tension will automatically decline. If, on the contrary, the stubborn head of the British Government delivers a speech marked by intransigence, then the tension will automatically rise, to what level God knows.33 The next day the same writer continued: In reality, for the worst to be avoided, the world tonight waits upon the bold intervention of the Duce. To the hard and serene rock of Rome all eyes now are turned.34 A week later came Hitler’s invasion, when the resistance of an unquestionably Catholic people to a pagan invasion caused visible embarrassment in the Spanish press.35 Hours before Hitler made the irreversible decision, 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 senseless attitude of a single country: Poland. If war should break out, without a minimum regard for the enormous efforts that have been made to bring us to where we are, only Poland and its leaders will carry the


17

guilt for the catastrophe. But if it is possible to force this turbulent country, without history or traditions, to see reason, then perhaps on the horizon of Europe an aurora borealis will emerge, to last at least long enough for the span of our poor generation, tired of conflict and saddened by memories too recent and too bitter.36 The following day Hitler’s decision was known. ABC responded virtually with a shrug: ‘We know that in the rotation of history war is an ineluctable fact.’37 Arriba’s response was to make excuses for Hitler; its edition of 3 September ran the headline: ‘Germany does not seek to reign over the world but to defend its independence,’ citing Point 5 in the response 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 French governments on 3 September 1939, Spain responded the next day with a declaration of neutrality which was similarly expressed by the United States, Turkey and Japan. Rome’s response was to declare Italy a nonbelligerent. El Correo Catalán took the occasion to declare that Spain had a war industry ‘second to none’.39 Compared with the frequent threats and invective hurled at France by Franco’s controlled press towards the end of the Civil War, its coverage of the democratic side in the opening week of the Second World War was remarkably mild,40 but the lightning success of the German onslaught on Poland brought a reversal in the Spanish attitude to the Western democracies. Their failure to go to Poland’s aid revived the Spanish authorities’ contempt for these democracies and for liberalism in general. In the Catholic Ya, Augusto Assia wrote of Warsaw’s crucifixion, but his own article fell short of expressing any real dismay over the destruction of Catholic Poland by pagan Germany.41 In an editorial in ABC, José María Salaverria expressed his dismay at how much wealth was being wasted on war, when it could be so well spent on providing food, schools and hospitals: ‘Man has not yet sufficiently developed for him to direct his ideas and his works exclusively to doing good.’42 He added the next day: ‘Rarely has a war opened with such impressive frigidness ... . This war can truly be classified as calculated.’43 And at mid-month: We ourselves cannot adopt an attitude of indifference, whether real or feigned. This war in front of us is the most difficult of all wars ... . For the moment the struggle seems unintelligible, even absurd.

18


The people today are perplexed. The battles which the Poles are losing are not of any special interest to us. This is because few wars have been so cerebral, so intellectual, so deeply calculated ... . Today Hitler announces that for him the question of Alsace is settled, and that he has no desire to re-annex that province ... . There is the matter of Poland’s defence. But Poland, whose misfortunes and enslavement in the first half of the 19th century aroused romantic feeling, today inspires no romanticism but only political interest. This is so far not a war of passion but of calculation; a war in which the heart plays little part, and the brain very much indeed. We can expect and fear that this war will not end as simply as it started.44 For the Falange organ Arriba, the situation was even more disturbing. Under the headline ‘German and Soviet troops in contact,’ Arriba hid its feelings, making no comment except to say that at Brest-Litovsk the leaders of the respective armies exchanged the customary greetings.45 Its Berlin 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 Russia’s mobilisation, but ever since 24 August, following the German–Russian Pact. If it has really caused a sensation in Paris and London, it is because the democratic press has given itself over to Panglossian cabbalas regarding the extent of the collaboration which is now made clear, and the joint declaration from Moscow, which affirms the total agreement between the two governments in respect to the general problem of Eastern Europe.46 Arriba then presented a front-page photo of the Polish Uhlan cavalry at the moment of their charge against German positions in the vicinity of Aódz´, calling it ‘a marvellous military image that recalls battle scenes in past centuries’.47 Arriba took the opportunity to present Trotsky’s reaction to the event: It now becomes clear that while the Comintern was waging a noisy campaign in favour of an alliance with the democracies against fascism, the Kremlin was preparing a military agreement with Hitler against the democracies. Even idiots will now have to admit that the Moscow trials against the old Bolshevik guard were a hypocritical


19

preparation for Stalin’s alliance with Hitler. The Kremlin deceived not only Chamberlain and Daladier but also the working classes of the Soviet Union and the whole world. The words of Molotov, who claims the Red Army is covering itself with glory in Poland, reveal the ignominy of the Kremlin. The Red Army has been ordered to subjugate a Poland that is already subjugated—a vile and criminal mission assigned to the Army by the jackal in the Kremlin.48 On 20 September, under the headline ‘Hitler speaks to Dantzig,’ Arriba quoted the Führer as follows: ‘May God illuminate the peoples and make them see that this struggle is leading nowhere ... . We have no hostile intentions either against England or against France.’49 Another of its headlines on the same day announced an ‘Anti-British demonstration in Warsaw’, in which the demonstrators tried to burn down the British Embassy.50 This was followed by a brief reference to the Polish composer and former prime minister Ignacy Paderewski, who was currently in Paris and had just delivered a radio message to his country.51 At the very moment that Warsaw capitulated and Polish resistance ended, Manuel Aznar wrote in Arriba: ‘There were in Eastern Europe, on the borders of Russia, 20 million Catholics whose fate was not a matter of indifference to Spanish Catholic thinking ... . Why not suggest to the Poles that they agree to an honourable surrender, one in which the prestige of the Polish combatants will be safe-guarded and, at the same time, all possibility of Soviet intervention will be eliminated?’52 Aznar’s proposal is astonishing for its timing. While he was writing, the Soviets, like the Germans, were eliminating the last vestiges of Polish resistance to the joint occupation. At the same time, Aznar makes no mention of an equal number of Catholics 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 Führer it reproduced the Nazi version of who to blame for the destruction of Poland, presenting extracts from his speech of 6 October to the Reichstag: A State with 36 million inhabitants, with an Army made up of 50 infantry and cavalry divisions, rose up against us. Its intentions were unrestricted and its confidence that it could destroy our Reich was far greater than we calculated. The cradle of the Polish State was Versailles ... . In this State, constituted at the expense of the former Russia, Austria and Germany, the non-Polish inhabitants were barbarously maltreated, oppressed, tyrannized and tortured.’53

20


The Catholic Ya found no fault in any of that. Meanwhile in Spain, the threats thrown out by General Kindelán during the Civil War were in no sense abstract. Manuel Ros Agudo has shown that the Spanish air force under Yagüe was not simply defensive in its planning. Shortly after the Anglo-French declaration of war, a report that had Franco’s backing listed the large number of targets in the three military regions in south-western France that Spain had selected for air attack.54 These included, in the XVIth Military Region, factories and depots in Albi, Amélie-les-Bains, Lézignan, Montpellier, Perpignan and Villeneuve-lès-Béziers; in the XVIIth Military Region, factories and depots 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, Oloron and Tarbes.55 Whatever inaction there was on the Western front, there was no lack of action on the world’s high seas, and Franco was ready to play his part. On 30 November 1939, he pledged to provide help to German submarines.56 Already, according to Willard Beaulac, who in 1941 could make inquiries on the spot, the German tanker Nordatlantik had dropped anchor in Vigo harbour in July 1939, before the war had even begun, for no apparent purpose other than to prepare for supplying fuel to U-boats.57 Then, in the first week of war, on 9 September, Admiral Salvador Moreno, the navy minister, had visited Vigo and El Ferrol in order to inspect personally the facilities available in those ports. He reported to the German Embassy that preparations for the supply operation were sufficiently completed for the Germans to begin supplying their submarines.58 Nothing, however, worked quite to the German plan. On 1 November 1939, the following message was sent out by Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz, commander-in-chief U-boats: I have been informed by Skl [⫽Seekriegsleitung ⫽ Supreme Naval Command] that the supply-servicing of U25 cannot take place on the Spanish coast, because the Spaniards of late are creating political trouble. Only in the most extreme emergency would a refuelling in Ferrol still be possible. I have decided against sending the boat there, while keeping open the option of using this facility in cases of real urgency. I was aware from the beginning of the grave uncertainty in this matter.59 Then, in late December, Admiral Dönitz informed Captain Kurt MeyerDöhner, the German naval attaché in Madrid, that the U-25 and the


21

U-44 were ready to be refuelled in Spain. Meyer-Döhner, however, had to reply that only one supply ship, the Thalia, anchored in Cadiz, was suitably prepared. Even then there was a delay, until on 18 January 1940 Dönitz sent the following order. The lack of clarity still to be seen as to the real possibilities of supply-servicing in Spain makes it absolutely necessary to conduct a practical experiment. The U44, currently heading for Spain’s western coast, is eminently suitable for this purpose, because it can operate in coordination with the U boats putting to sea in the 14-day period after it sets out. The supply-servicing is therefore ordered for Cadiz on the night of 25–26 January.60 Accordingly, on 24 January 1940, Meyer-Döhner informed Beigbeder, to the foreign minister’s clear satisfaction, that the first refuelling operation was about to take place in Cadiz, using the Thalia. On the night of 30–31 January 1940, the U-25 duly entered the port, leaving within six hours without having been detected.61 Meanwhile, in Vigo, German U-boats were now freely refuelling from German merchantmen, and on 6 February the operation was discovered. The British admiralty and the French navy protested furiously to Admiral Moreno. Predictably, Moreno and Beigbeder affected astonishment and flatly denied all knowledge of such practice.62 The first naval battle of the war was fought in the South Atlantic outside the estuary of the River Plate, between the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf von Spee and three British light cruisers. In the course of the action the battleship suffered damage that forced the captain, Hans Langsdorff, to seek repairs in the harbour of Montevideo. A high drama was then played out between the president of Uruguay and the British and German ambassadors, at the end of which the president insisted that Langsdorff respect the tenet in international law requiring his ship’s departure within the customary 72 hours. Rather than continue the fight against the British force waiting for him in the estuary, Langsdorff obeyed Hitler’s order to scuttle his ship. He then committed suicide. Ya reported the scuttling but not the suicide, and clearly gave its support to the German argument that the fault lay with Uruguay: ‘The German Minister in Montevideo lodged a protest to the Uruguayan Foreign Minister, Dr Alberto Guani, against the action of forcing a damaged warship to put out to sea when it was not seaworthy. In the circumstances, it should have been allowed a deferment.’63

22


As 1940 opened, Franco, cautious by temperament, uncertain how the great conflict would evolve, maintained his above-the-battle stance. When Hitler presented Franco with an automobile worthy of a generalissimo, an order went out from the press office on 17 January 1940 forbidding all newspapers to make any reference to the gift.64 All questions as to Hitler’s purpose ended dramatically in April with the German attack on Denmark and Norway, followed by the Blitzkrieg launched in the west on 10 May. Its immediate result was the replacement of Chamberlain by Churchill. In London, Augusto Assia paid a tribute to the new premier as he assumed office on 10 May: His energy, his imagination and his toughness show him to be in the eyes of his nation the one man capable of rousing the Empire ... . In the Cuban War he fought as a lieutenant on the side of the Spaniards, earning the Cruz del Mérito Militar. ‘It is one of my most precious decorations,’ he told me one day. He is 65 years of age, but he retains the moral fibre and the mental alertness of a youth. His bulldog look, his nonchalance and his patriotism have made him the most popular political figure that England has known for generations. The way he went on denouncing the unhappy state of British arms and the clairvoyance with which he foretold the events of today afford him a matchless authority to summon his people to make the sacrifices that in this grave hour are indispensable.65 In Berlin, Ramón Garriga presented a different point of view: Just one month ago there was a real concern in well informed circles in Berlin that London and Paris would decide to occupy Belgium and Holland, as a response to the German action undertaken in Norway. The Allies lacked the necessary resolution to carry it through. Once again audacity and decisiveness have triumphed over indecision and delay—flaws inherent in democratic regimes ... . The Führer ended his speech by saying that ‘the struggle which has now begun will decide the national destiny of Germany for the next one 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 and September, he has lost it.’67 While the comment was prophetic, and Churchill himself described the imminent Battle of Britain in almost the same words, it is doubtful that Hitler agreed with it.


23

As France staggered under the German onslaught, Arriba suddenly showed a striking compassion: The whole calamity which, for the second time in forty years, has been visited on the soil of France should be regarded by the Spanish people in a pious and human spirit that overlooks, as far as possible, the jibes and humiliations of the past ... . Our rigorous Christian feeling calls upon us to cast a warm eye of compassion on those parts of northern France that suffer in flesh and bone the consequences of twenty years of French foreign policy.68 Then, as the battle unfurled, and the winner and the loser became ever more obvious, Arriba added: ‘The State, the priceless and lasting instrument, the synthesis of a unanimous national will. When all is said, this more than all things else is Germany’s “great secret weapon”.’69 The arrival in Madrid that week of the new British ambassador, Sir Samuel Hoare, drew warm applause, especially from La Vanguardia Española in Barcelona. Augusto Assia wrote: ‘Never, not even in the days of our great age of empire, has England been represented in Madrid by a person of such prestige, for Sir Samuel is one of the most eminent figures in British politics, having been mentioned many times as a future prime minister. He has served as Secretary of State for Air, Secretary of State for India, Foreign Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, Home Secretary, Lord Privy Seal, and in the last Chamberlain government again as Air Minister-designate.’70 His well-known proNationalist stance during the Civil War was no handicap either to his popularity in Madrid. Meanwhile, the fate of the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium hung in the balance, especially when Leopold III of the Belgians decided on 28 May to capitulate without giving any advance warning to his French and British allies. Here La Vanguardia Española responded with obvious satisfaction: ‘At the front of his Army, showing himself to be a model of sound prudence, he decided upon capitulation, knowing that resistance would be useless and would merely prolong the shedding of blood and the suffering of his subjects in front of the rolling and relentless advance of the invading army.’71 The journal, whose purpose was clearly to encourage the French army to do the same, made no mention of the disastrous effect this had on Allied strategy, imperilling not only the British Expeditionary Force but also those French divisions that had been moved north to help in Belgium’s defence. For the rest of the war and after the Liberation, Leopold III was to face accusations of treason, and on 16 July 1951 he would be forced to abdicate.

24


Any evacuation from Dunkirk was considered a lost cause. Arriba on 30 May ran a subhead: ‘Re-embarcation is now almost impossible.’72 Ramón Garriga was equally pessimistic: ‘Britain and France, with the finest fleets in Europe, now find themselves incapable of saving the majority of their men.’73 On 1 June Arriba ran the headline: ‘The British Expeditionary Force in Flanders has been almost entirely annihilated.’74 The reality, that the Royal Navy succeeded in evacuating no fewer than 340,000 Allied troops, must have come as a grave disappointment to Arriba. 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 waiting for the troops, to leave immediately for another station where everything had been prepared: refrigerated foods, tinned goods, ham, biscuits, beer and tea, without the slightest confusion or the very shortest delay ... . The observer can only form the impression that an army has returned from Flanders without its weapons and deeply scarred by battle, but an army capable of facing up once again to the enemy.75 A colleague on La Vanguardia Española added: ‘This enormous army has been liquidated as an army in the space of three weeks, even if in this disaster there have been examples of energy and bravery worthy of respect and admiration.’76 The miracle of Dunkirk did not change the overall fact that the French army was facing the worst defeat in its history and France was facing collapse. Franco wrote to Hitler on 3 June: ‘My people ... watch with deep emotion the glorious course of a struggle which they consider their own, and which fulfils all the hopes kindled in Spain in the days when your soldiers were fighting by our side against enemies who, even though masked, were the same as now.’77 The ‘glorious course’ was the Allied debacle and the death agony of the French Third Republic. José María Alfaro, Undersecretary for Press and Propaganda, reminded Spain how much the ‘glorious course’ owed to the Nationalist movement: ‘We were the first belligerents in this great revolutionary and civilizing struggle to annihilate an era redolent of decay, fear, egoism and cruelty.’78 Germany’s shattering success allowed the strategic planners in Berlin to move ahead with plans long in readiness. The Seekriegsleitung in Berlin issued a message on 6 June addressed to ‘M.Att.’ (Military Attaché), stamped ‘Top Secret’ and marked for delivery only by an officer. It read: It is requested that the following be transmitted to the Navy Attaché in Rome in reply to his telephone inquiry of today.


25

The supplying of German U-boats in Spain and the Canary Islands must be carried out exclusively [ausschliesslich] by German merchantmen without any collaboration from the Spanish side. It will be carried out in every case inside the harbour, alongside the German vessel 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 to Supreme Naval Command in Berlin; the time limit for preparation between the receipt of the message at Supreme Naval Command and the 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 both Vigo and Las Palmas consist of 250–300 cubic metres of fuel oil, 15 cubic metres of top-quality lubricating oil, and food supplies sufficient for one U-boat Type U-45 for six weeks. In Cadiz: 300 cubic metres of fuel oil, 2 cubic metres of the same lubricating oil, and food supplies for one U-boat for the same period. And in El Ferrol: 6,000 cubic metres of fuel oil, 30 cubic metres of the same lubricating oil, and food supplies for two U-boats for the same period. The minimum depth of water at the supply points is 15 metres. The technical references of the fuels and lubricants correspond to the norms of the German Navy (see also E.V.) Supply of the fuel is carried out by pumps and hoses, at a rate of about 11 cubic metres per hour, with the lubricant oils provided by barrels each containing 200 litres. The refilling of fuel and foodstuffs is not an easy process. Verified text: signed, Kapitänleutnant (Commander), illegible [von Wallenstein?] Per pro: Admiral Fricke79 On 12 June, as German forces reached Paris, Spain passed from neutrality to non-belligerency. Two days earlier, Mussolini had abandoned that position, and just two days later Franco’s troops occupied Tangier, in violation of two agreements it had signed.80 Arriba presented in layman’s terms what the new policy of Spain implied: ‘Spain desires the victory of those who desired and resolutely helped in Spain’s own victory.’81 In Barcelona, La Vanguardia Española showed no pity for the dying Third Republic: The anguished messages which Prime Minister Reynaud delivered in these last days and hours to the door of the United States require no comment from us. We would merely call the attention of those superficial observers and stubborn fanatics to the way that democracies shrug their phlegmatic shoulders at the fate of their

26


sister-democracies whenever they seek help. Like the internationalism of the Internationals—and the democratic system is one more International—the fraternity among the democracies is a total swindle. ‘Brotherhood’? How very touching!82 One thing was clear from the start of the world conflict: Spain’s economic situation was desperate. Count Renom de La Baume, who was France’s representative in Madrid in 1940, was another who reported that the Spanish people were ‘threatened by a veritable famine’,83 and by early December 1940, according to the US Embassy, the food shortage was such that in some parts of Spain people were fighting in the streets over scraps of bread.84 As a result, if Franco was at the mercy of the Axis for his military needs, he was even more at the mercy of the democracies for his basic supplies. The British Ministry of Economic Warfare decided to include Spain in the navicert system (in which permission to sail was granted by the Royal Navy to every neutral ship after its cargo and destination had been checked and cleared), and only the United States could provide Spain with its petroleum needs. Serrano Súñer acknowledges that no wheat, petroleum, rubber or cotton (all of which Spain was forced to import) could be obtained in the Western Mediterranean.85 A break in such supplies, or a mere threat of such a break, was to be an effective instrument of Allied policy.86

3 Vichy France and Britain’s Battle for Its Life (June–September 1940)

The overwhelming success of the German Blitzkrieg of May–June 1940 had induced Franco, on 12 June, to change the status of Spain from benevolent neutrality to non-belligerent. Spain’s benevolent neutrality, originally expressed as pro-Axis and later in the war refashioned as proAllied, is not defined in international law, and nor is non-belligerence.1 This novel juridical concept differed from the pre-belligerence adopted by Mussolini prior to his entry into the war and, as Jordana defined, it constituted ‘a sincere and definite separation from belligerence’.2 The advantages to Spain of non-belligerence over belligerence, as Martínez Nadal has pointed out, were twofold. First, it allowed Hitler free use of Spanish territorial waters for his submarines to be sheltered and supplied. Second, it guaranteed Hitler a privileged supply of all primary sources essential to his war industries and allowed Spain to continue to import some US petroleum which Germany would otherwise have to supply.3 Under nonbelligerence Franco would occupy Tangier on 14 July, and lay claim to Gibraltar four days later. Mussolini readily agreed with Franco’s position, pointing out to Hitler on 19 October 1940 that Spanish non-belligerence was more advantageous to the Axis than Spanish intervention.4 The Duce and the Caudillo had similar views on big-scale war. As Sir Samuel Hoare put it, what Franco wanted was a German victory but not a crushing victory that gave Hitler the world, and he wanted no part in a war that would involve Spain in hard combat.5 Arriba’s correspondent in Basle reported that the peace terms would be hard on France, ‘but less humiliating than those that England offered the French Government on 14 June, when it proposed that France transform itself into a British dominion by means of an absurd union’. In the same issue Arriba presented a headline: ‘Weygand orders the arrest of Reynaud, who has fled to America.’6 The report on Reynaud 27

28


was of special interest to the Barcelona readers of La Vanguardia Española, which therefore presented the report at greater length. Its headline ran: ‘A short story of a grand treason: the flight of Reynaud, very much of the Front Populaire,7 after trying to transform France into a British dominion.’ The unsigned article continued: In the most interesting news item of the day we learn of an irreparable crime thought up by the top Masonic circles: a sinister intrigue which would have cost France not only the territory and the Army it has lost, but its sacred honour into the bargain ... . This flight of Reynaud, in the style of a common adventurer à la Negrín, followed his miserable attempt to hand over his country. Marshal Pétain was able to prevent this worst of infamies ... designed by men and parties sold out to the sinister sects whose capacity to provoke moral misery and betray the most sacred human sentiments knows no end. General Weygand has ordered Reynaud’s arrest, but this order was revoked for fear that it could produce a backlash. Reynaud is on his way to Lisbon, to take ship for America, where he is believed to hold a considerable fortune. In this way, the ending of hostilities can be approved unanimously.8 Little in this report is accurate.9 The same issue reported from Basle the publication of the document in which England invited France ‘to form a union under the British Crown ... . Reports reaching us from France attest to the deep animosity felt against England throughout the entire country.’10 The theme of perfide Albion was never more popular. Arriba presented a headline on 25 June: ‘France considers the lack of British support to be the cause of its defeat,’11 and in the same issue, in an unsigned editorial, gave its verdict on the outcome: For all Europeans, yesterday was a day of joy ... . Those who wanted to drag France into an impossible resistance knew that they were leading their people into an absolute catastrophe in which not even honour would be saved. The gesture of Pétain is the mark of a soldier unlike any of those Frenchmen who today busy themselves in London in forming a so-called National Committee of France, one more example of the permanent treason of European Popular Frontism. France, by the timely and courageous intervention of a soldier, has succeeded in salvaging from the bitter waters of defeat its noble presence in the world, that presence which for too many years was forgotten and betrayed in the name of some blithe ‘fraternity.’

Vichy France and Britain’s Battle for Its Life 29

Meanwhile, England waits. The derogatory phrases which its Prime Minister addressed to an allied nation which has paid in blood to defend the British Empire received the proper answer from Pétain: ‘We do not take lessons from a foreign minister.’12 Arriba followed this up in July, citing a statement issued in Berne by Paul Baudouin, Vichy’s newly appointed foreign minister. Under the headline: ‘We entered the war with Germany—states the French Government—under the influence of England,’ it added the subhead: ‘The British abandoned our Army of the North together with the Belgian Army.’13 La Vanguardia Española’s correspondent in Bordeaux reported on the scene in the city that was briefly the seat of the French government: The final judgment on a country that once was great! The mob with only one idea, to flee! ‘Peace!’ they cry. ‘Peace, whatever comes next! When will the hostilities end?’ Pétain refused to accept Churchill’s last proposal, in which he suggested that France—its government, its institutions, its resources of every kind—move to London and that the two countries virtually fuse into one in order to continue the war. Pétain is furthermore moving with singular energy to repress any sign of internal disorder. By way of example, last Monday [17 June] the police arrested the former Minister Georges Mandel.14 His arrest was quite spectacular, since it was carried out while Mandel was having lunch with some friends in the Restaurant Chapon Fin, an establishment frequented by all the diplomats. Mandel was freed within a few hours. He is thinking of crossing the Spanish frontier, to make his way to Portugal. The political class is wandering around Bordeaux like a bunch of lost souls, whipped by the same physical miseries as the other fugitives. I saw Blum in a restaurant on the Boulevard Georges Clemenceau. He was sitting half collapsed on a sofa beside a café au lait, in the middle of piles of suitcases, looking for all the world like the Wandering Jew. Another tragic-comic puppet—Paul Boncour15— had dinner last night in front of us in the Restaurant La Presse. His Excellency was even eating with gusto! The political gang that sundered France—in the style of Negrín—dreams only of saving their lives by getting a visa to Africa or America. Geneviève Tabouis and Henry Torrès, who so maligned Nationalist Spain, had the effrontery to drop in at our Consulate and ask for visas, and of course, they got their answer.16

30


Then, when the Germans reached Hendaye, Arriba expressed its pleasure to see ‘the victorious flag of the German troops on view at the frontier posts’.17 It was a great moment for revenge, and Arriba certainly did not pass it by, taking special aim at Geneviève Tabouis, who was a leading French journalist. While she had taken the Republican side in the Civil War, her columns had been less biting than those of others.18 Nevertheless, she was in Bordeaux and fleeing, and she made a fine target. An unsigned article ran: With regard to the venomous editorialist of L’Oeuvre and her ilk, allow us to say a little something of the very much we hold in our hearts. Throughout the length of our war, Madame Tabouis was one of the vilest enemies that our liberation movement faced inside democratic France. She insulted us gratuitously, scheming up with her repulsive pen the worst predictions and the most sullen judgments; she never wrote the name of Spain without a twist of the wrist. Never did she speak of our struggle for salvation without shading it in calumny. How could this odious witch, together with her kin, imagine in her despair that Spain would come around to providing her with a shelter, or even a stop-over, in her frantic flight?19 Meanwhile in Paris, the humiliation of the French reached its nadir with German troops marching in victory around the Arc de Triomphe and down the Avenue Foch, ironically the chosen route of the French right wing colonel de La Rocque when he staged his paramilitary parades in the pre-war years.20 One report ran: ‘In front of admiring spectators, one of the most illustrious divisions in the German Army paraded on Avenue Foch past their commander, General Kurt von Briesen, celebrated for his part in the Battle of Kutno in Poland.’21 Arriba continued to heap its praise on Nazi Germany: ‘A people unanimous and resolute, ready, with heroic will, to carry out the precepts of a revolution guaranteed to succeed by its strength and its sense of destiny.’22 Mocking France remained equally in vogue. On the eve of 14 July, Arriba dismissed France’s national fête as ‘fundamental to a regime rather than to a nation: it still remains, with the difference that now its outline is draped in mourning’.23 Churchill’s ‘infamy’ in proposing to Reynaud that the two countries share the same fate, come what may, by forming a union dedicated to continuing the war from outside the Continent continued to inflame the


supporters of Pétain in Spain and France alike. La Vanguardia Española welcomed the tribute that Pétain now paid to Spain, providing a version of what Pétain had told his supporters on the tragic night of 17 June: All is lost. Let us save our honour; and we can still save our honour by looking to Spain. France is paying today the price that Spain paid in 1936–1939: the price of the Popular Front. I am certain that out of this terrible ordeal a new France will emerge. Mindful of the last great happiness in my life, my recent sojourn in Spain, I want it to be Spain, under its Generalissimo Franco, the cleanest sword in the world, to be our intercessor with Hitler. A new France is coming into being, and indeed it will be born out of that gratitude we owe to immortal Spain.24 On the very same day that La Vanguardia Española published this address, Arriba committed a howler, repeating a report published in the Rome fascist daily Il Messaggero to the effect that the ‘former Marshal’ had decided, ‘irrevocably’, to resign. ‘Accordingly, President Lebrun has appointed Laval to form a new Government.’25 Without bothering with a correction, Arriba made a further reference to ‘the British attempt to divide the French’ (its headline), with a subhead: ‘The French decision not to fight is final,’26 and then reported a statement by Pétain on the conditions of the Armistice: ‘The French Government remains free, and France will be administered only by the French. I would not be worthy of standing in front of you if I had agreed to continue the struggle from the colonies. I cannot place either my person or my hopes outside of France ... . I will not deceive you with lies, for it is lies that have caused you so much harm.’27 To continue the struggle from the French colonies was precisely the intention of de Gaulle before and after his arrival in London. La Vanguardia Española’s London correspondent reported the statement issued by the British government which recognised the committee formed by de Gaulle as the sole and legitimate government of France: ‘The French National Committee will have under its jurisdiction all French citizens at present on British soil and will administer all military and civil elements which come under its sway. France has not died. Hope is not extinguished. Long live France.’28 The announcement was immediately mocked in its editorial column: ‘This French National Committee which is to be formed in London to pursue the war is a parody of the separatist and self-styled governments that loiter around the world decreeing laws binding on Spaniards and declaring that the war

32


against Generalissimo Franco will continue ... . If the matter were not so dramatic at moments like these, it would move the most silent soul to laughter.’29 Arriba added its scorn for England’s decision: ‘Once again its unchanging obstinacy is revealed to the world.’30 Attention now focused, throughout the world, on the natural sequel: British capitulation, or the invasion of Britain. On 22 May Arriba had run a headline: ‘London can be reached by artillery fire from the continent.’ Its subhead reported: ‘From a military standpoint, the straits of Calais are no more than a wide river.’31 In fact, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) in Berlin had made no long-term provisions for a cross-Channel invasion. The sea transport that was hastily assembled consisted largely of Rhine barges with a speed of only 4 knots. But at the time, none of this was known in Spain. Arriba’s correspondent in Rome spoke of the ‘need to use France as a springboard for the coming attack on England, or at the very least a right of way ... . I heard a remark today from a prestigious naval expert [his nationality was not given] that is worth considering: “In the present circumstances, the German, Italian and French fleets, all combined, are superior to that of the British Empire”.’32 In any event, the same correspondent wrote the next day, ‘British resistance will be short.’33 In Washington it was never hard to find some champion of isolationism in the US Congress. Arriba gave a front page headline to the statement by Senator Key Pittman (Democrat, Nevada), chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Pittman stated that Britain was unprepared to defend itself and that American intervention would serve no purpose except to delay the final result of the conflict. ‘It is obvious’, he added, ‘that the US Congress will never consent to enter the war.’34 With the collapse of France, and as German troops reached Hendaye on 27 June 1940, the role that Spain was to play in the emerging world struggle became a subject of dispute between those favouring a strict Spanish neutrality, who included most of the monarchists, and those supporting intervention, led by the anti-monarchist and pro-Nazi Falange. Relations between the two steadily deteriorated.35 The rise in influence of the Spanish monarchist generals was an important factor in the process of el chaqueteo. Already on 16 June 1940, in the Château d’Acoz near Châtelet in Belgium, Hitler and Ribbentrop conferred very cordially with General Juan Vigón Suerodíaz, who became air minister on 27 June. Both Vigón and the high commissioner in Morocco, General Luis Orgaz, were proGerman. It was Orgaz, to whom Franco entrusted the highest military command, with 150,000 men in North Africa, who authorised the


Germans to set up six observation posts (employing 400 men) between Tangier and Melilla. With the capitulation of France, and German control over the entire French Atlantic coastline, Hitler did not have the same need for Spanish bases that he had had from September 1939 to June 1940, but this does not mean that Operation Moro was downgraded. On 24 June, Admiral Dönitz received word of the first successful U-boat refuelling, but he issued a warning that the secret operation could be discovered: ‘Skl [Commander in Chief Navy] transmits that the refueling of U29 was indeed carried out undisturbed, but that the possibility exists that the boat was seen by fishermen as well as by passenger boats. For U30, therefore, the programme is to be Arroz rather than Bernardo, so that the frequent use of the same port does not bring this possibility about. In the last few days Arroz has become less suitable, because Italian ships have been anchored nearby. A decision will be made today.’36 In a speech on 18 July 1940, Franco invoked the determination of Spain to build an empire; it concerned Gibraltar and expansion in Africa. The next day, at a military parade on the Via Castellana which Ambassador Hoare attended with the rest of the diplomatic corps, an anti-British demonstration was carefully planned.37 According to Sir Samuel, Serrano Súñer, who on 10 August 1939 had become foreign minister, was thinking by August 1940 that Britain would be beaten in three weeks. He had even accepted Hitler’s invitation to a cocktail party arranged for 15 September in London.38 As for Franco, he did not fail to express his convictions to Mussolini. Guy Hermet has quoted extracts from a letter which the Caudillo addressed to the Duce, dated 15 August: ‘From the opening of the conflict, I have taken care to make the necessary preparations in order to enter the war at the most favourable moment, bearing in mind the means at our disposal ... . Spain ... is preparing to take its place in the struggle against the common enemies.’39 A curious relationship, meanwhile, developed between the foreign minister Juan Beigbeder and the British ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare. Beigbeder, an army colonel, had a reputation as an Anglophobe, but Baron Eberhard von Stohrer, the German ambassador, viewed with concern the blossoming friendship between the two men. Beigbeder was more and more impressed by the reports that he was receiving from his ambassador in London. Hoare, for his part, describes Beigbeder in his memoirs as ‘an emotional romantic’ who would show him the most confidential papers and tell him not only of his conversations with Franco but also of his conversations with the Germans and Italians. In early September 1940 he would stroll arm in arm with Hoare in the

34


streets of Madrid, stopping for a drink in a café frequented by many Germans. In their conversations Beigbeder would tell an attentive Hoare that if Britain would sustain Spain economically, Britain could enjoy a replay of the situation of 1805–8 when Britain moved from enemy to ally, all in the space of three years. Beigbeder had equally good news for the German ambassador, telling him in late August 1940 that defeatism was sweeping England and that Spain stood ready to enter the war.40 There were many sides to Beigbeder, as there were to Lequerica, as we shall see. In spite of the personal friendship that existed between Hoare and Beigbeder, there was nothing they could do about the abusive language used by the Spanish press, which took its orders from Serrano Súñer, the Party leader and minister of the interior. Hoare called this press the worst on record: ‘It reached its nadir in August 1940. The worst of the bunch was the Falange journal Arriba ... . It rained sarcasm, insults and lies on the Allied cause.’41 Back in the dawn of modern diplomacy, the Spanish Embassy in London during the reign of Elizabeth I had been famous as a centre of intrigue.42 It now matched its 16th century origins. The choice of the Duke of Alba in March 1939 as Spain’s ambassador to the Court of St James could not be faulted: he was perfectly at home in the highest circles of British society, and as the Duke of Berwick he had a right to a seat in the House of Lords. As a staunch monarchist he had no particular affection for Franco, but his hatred of republicanism explains his support for the Nationalists in the Civil War. The instructions he now received from Beigbeder were to provide the maximum coverage of the British reaction in the imminent Battle of Britain. Arriba hailed the occasion as ‘the revival of the old Spanish dream that sank with the wreck of the hapless Invencible: the adventure of invading England, which four centuries ago might have altered the entire course of history, and which today is on the verge of attainment.’43 As the Blitz grew in intensity, Beigbeder demanded a daily report on the effect of the German bombing, not only on London but on all other cities, with details on the targets hit, the casualties caused and the effect on civilian morale. Spanish consuls in the other cities were to send similar reports. While these reports were then handed over by Beigbeder to Stohrer, the motive is not entirely clear: Beigbeder was impressed by the reports from Alba that attested to British resilience, and Stohrer had the heavy duty of transmitting these reports to Ribbentrop.44


The reports from London on the air attacks originated in the office of the Spanish press subdelegate Juan Brugada, who sent his own weekly report to his superior in Madrid, Enrique Giménez Arnau, who in turn regularly passed them on to the German air attaché, Colonel Eckhart Krahmer. With or without the help of Brugada, a report written by Jacinto Miquelarena that appeared in ABC on 20 October 1940 predicted a catastrophic winter for the United Kingdom, bereft of food, coal and communications. For the British people, ‘little used to taking part in war biologically and territorially, it is truly the beginning of the end of the conflict’.45 As for Brugada, the Spanish historian Manuel Ros has revealed that his activities eventually caught the attention of MI5, the British counter-intelligence service. He was given the choice of prison or life as a double agent. In his panic he chose the latter. He then proceeded to send messages to Madrid prepared for him by his MI5 handlers.46 This MI5 practice of turning captured spies into double agents was applied to Franco’s spies and German spies alike. They were sent for training to Latchmere House (Centre 020), a former clinic to the south-east of London which would later be used (in 1945) for the interrogation of Ernst Kaltenbrunner. To handle this operation of providing false information to Madrid, a group was formed in January 1941 under the wry title of Committee of Twenty, the Roman XX representing the Double Cross.47 Replacements continued. To fill the post of press attaché in London, Serrano chose Angel Alcázar de Velasco, a senior official in the Spanish military intelligence service. When the British government forced him to return to Madrid,48 he created the To– spy network in which Spanish agents in the United States between 1942 and 1944 would work for Japan. To replace Alcázar, Serrano picked Luis Calvo of ABC. Calvo was less lucky. He was soon arrested and interned in a camp in West Ham where he spent the remainder of the war.49 One report that may have confused Madrid, if it reached Madrid, concerned Churchill’s rather unexpected tribute on 18 July 1940 to the Spanish Republicans. In a speech to Commons on that day, he called on the British people to show fortitude in the coming storm, as did ‘the valiant citizens of Barcelona’. While this mention appeared in the British press,50 it does not appear in the Hansard record of parliamentary debate. Daniel Arasa has pointed out that while some historians have attributed this omission to a request by the Duke of Alba, it should be attributed instead to a decision by the British government not to offend Madrid.51

36


On 5 September Arriba set out to provoke its readers by reproducing an editorial in the London Daily Express signed by Geoffrey Cox: If Franco wants war, it will go very hard for him. Franco knows that if he goes to war, he will be handing us a weapon which, if we choose to use it, can blow up his entire regime from the inside, and thereby undo an outpost of the Axis. There are, in point of fact, one million Spanish Republican prisoners who are still, even today, in prison camps in Spain, yearning for a chance to have another go at Franco ... . This makes Spain the weakest link in the Fascist chain ... . Our ships can drop weapons in the bays of Asturias, for the miners who await the moment of revenge. We can carry help to the Basques, drop pamphlets from the sky. We can take the Canary Islands, and set up a Republican Government which we would instantly recognize ... . It will be up to us whether we care if these people are Red or Pink or White. Because no call will bring Spain to its feet except the cry of the Republic ... . If Franco leads his people into war, he gives us one more enemy to fight. But it also offers us an army of allied troops—and it is in our interest to accept them.52 Three days later Arriba announced that the article reproduced from the Daily Express had attracted such public attention that the edition that carried it had been sold out within a few hours of going on sale.53 The Spanish people were obviously curious to know what weapons England held against Spain. The Luftwaffe’s strategy of concentrating on the destruction of RAF Fighter Command was interrupted when Churchill ordered an air attack (hugely unsuccessful) on Berlin. Hitler’s rage, and Goering’s gross embarrassment, explains the shift of the Luftwaffe’s attack away from the RAF airfields and on to London. To Arriba, the German air onslaught on the British civilian population was fully justified. ‘The gigantic attack [of 7 September]’, it wrote in a subheadline, ‘is in reprisal for the British night-bombing raids on Germany.’54 On the same day, the Falange’s organ wrote: The war is drawing rapidly closer to that moment of decision which holds the whole world in thrall ... . Churchill now represents in England the ultimate in bellicosity ... . But behind the oratory of the British Prime Minister not all


England stands in support. It is a well known fact that important sectors of opinion consider the stubbornness of the Prime Minister too much of a danger, and they do not hide their strong inclination in favour of a mediation which perhaps could preclude irreparable disasters ... . Germany is struggling in a tremendous cause, the cause of its right to freedom and to greatness ... . Just as the voice and words of Churchill betray a lack of conviction and an artificiality of argument, so the voice and words of Hitler echo the heart-beat of an entire people and the categorical truths that derive from reason.55 Churchill, Arriba wrote again, was clearly on the ropes: ‘His country reproaches him for having been more diligent in warning about the German danger than in preparing its defences.’56 The Falange organ next reported: ‘The rumour has been confirmed that King George VI and the Diplomatic Corps will abandon London this week, to set up residence in the northwest of England ... . The city selected for this is said to be Glasgow.’57 England and Germany had arrived at the fatal day, Sunday 15 September. Hitler was behind schedule: he had selected that Sunday, many weeks earlier, as the day for his triumphant entry into London. The ceremony had been prepared; the invitations had been drawn up. That Sunday each side made its supreme effort. Goering launched his heaviest attack. On the British side there was not a single fighter aircraft left on the ground. In its issue on that fatal day, Arriba had nothing but bad news to report for England. ‘The heroic Italian Army has now launched its attack on Egypt, inflicting upon England one of the most painful blows that could be dealt her.’ Meanwhile the homeland was facing ‘the greatest military force in the history of the world’. The Falange organ further reported from New York a statement by the presidential candidate Wendell Willkie that ‘the German air force could decide the war and knock England out of the fight without any need for invasion.’58 Arriba added in an unsigned editorial: ‘It is possible, of course, to be wrong, because fallibility is in the nature of man, and perhaps it is premature to assume from all the evidence that this is the final round for England. But in the best of all imaginable scenarios, in this titanic war which grips the attention of the world and is transforming Europe’s greatest city into a smoking ruin, England’s hours are inexorably counted.’59 The next day being a Monday, there were no newspapers in Spain. Readers had to wait for 17 September, when Arriba’s headline ran: ‘Serrano Súñer, warmly welcomed in Germany,’ while the outcome of

38


the epic battle of 15 September did not appear on its front page at all. Nor did the battle appear on the following day, except for a photograph of the Luftwaffe ace Werner Mölders at the moment he received the Iron Cross for shooting down 40 RAF planes.60 The battle essentially fizzled out as far as the Spanish press was concerned, since the press did what the Luftwaffe did: concentrate thereafter on the nightbombing of British cities, which, however destructive, lacked the drama and the desperation of the preceding battle in the air. And its vital importance.

4 Hitler’s Quandary: South-West or East? (September 1940–June 1941)

Meanwhile in Spain, Beigbeder’s balancing act ended in humiliation: he read about his resignation in the newspapers. His replacement as foreign minister by Serrano Súñer, on 18 October 1940, marked the highpoint in the anti-democratic policy of the Franco government.1 Marshal Pétain, while ambassador in Madrid, had noticed the pressure exerted by the Falange to replace the Francophobe but Anglophile Beigbeder with the Anglophobe and even more Francophobe Serrano.2 Count Ciano, his Italian counterpart, observed in the latter the same attitude that Colonel Krahmer, the German air attaché, had observed in Franco: an intense dislike of France and, to a lesser degree, of Britain.3 His Anglophobia derived in part from an incident in the Civil War: his two brothers were trapped in Madrid in July 1936, and Serrano blamed the British embassy for failing to grant them asylum. On 19 October 1940, Serrano’s very first day in office was marked by a visit out of the usual. Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer-SS, had already been honoured in Spain: in November 1939 he had received the Gran Cruz de la Orden Imperial del Yugo y las Flechas ‘in recognition of his work in the struggle against the enemies of Spain in its Civil War’.4 His brief tour began with a reception in Irun, where he was officially received by the director general of security, José Finat, Count de Mayalde, since it was he who had extended the invitation to Himmler.5 Mayalde was reciprocating the invitation he had received from Himmler to visit Berlin on 31 August for the purpose of studying Nazi police organisation. Also present in Irun to welcome Himmler were three officials from the German embassy in Madrid: Ambassador von Stohrer; Paul Winzer of the Gestapo; and Hans Thomsen, head of the Nazi Party in Spain. Serrano Súñer seized on the visit to boost his position, and when dissatisfied with the coverage in the Spanish press he 39

40


instructed Enrique Giménez Arnau, its director general, to tell ABC, Ya and even the Falange journal Arriba that they had to liven it up. Arriba complied with this report on Himmler’s statement to the press: ‘Germany,’ declared the Reichsführer-SS, ‘had a problem with aggressive minorities, a problem which the Third Reich had to deal with when it came to power ... . To resolve the problem of the minorities— social democrats, liberal democrats and communists—Hitler developed his anti-Semitic program, certain that in this way he was attacking the base of the opposition. The majority of the leaders—and never was the word foreigner better applied—were of non-German origin.’ Heinrich Himmler was the man who undertook and fulfilled that enormous task, and in the finest manner. A certain press, frivolous, despicable, and in the pay of others, has attempted, in its hatred of seeing Germany reborn, to vilify the character of our visitor ... . German law has identified specific crimes against the Fatherland, and German techniques serve in the work of repression, which is as intense and severe as the corresponding crimes logically require. It is with men like Heinrich Himmler that strong nations reach their zenith. The hatred expressed by the enemies of these nations is the best testimony to their qualities. Their efficiency and their integrity are not things that their enemies can pardon.6 The next day Himmler was greeted by Franco who, according to Ambassador Hoare, ‘received him like a sovereign prince’,7 but the Caudillo apparently made a poor impression on the Reichsführer-SS, for Himmler then reported to Hitler in rather discouraging terms.8 Before leaving Spain Himmler visited Barcelona, and more particularly the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat where he viewed the 9th century Madonna. After a careful examination, he told the flabbergasted monks: ‘Obviously, the Virgin and Child are of Nordic origin.’9 Before leaving Spain, Himmler obtained the agreement of Mayalde, backed by Serrano, to install the Gestapo agent Paul Winzer inside the German Embassy in Madrid and other Sicherheitsdienst (SD) agents in German consulates throughout Spain.10 The meeting between Hitler and Franco at Hendaye on 23 October 1940 (the only time they met) has long been scrutinised. It should be mentioned first that the German archives contain nothing on Hendaye other than a memorandum that specialists attribute to Paul Otto Schmidt, head of Ribbentrop’s interpreters pool.11 There is evidence to suggest that both leaders were poorly served by their interpreters.

Hitler’s Quandary 41

The prelude to the meeting is to be found in Serrano Súñer’s first visit to Berlin on 16–17 September 1940. In a sarcastic message to Ciano after Serrano’s visit, Hitler set out what he understood Franco’s terms to be: ‘1. Germany is to deliver for the coming year 400,000–700,000 tons of grain; 2. Germany is to deliver all the fuel; 3. Germany is to deliver the equipment which the Army lacks; 4. Germany is to supply artillery, airplanes, as well as special weapons and special troops for the conquest of Gibraltar; 5. Germany is to hand over to Spain all of Morocco, and, besides that, Oran, and is to help her get a border revision west of Río de Oro;12 6. Spain is to promise to Germany, in return, her friendship.’13 On his voyage to Hendaye, therefore, Hitler had a clear indication about what he could expect to hear from Franco. He also knew from the opinions of two of his leading generals, Brauchitsch and Halder, as to what he could gain from an alliance: ‘Spain’s domestic situation is so rotten as to make her useless as a political partner.’14 But what Hitler wanted from Spain at this point was no more than a free road to capture Gibraltar. He knew in advance what Franco would ask in terms of his imperial ambitions, and that is why he grouped three meetings together, Laval–Franco–Pétain, within a week and in a convenient line of travel. The triptych was in the form of a ‘reconnaissance’, as Paul Preston has put it, to see if the aspirations of Franco and Pétain were compatible.15 But there were also the African aspirations of Mussolini to consider. A reconciliation of these three mutually conflicting interests was impossible from the start. Every account of the meeting attests to the extreme pressure which the Führer exerted on the Caudillo, which makes nonsense of the assessment made in 1945 by Dolores Ibarruri, then secretary general of the Spanish Communist Party.16 The meeting, being the only one ever to take place between the two leaders, was of unquestioned importance and has given rise to a great deal of misrepresentation. Jules Stavnik writes of the ‘mystery’ surrounding the meeting, and even gets the date wrong by a month.17 The evidence supplied by Serrano Súñer is primordial, but it has passed through more than one version. After publishing his first volume of memoirs,18 Serrano granted an interview in July 1973 to Miguel Acoca of Newsweek in which he said: Hitler did not fail [to obtain Franco’s military support in the Second World War]. The truth of the matter is that after the Civil War we did not have the economic strength and the weapons to enter the war independently—that is to say, voluntarily and with dignity. If we had accepted Hitler’s invitation to join the war, it would have been

42


tantamount to accepting an invasion of German troops because we were in no condition to wage war. It was not easy, however. As Foreign Minister I had to toe a narrow line. We could not be so neutral as to arouse Hitler’s suspicion, nor could we be so blatantly proGerman as to invite an Allied invasion. In fact, our relations with the Germans were so precarious in the spring of 1941 that Franco told me that Hitler ‘will present us with an ultimatum at any moment.’ Yet our policy of friendship toward Germany was our great shield.19 It was only in 1976, however, that Serrano Súñer, in a new volume of memoirs which repudiate so many earlier accounts (that of Brian Crozier,20 for example), explained why his earlier work contained no mention of the meeting at Hendaye. ‘At the time I published my book, I had no reason whatever to think that the “Hendaye protocol” had fallen into Allied hands, since no one had made any concrete reference to it.’ Under the Hendaye Protocol, Serrano admitted, in spite of his categorical denial in October 1945,21 ‘Spain made its first formal commitment, although only in principle, to put an end to its status as a non-belligerent in favour of turning into a pro-Axis belligerent. In keeping that secret, until the time should come to make it public, Spain adhered at Hendaye to the military alliance known as the Tripartite pact.’22 Serrano’s new book was looked upon as a revelation, though not a complete one (there was still no reference, for example, to the visit of Himmler). We can assume, however, that Serrano generously waited for Franco to die before going to press. Once again Serrano attests to the absolute confidence that Franco placed in an Axis victory, which he shows by publishing letters that he had received from his chief. ‘At that time, with the exception of General [Antonio] Aranda, all of us had perfect faith in the triumph of the Axis. Franco no less than I believed in the high probability—in the certainty— of a German victory ... . Franco ... was sure of that victory.’23 General Juan Vigón, minister of aviation and the member of the general staff closest to Franco, told Ambassador Hoare after the collapse of France: ‘You are beaten. Don’t be foolish. Make peace before things get worse.’24 On 23 September 1940, Franco remarked to Serrano: ‘I believe that the bombing [of London] is extremely effective and that it will soon bring a change to the British attitude.’25 Serrano also corroborates earlier testimony concerning the appalling condition of Spain’s transport system. Like the state of Spain’s combat readiness—at Hendaye, for example, the Germans noticed that the rifles of the guard of honour were unusable26—this unreadiness unquestionably


impressed every German who entered Spain. It was not that Franco’s train arrived as late as has been reported. Serrano insists that it arrived only eight minutes late, or ten minutes behind Hitler’s.27 But it was nevertheless travelling only from Pasajes to Hendaye and it was a special train carrying the head of state. Serrano admits that it ‘jolted and shook violently, and neither the train nor the track nor the service was in proper condition’.28 A similar event occurred after the meeting, presumably before Hitler’s eyes. This time the train carrying Franco and his entourage away from Hendaye started so violently that had it not been for the intervention of General José Moscardó, Franco could have landed head over heels on the platform.29 The meeting at Hendaye, Serrano tells us, was attended by Hitler, Franco, Serrano and Ribbentrop, with neither ambassador (von Stohrer and Espinosa de los Monteros) but with two interpreters. Hitler and Serrano had already met twice in Berlin. Serrano and Ribbentrop usually talked to each other in French (which Ribbentrop spoke to perfection and Serrano with a certain difficulty). But on this occasion, there was an absolute need for an interpreter who was bilingual in Spanish and German. Who served the role? Professional pride, or vanity, among the staff on both sides explains several false claims. The question was put to KlausJürgen Müller of the University of Hamburg, who replied that it is very hard to establish the facts, but clearly there were changes in the course of the three parts of the brief encounter: the arrival of Franco at the station (a German interpreter only), the meeting in Hitler’s train (a German and a Spanish interpreter) and the departure of Franco from the station (a German interpreter only).30 At the Hendaye station, Hitler’s interpreter was not the usual Professor Paul Schmidt31 but a certain Gross. This disclosure was not new, for Ramón Garriga (who moved in the upper ranks of the Franco government and served in the Spanish embassy in Berlin right to the end of the Third Reich) had already reported32 that Schmidt did not know Spanish, causing Ribbentrop to turn to Gross. The latter, described by some as Dr Gross, had learned what Spanish he knew partly as a salesman in Latin America and partly as an accountant in the Pension Latina in Berlin, but he still had only a rudimentary understanding of the language. The German documentary film taken of the meeting on the station platform shows Gross, in uniform, rather short, with a thin moustache, standing in front of the camera between the two leaders after Franco had dismounted from the train. Franco opens with exuberance. Gross looks nervously at the Caudillo to his left, straining for

44


a clue as to what he is saying. Seconds pass. Hitler waits impatiently for a word from Gross, and finally Gross blurts out a translation. The whole translation on the German side could have been replete with error. This was, of course, only a momentary affair of two heads of state greeting each other. The conference in the parlour coach of the Erika, unlike the 1940 train carriage meeting in Compiègne, is not recorded in any surviving documentary film. Two interpreters were present. Schmidt for long maintained a fiction, describing himself as ‘entrusted with everything concerning foreign languages’ and he describes the meeting in detail.33 Schmidt did not know Spanish but he did not like the fact to be known. He nevertheless wrote the memorandum, which is all that survives on the German side, on the basis of what was handed to him.34 Garriga does not even mention the presence of Schmidt at Hendaye, but, in fact, he was on the train but not present either in the morning or in the afternoon sessions of the conference. Nor was Franco’s interpreter, Professor Antonio Tovar,35 present at the conference (though he too was present in Hendaye) because Serrano found his knowledge of German inadequate.36 Instead, Franco turned to Serrano’s genial interpreter, Baron Luis de las Torres, chief of protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As for the best known anecdote regarding the meeting, according to which Hitler declared afterwards that he would rather surrender his molars than go through it all again, it is based solely on Schmidt’s doubtful authority. What can be said, on the authority of Baron de las Torres, is that the latter overheard Hitler say to Ribbentrop, at the end of the morning session: ‘Mit diesen Kerlen kann man nichts machen’37 [There’s nothing you can do with types like these]. It is already well known that Franco regaled Hitler all day long with assurances of his fullest sympathies, interspersed with protests that Spain could enter the war only when the time was ripe. The final bulletin was drafted and redrafted to satisfy the needs of both the German and Spanish leaders. More important than words was the photograph of the final embrace in which Franco again clasped Hitler’s hand in both of his. Serrano seeks to play down the importance of that handshake. Though he admits that he himself heard Franco give Hitler a quite unambiguous guarantee (‘In spite of anything I have said, if the day should ever come when Germany should truly need me, I should place myself unconditionally at your side, without any obligation on your part’), Serrano wants the statement to be understood as Franco’s attempt to make up for a strained meeting, and with only this in mind Franco was using a phrase with no more meaning in it than the stock


Spanish phrases of courtesy: ‘Está usted en su casa’ [Make yourself at home], or ‘Disponga de mi para lo que guste’ [I am at your entire disposal]. Serrano adds that for one reason or another the interpreter did not translate these words for Hitler.38 It is indeed curious that de las Torres should have drawn any such conclusion or should have decided, in the very presence of Hitler, to keep the sentence to himself. As to the farewell at the station, Klaus-J Müller says that it was Schmidt who translated, but since nothing but blandishments were exchanged it was a predictably easy assignment.39 In signing the Treaty of Hendaye, Spain was signing its adherence to the Pact of Steel of 22 May 1939, and thus became an official Axis partner. Article 4 of the Treaty read: ‘In fulfilment of her obligations as an ally, Spain will intervene in the present war of the Axis Powers against England after they have provided her with the military support necessary for her preparedness, at a time to be set by common agreement of the three Powers, taking into account military preparations to be decided upon. Germany will grant economic aid to Spain by supplying her with food and raw materials, so as to meet the needs of the Spanish people and the requirements of the war.’40 When in February 1941 Franco’s general staff presented the German embassy with a 13-page catalogue of what Spain would need to be able to enter the war, it read remarkably like the premonition that Hitler had sarcastically expressed to Ciano. The list requested: (1) 56,000 tons of automobile gasoline a month; (2) 8,000 tons of aviation gasoline a month; (3) 16,000 railway cars, adapted to the Spanish gauge of track; and (4) 13,000 trucks. It added a proviso: If 16,000 railway cars could not be furnished, 12,000 would be acceptable, provided that a further 12,000 trucks were made available. Ribbentrop drew an immediate conclusion: Franco had no intention of entering the war.41 Serrano’s testimony reveals, however, not only that Franco believed in an Axis victory but indeed that he also planned to participate in it. ‘Franco’s letters’, writes Serrano, ‘also show that the decision to take part in the war was taken in pectore.’ According to Ambassador Hoare, Franco pledged himself at Hendaye at least to give Hitler a free hand in the Spanish police, press and censorship.42 What held him back from entering the war was not any feeling of regret over the anticipated fate of Britain but fear that Hitler was offering Spain no real guarantees in return for Spanish participation in the war, and that even if hard guarantees were forthcoming, Hitler might choose not to honour them. Franco’s disappointment was inevitable, for his first claim after Gibraltar was indeed to parts of French North and West Africa: primarily,

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all of French Morocco, the Oran province of Algeria and territory south of Río de Oro. Serrano’s predecessor as foreign minister, Juan Beigbeder, had explained to the French plenipotentiary, Count Renom de La Baume, that the Spanish government intended to pursue its national claims but desired ‘to keep to peaceful methods to obtain them’.43 But such hopes of achieving this policy by diplomatic negotiation were unrealistic. Hitler could hardly have met Pétain at Montoire on his return from Hendaye with the announcement that he had transferred French colonies to Franco. Besides, at his meeting with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass on 4 October, Hitler had already expressed his doubts over the value of Spanish participation if Franco’s price included the French North African colonies. If he were to yield, he said, the North African colonies would go over to the British side, and not even the Vichy government would object.44 In the war with Britain, it was more important for Germany to have the support of France than that of Spain, and it was essential to prevent the influence of de Gaulle from reaching North Africa. The Caudillo, for his part, could well worry whether Hitler, once installed in Gibraltar, would ever part with it. Even more worrisome to Franco was the fear that if Germany were allowed to monopolise the mining concessions still held by British, French, Belgian and Canadian interests, Spain’s very sovereignty was at stake. If this is the key to understanding Franco’s policy—a readiness to intervene but a fear of the consequences45—then many a quoted phrase must be examined in a more literal sense than Franco’s apologists have wanted. Norman Rich suggests that Hitler took the matter of Spain (and Gibraltar) seriously only after 28 October 1940, when Mussolini, without informing Hitler first, launched his disastrous invasion of Greece.46 On 4 November Hitler laid out Operation Felix–Isabella47 before his general staff. In a letter addressed to Mussolini on 21 December 1940, Hitler revealed his plan to attack Gibraltar at the beginning of February—provided that Franco gave his consent to the plan. German detachments had been training for the assault in the regions of Bordeaux and Besançon, where they used rocks similar to that of Gibraltar.48 These detachments included specialists who had taken the Belgian fort of Eben Emael from the air.49 The planning of the operation also had the assistance of Colonel Antonio Barroso Sánchez-Guerra, who had served as Spain’s military attaché in Paris in 1936 and who was now chief of operations on the general staff of the Spanish Army.50 On Hitler’s orders, Konteradmiral Wilhelm Canaris (head of the Abwehr since 1935)51 approached Franco in Madrid on 7 December with a demand


that Spain enter the war promptly. But Canaris was forced to report that Franco had made it clear that Spain could enter the war ‘only when England was about to collapse’.52 As a result, Operation Felix– Isabella, though never totally abandoned, was shelved on 11 December. Intensive preparations for Operation Barbarossa began just seven days later, but pressure on Franco continued to the point that Hitler, on 6 February 1941, warned him point-blank: ‘The battle to the death ... that Germany and Italy are waging will also determine the destiny of Spain. Only in the event of our victory will your present regime continue to exist.’53 In that same month of February, while Serrano Súñer was visiting Hitler in Berchtesgaden, Franco’s minister reportedly told the Führer: ‘Spain cannot enter the war at the present time because it has not yet fully recovered from its trials. We are short of wheat, we lack transport. We cannot throw ourselves into an adventure which could upset our economy and disrupt our civil order.’54 No one could deny the evidence of famine. ‘How do you bring a country into a war when it’s got reserves of bread for one day?’ said Mussolini to an aide.55 The Duce was no doubt repeating what Serrano Súñer himself told the Italian ambassador in January 1941 that Spain would already have entered the war were it not for its fear of famine due to its lack of wheat reserves.56 What the Nazi leadership thought of all this is best expressed in Goebbels’s diaries. ‘The Führer’s opinion of Spain and Franco is not high,’ he wrote on 1 November 1940. ‘In any case, [Spain is] quite unprepared for war.’ In reference to the recent meetings at Hendaye and Montoire, he described Franco as ‘very unsure of himself, while Pétain was clear and composed’.57 On the same day he added: ‘Read a very pessimistic report on the present situation in Spain. According to this, the whole country is still in a wild, almost anarchistic state of disorder. Franco is not at all in control ... . The present system did not develop organically, but has been imposed.’58 Two days later he wrote: ‘Spain is in no condition to wage war at the moment,’59 and two days after that: ‘All areas of the economy in ruins ... . And an ally of ours! Horrifying! How fortunate that we did not rely on playing that card.’60 Into 1941, on 2 April, we read: ‘Report from Spain: 20 percent at most behind Franco, starvation, on the brink of chaos.’61 A week later he wrote: ‘Without those [constant defeats suffered by Italy], Franco would possibly have opened the way, and Gibraltar would now be in our hands ... . The Führer reserves his harshest judgment for Franco and his lack of intelligence and courage.’62 Again, on 20 May 1941: ‘Schmidt-Decker reports on Spain. Bleak situation. Franco very unpopular ... . Public has

48


hopes of us. The entire country is rotten with corruption. An appalling and offensive situation.’63 On the very eve of his attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler told Mussolini: ‘Spain is irresolute and—I am afraid—will take sides only when the outcome of the war is decided.’64 The innate bad faith, or lack of trust, among the Axis leaders explains several gross misunderstandings. In early December 1940, Germany presented the bill for German help to the Spanish Nationalists in the Civil War. It included even the costs of the Condor Legion and amounted to no less than half a billion Reichsmark. To Franco and his supporters, the gesture was unimaginable: a holy war was being reduced to a business transaction. Equally galling was the bill from Mussolini for even more: 700 million RM.65 On 12 February 1941, Franco and Serrano Súñer met Mussolini and Ciano in Bordighera. The Duce told the Caudillo that Hitler intended to put an end to British resistance before the end of the year; plans for an invasion were complete. Hitler had in fact shelved Operation Seelöwe in November 1940 in order to prepare for Operation Barbarossa, but he preferred not to share his secret with the Duce. Franco, for his part, expressed the ‘bitterness’ that Spain felt at not being able to participate in the war from the beginning. He insisted to Mussolini that he had offered to intervene, both at Hendaye and in November 1940, but Hitler had not attached much importance to his offer. He added that his faith in an Axis victory was undiminished.66 Expressing his allegiance at every opportunity, he repeated it on 28 February 1941: ‘We hope for and believe in the victory of Germany in the present conflict.’67 The same undiminished faith was expressed by Serrano Súñer to John Cudahy, the former American ambassador to Belgium, who had turned freelance journalist and who was passing through Madrid in April 1941 on his way to Berlin. Cudahy noted that the comments made by Serrano on Spanish radio on 1 April, the second anniversary of the ending of the Civil War, matched the comments that Serrano made to him in a private interview. The British and Americans, explained Serrano, had ‘no appreciation of the tremendous power of the German military machine, and how impossible it would be to dislodge the Germans from their firm seat on the continent’.68 In publishing his Memorias in 1977, Ramón Serrano Súñer revealed much more than he had before about the relationship between Franco’s government and the Axis, but certain interviews that he gave to the press earlier remain among his strongest statements on the subject. To Charles Favrel of Paris-Presse, he declared in October 1945: ‘I am really ... the best representative of Spanish fascism you could find anywhere.


I took sides, I lost. Yes, I was on Germany’s side. Spain was on Germany’s side ... . I reproach the Spain of today for not acknowledging what it was then. [At the same time] I was never pro-Nazi. From the depth of my Catholic soul I despised the mystical ideology of Hitlerian religion and spoke out against racist theories which were in frontal collision with my tenets as a humanist ... . Franco, I myself, and all of Nationalist Spain with us, not only trusted in the triumph of Berlin but yearned for it from the depth of our being, with all our hearts and minds. Nationalist Spain has fascist roots whose links to Hitler and Mussolini are not to be denied ... . It was my intention to enter the war at the moment of Germany’s victory, at the moment the last shots were being fired, exactly as Russia did with Japan. And yet, it was still in Spain’s interest at that point to remain neutral.’69 Given the intensity of Serrano’s expressions of loyalty to the Axis cause, the view of him in Berlin must have come to him as a surprise. Ribbentrop and Serrano seem to have fallen out with each other from the start. Paul Preston writes of ‘their intense mutual dislike’,70 with Serrano deeply resenting the arrogance and ill manners of Ribbentrop and Ribbentrop referring to Serrano after Hendaye as a ‘Jesuit swine’.71 Hitler after Hendaye attributed Spain’s hesitant and faithless attitude not to Franco himself but to the personal activities of Serrano and the influence of the Catholic Church.72 In this remarkable misreading of the character and ideology of Serrano Súñer the Nazi leaders showed little understanding of the main political conflict within Spain. No one in Spain saw the Falange and the Church as bedfellows. When Serrano visited Rome on 1–7 October 1940 without requesting an audience with the Pope, without once even stepping inside the Vatican, it was scandalous in the eyes of the Vatican and to many in Spain that the representative of the very Catholic Spain could be so gauche.73 Another neutral state, the United States, was showing that neutrality did not imply impartiality. Alexander Weddell, the new American ambassador, was instructed by his government on 19 April 1941 to give forceful expression to the ‘absolute determination’ of the United States to play a part in the successful defeat of ‘the forces of aggression’. Weddell taunted the Spanish government by producing two air-mail envelopes addressed to Americans in Spain bearing a German postal censor’s stamp. ‘Has Spain renounced its sovereignty?’ asked Weddell. The ambassador taunted Serrano Súñer further by reporting that certain articles in the Spanish press gave him the impression that they had been translated from a foreign language, ‘perhaps German’. A day later, the foreign minister was still in a towering rage, telling the German

50


ambassador that if Weddell had not held diplomatic immunity he would have slapped him in the face.74 Few were the foreign visitors to Spain other than those from Axis countries, but Americans were still officially welcome. Among these was Therese Bonney, who obtained a special entry visa by telling everyone she was an ardent admirer of Franco. In the early spring of 1941 she was in Badajoz, taking excellent photographs of suffering Spain, until her camera caught the eye of the police, ever distrustful of cameras and photographers. She was arrested and held for five days in Badajoz before she was permitted to leave for Madrid. There her fortunes changed, for she was given all possible help by Merry del Val, the head of the foreign press, who accompanied her on her camera tours of the worst affected sections of Madrid. She was also accompanied by Mrs Weddell, wife of the American ambassador, who was known for distributing food to the starving. She now brought bread from the embassy to give to the children photographed by Bonney, and that was their undoing. Despite the intervention of Merry del Val, the two American women were denounced by a Madrid newspaper, as Thomas Hamilton described it, ‘in the vilest language that I have ever seen in print’, on the grounds that the Americans were mocking the suffering of Spain. As a result of this incident, Mrs Weddell discontinued her charity work among the Spaniards.75 The American embassy and the American press were still freer than the British to report on the misery that was the losers’ lot. Among those who had fallen victim to Franco’s vengeance was Ramón Rufat, who wrote of his experiences. He had been taken prisoner on 18 December 1938 and sentenced to death on 4 March 1939. His sentence was commuted on 25 September 1940 to life imprisonment. In the prison of Alcalá de Henares (and later Ocaña and El Dueso) Rufat makes the specific point that for those sentenced to death, prison conditions in the months of July and August 1940 were the most terrible of all.76 There was a certainty in the air. The fascist cause would triumph, and contempt for the losers was at its peak. Equally worthy of contempt were the states too small to count in the coming world order. In May 1941, Colonel Krahmer, German air attaché in Madrid, reported to Ribbentrop what he had heard expressed by Spanish air force officers regarding Portugal. ‘“One day when we move our western frontier to the Atlantic,” they would say. “One day when we have the Portuguese bases, we can join German squadrons in the Atlantic. In the new Europe, little states like Portugal won’t have the right to exist. Geographically and ethnically Portugal belongs to Spain.” The majority think this way.’77 It should not


be overlooked that the subject of Franco’s thesis, before his promotion to general, was on the subject of Spain’s right to annex Portugal.78 Operation Felix, the capture of Gibraltar, ordered by Hitler in his Weisung (Directive) no. 18 of 12 November 1940,79 was never to be launched, because too much was left unanswered. If Franco were to enter the war, he knew he would immediately lose the navicerts; to forfeit the navicerts was to condemn Spain to a total blockade and certain famine. For Felix to succeed it required, first that the Spanish people, or enough of them, cooperate in the invasion; that the invasion and the capture of Gibraltar be completed within a few weeks; and that the supply lines not be disturbed by hostile action. The first and third of these factors were the most delicate. The Spanish people as a whole would not cooperate unless Germany provided massive aid to stave off famine, aid that would have to arrive in advance of the operation. Even if Felix were carried out successfully, and Germany provided massive aid to stave off famine, there was still the matter of the 500-mile supply route from Irun through Spain. Britain, keenly aware that one half of Spain remained, and would always remain, opposed to Franco and his regime, would simply replay its intervention of 1808 and give top priority to a revival of guerrilla warfare in the very land that invented it. When all the factors are considered, it is little wonder that when Franco faced a launching date of 10 January 1941, he knew he had no choice but to refuse. This decision, taken on 7 December 1940,80 put an end to Hitler’s only offensive plan for Spain. The plan that followed, Operation Isabella, drawn up on 9 May 1941 and modified on 20 June of that year, was purely defensive. It aimed at providing security for Operation Barbarossa and consisted of an invasion, with or without Franco’s consent, that was limited to the Atlantic coastline in order to forestall any British invasion of the Peninsula.81 In May 1942, Isabella would be replaced in turn by Operation Ilona, which was even more limited. Instead of the Atlantic coast, Ilona provided only for the German occupation of the south side of the Pyrenees and possibly the ports on the Spanish north coast. It thus served as an extension of the Atlantic Wall and protected France from Allied invasion from Spain. In September 1942, Operation Gisela confirmed the strategy of Ilona. Finally, on 14 June 1943 Hitler would cancel all plans for a countermove into the Peninsula, restricting German plans to the defence of the Pyrenees. From that time on, the total Wehrmacht force on the Pyrenees frontier did not exceed two regiments.82 Meanwhile in France, it was to Spain that Marshal Philippe Pétain, who had become head of state on 11 July 1940, addressed his first

52


message to a foreign leader. His relationship with Franco during his term as ambassador in Madrid was generally seen as detached or distant, but the message he now sent was eagerly received in the Spanish press. ‘Franco, the cleanest sword in the world,’ ran the message as published in Spain. ‘The France about to be reborn will come to life with that debt of gratitude that it owes to immortal Spain.’83 Following the British attack on Mers el-Kébir, the same press applauded the response when, on 5 July, French hydroplanes bombed Gibraltar for four hours, followed by further attacks on 24 and 25 September. As the crowds in the streets roared ‘¡Gibraltar español!’, Franco informed Pétain that Vichy had Spain’s moral authorisation to bomb ‘this piece of Spain under British rule’.84 ‘France has been beaten and very soon England will be beaten too,’ the Falange press reminded its readers.85 Pétain’s appeal to the French people on 30 October 1940 to collaborate with Germany found an attentive ear at the Spanish embassy, housed not in Vichy but in Paris.86 A Falange organisation under the name El Hogar Español,87 with offices at 20 rue de la Paix, published its first weekly at the end of 1940 under the title Presente. Its staff, under its director Antonio Zuloaga (later replaced by Federico Velilla), included the Catholic conservative Joan Estelrich, who had earlier directed the Paris fortnightly Occident. In February 1941, it launched the illustrated weekly El Hogar Español, which would continue until spring 1944. It included articles published in Spain together with special communiqués intended to seduce the more than 100,000 Spanish Republicans in France. Its first issue announced that ‘England, that bulwark of economic feudalism, is crumbling piece by piece from day to day ... . The victory of the Wehrmacht is the victory of the working class.’88 Throughout the period during which the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact remained in force, the Spanish press faithfully avoided open criticism of the Soviet Union. Its style was to praise totalitarianism without specifying the model: The democracies will never succeed in convincing the worker, because they act in bad faith. The bourgeoisie, stripped of its disguise, its inner corruption visible to all, can hardly inspire confidence, and without that confidence it is impossible to draw the masses into a solid compact ... . It is here that we find the mystique [el misterio del auge] of the totalitarian states, that rightly claimed to be brighter than the others and are content that good faith and humanitarian labour are the path to justice among all and for all ... . In those countries that were lucky enough to see the triumph of this noble decision, the rule of social justice now and forever guides them


toward peace and humanity ... . It is upon the standpoint of truth that the totalitarian systems are founded, because without truth they could not exist, and neither could their doctrines, which emanate from an ideal above all reproach.89 Even in the Falange press we do not find one word of denunciation of Stalin prior to the magic date of 22 June 1941. Even criticism of communism is muted. All the energy goes into exalting the ideals of the Falange, especially classless brotherhood, as opposed to the class struggle. It thus remains loyal to Axis policy. Independently of racial differences, the concept of service to the state, its creative substance, is the same in all totalitarian states. Our Labour Charter thus proclaims: ‘Labour that is performed with heroism, selflessness and self-denial, with the will to contribute to the higher good that is the essence of Spain.’ No less important to the same national purpose is the German Labour Service.90 This artful approach to power politics played upon what Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had in common: the determination to eradicate the old class system and replace it with a new one favouring the new elite, all under the pretence of putting an end to exploitation. These fuzzy generalities sooner or later had to give way to something more precise. Its editor Marcial Retuerto, who went to Germany in 1940 as a semi-official observer, returned with admiration for ‘this magnificent work called National Socialist Germany, whose architect is the Führer.91 ... This man Hitler appears to us as almost supernatural.’92 Retuerto explains the mystery: ‘The secret of the popularity of Hitler, of Mussolini, of Franco, resides in their love, boundless and total, for all those who live under them, in the countries that they put back on their feet.’93 Another Falangist editor denounces the liberal emphasis on freedom of the individual: ‘[Let us follow] the path and the example of our Italian and German brothers, who knew how to defeat whatever characters or groups took it into their heads to play with fire.’94 Spain and the Axis states, we are told, are bound by similar statutes regarding labour: Spain’s Ley Sindical and Fuero del Trabajo are published in the Reglamentos de Trabajo, which has its contacts with the Reichsarbeitsblatt in Germany and the Chronique de la Sécurité industrielle in France. There are references to the ‘National Syndicalist and Nazi ideal of Germany and Spain’,95 but there are also some striking differences. In October 1941, José Antonio Girón, the minister of labour, visited the Asturias and addressed the workers of Oviedo. He made no attempt to avoid the issue of their smouldering resentment and began: ‘We need a Spain that

54


is joyful.’ To those still clinging to past memories and future hopes he had a warning: ‘In rebel Asturias ... the smallest act of rebellion would suffer blows from us as certain and as implacable as before. Think about that, and take your time.’96 No such threats would ever have been heard, or needed, in Nazi Germany. Even before the German invasion of Russia, Marcial Retuerto wrote in his journal of his hopes that the Spanish refugees in France, more than 100,000 in number, would see the opportunity to redeem themselves by collaborating with the German invader. It was most regrettable, he said, that Spaniards in France were losing their jobs as a result of the new economic difficulties, but there was new hope: ‘Far away on the horizon a new light is shining. The magic word ‘Collaboration’ whispers in our ears with the sound of peace, brotherhood and labour, labour intense and well organized in the new Europe that is once again reborn.’97 In May 1941, El Hogar Español published on its front page a letter from a ‘former Red political refugee’ by the name of S. Romanyach. He explained that he had found himself in France under the Daladier administration with no money or work. It was then, he said, very vaguely, that he decided to go to work in Germany, and was now, in May 1941, back in Paris ‘on leave of absence.’ He would return to Germany within a few days, but first he wanted to share, through the newspaper, the delights of working as a foreign labourer in Nazi Germany with all the Spaniards in France who could do the same, simply by applying, as he had, for a licence at the office of Camarada Velilla, Jefe Local de Falange, in the Spanish Embassy building on Avenue Marceau. On my own behalf, and on behalf of many others Spaniards who feel they have recovered their manhood in the German factories, ... our gratitude for your letters, for your assistance, which eases the hunger of our families, the doubts within our souls, and which allows us—bearing in mind the great lie that poisoned our lives—to glimpse the chance of redemption by service to our Fatherland.98 As in the case of Vichy, collaboration entailed more than this. On 7 June 1941, the Falange journal announced ‘the measures against the Jews’ introduced in France. It followed up by denouncing the new phenomenon in Spain, the estraperlo, as Jewish in origin and inspiration: ‘Estraperlo, the profession of the swindler, radically Jewish, like its inventor.’99 The appeals to Spanish youth to prepare for the New Europe were no less in evidence, and Spain’s Comisión de Juventud did not wait for the


invasion of Russia to take part in the meetings of the Asociación de las Juventudes Europeas. The first of these was held in Weimar, then Florence, Rome, Vienna and, at the end of 1942, Madrid. Meanwhile, El Hogar Español, whose editor now preferred anonymity, expressed the Falange’s impatience with the mediocrity and complacency to be found in the Spanish government. It reduced its program to even greater simplicity: ‘What then is National Syndicalism? This, and nothing else. Everyone in his home and a home for everyone, and within a country, the same bread and the same justice.’100 But if the journal found rank incompetence throughout the Spanish government, it did not tarnish the head of state whose Spain was ‘that totalitarian and humanist regime that guides us all along the path of family.’101

5 From Barbarossa to Pearl Harbor (22 June–7 December 1941)

With the opening of the German-Soviet war, it goes without saying that the press in Spain and France broke out in a frenzy of excitement. Arriba began with a long headline announcing that the German advance in Finland threatened the Leningrad–Murmansk railway, ‘the only route possible for British supplies’.1 The realisation that Churchill, best known for his anti-communism, would go to Stalin’s aid came as a considerable surprise to the Spanish people. As for the blame for Germany’s attack on the USSR, Arriba added subheadlines to the effect that ‘Moscow ha[d] committed an abominable betrayal of the Pact of Friendship; while Germany was seeking conciliation with the Soviet Union, Moscow was negotiating with London.’ Arriba’s columnist Galindo García wrote to assure his readers that the German-Soviet conflict would be decided in favour of the Reich before any leaf of autumn fell. ‘The geographic immensity of Russia, which defeated Napoleon in 1812, will not prevail against Hitler in 1941, by virtue of the violence and speed introduced into modern warfare by that multiplier of energy known as the internalcombustion engine.’ Another columnist, Domínguez, reported from London in a subheadline that ‘the British Communists are not showing much confidence in the USSR.’2 The next day Arriba allotted its headline to a statement from Serrano Súñer: ‘The extermination of Russia is the demand of History and of the Europe of the future.’3 An unsigned article followed: Russia is not just another enemy; it is the irreconcilable, unpardonable, total and absolute enemy ... . All of this, so elementary, so clear and legitimate, so easily understood by the whole world ... with the single exception of the government of His Britannic Majesty. 56

From Barbarossa to Pearl Harbor

57

British opportunism, and barbarous, criminal Communist Russia, which is now, once again, what it always was at heart, the ally of England.4 On the same day, José Luis de Arrese, minister secretary general of the Falange, announced what the new conflict meant for Spain. ‘Spain’, he said, ‘is not forgetting in any way its natural path or its legitimate interests, but for the moment it is limiting itself to giving free rein to the passions of its young men so that they may partake in the battle they cherish most, as part of the great European Crusade.’ This was Arrese’s way of saying that while a legion of combatants would be formed to fight on the Eastern front, Spain would not, as things stood, take the irreversible step to war. In Paris, the Falange subsidiary El Hogar Español added its piece: The banners of the swastika wave in triumph under the Muscovite sky, while Hitler consolidates his position in all countries in the world that love peace, order and employment, building a moral rampart against which England, with its crafty policies, will crack its head, that England of outworn ideas which senses its defeat and is every day more incapable of fighting face to face.5 In the month that followed, the Spanish leaders made a number of memorable statements and speeches. Early in July 1941, in Berlin, Herr Barth, the editor-in-chief of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, submitted five questions to Serrano Súñer, as president of the Junta Política and foreign minister. Serrano said in his reply: The position of Spain in the war between Germany and Russia cannot be other than one of total moral belligerence at the side of our friends ... . The contribution of Spain to the defence of Western civilisation can have no limit other than what is imposed upon us by the circumstances of the moment. The United States will have to face up to the fact that its entry into the war can serve no end other than to prolong, cruelly and uselessly, the sacrifice of humanity. Great Britain would then understand that its salvation lies in accepting peace.6 In point of fact, Churchill signed the Anglo-Soviet Alliance on 12 July 1941. In his own reaction to the invasion of Russia, Franco chose 18 July 1941, the fifth anniversary of the military insurrection of 1936, to make

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two speeches. In one of them, addressed to the National Council assembled in the senate building in Madrid, he offered the following prognosis of the war: I am speaking to you in this tone of brutal frankness because it is time to put an end to all the snares, the rumours and the manipulations ... . Money makes nations vile as it makes individuals vile. Handing over the shreds of an Empire for fifty old destroyers is eloquence itself.7 I do not have the slightest doubt about how this war will end. Its fate is already ordained ... . No mortal force in the world can alter this outcome ... . A conflict between two continents is outside the realm of possibility. It would be fought only at sea, it would be long, and it would lead to no result ... . On our continent the outcome of the war was decided long ago. To make comparisons with 1914! That was an illusion that rapidly dissolved. Russia wanted no part in an Allied front ... .8 The American continent cannot think of intervening in Europe without exposing itself to a catastrophe, and it cannot deny either, unless it wants to lie, that the American coasts would be threatened by attacks by European powers ... . This being the state of affairs, to say that the outcome of the war can be altered by the entry of a third country is criminal folly ... . The war was a mistake, and the Allies have lost it. France and all the peoples of continental Europe admit it ... . At this moment when the German armies are fighting the battle that Europe and Christianity have long desired, when the blood of our young men mingles with that of our Axis comrades as the living expression of our solidarity, let us renew our faith in the destiny of our Fatherland ... .9 This speech of Franco’s, in the course of which the British and American ambassadors, Sir Samuel Hoare and Alexander Weddell, reportedly stalked out of the section reserved for the diplomatic corps,10 was greeted with shouts of ‘Muy bien’ [Hear! Hear!]. Serrano Súñer points out that many of those who acclaimed Franco’s address that day were the same who later passed themselves off as friends of the Allies from day one. Serrano adds that the speech left him personally uncomfortable. In the opinion of the former foreign minister, these were not the kind of things that a head of state should say but should rather be left to a spokesman or minister who could be dismissed if circumstances should


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change and the need arose. Not that he thought that circumstances could change, Serrano adds modestly.11 More and more the term ‘Europe’ was invoked as a synonym for Axis, while the United States was warned constantly against intervening in the conflict. In early August 1941, Serrano Súñer declared in front of two Italian journalists in Madrid: If the United States were to enter the war it would mean the ruin of America and the world. Once Russia is defeated, Europe will be sufficient for itself, and European autarky would lead to the collapse of the American economy ... . The democratic system is now in the process of liquidation, and that country, rich and materialistic, lacks the sense of unity and sacrifice which animates poor countries. ... [If the United States were to enter the war] the unity of Europe against the Anglo-Russian bloc would then be a reality.12 In an interview granted in October to the French fascist weekly Gringoire, Serrano added: ‘I believe that all Europe, the continent—and mark my words, including its offshore parts, even if that sounds a paradox—will save itself or sink with the Axis.’13 Franco’s policy of moral belligerency now allowed for the formation, from 27 June 1941, of the Blue Division. In the first announcement of the formation of a volunteer force of Spaniards to fight on the Russian front for non-belligerent Spain, now morally belligerent Spain, we read: ‘We will soon be seeing the departure from Spain of an expeditionary army [sic] and the Falange forces that triumphed over the Soviet horde on our nation’s soil.14 ... This requires no declaration of war, because Spain was at war with Russia from 18 July 1936. There is no need for diplomatic formalities or notes from chancelleries.’15 An official report had circulated in France, before the French collapse, that Serrano Súñer, when Spain’s minister of the interior from 9 August 1939, had recruited 3,000 Falangist volunteers to embark for Germany; they sailed from Barcelona, said the report, on 9 February 1940.16 If this report is true, they would have served as the nucleus of the División Azul. But the report is without confirmation, and perhaps foundation, and the Falange’s announcement calling for volunteers to form a Division did not appear in its organ Arriba until 27 June 1941. Charles Foltz reported that the proposal came from Berlin, in a call to General Carlos Asensio, the then chief of staff, to form a division of 17,000 men.17 More probably the initiative came from Franco, responding on

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the same day that Operation Barbarossa was announced, and winning Hitler’s agreement the following day (23 June). Official German documents state that the volunteers amounted to 40 times the numbers needed,18 and the first 2,000 were certainly volunteers. A Vichy report claimed, to the contrary, that the volunteers amounted to only 5 per cent, the remainder being drawn by lot and all being told that they were being sent to work in factories behind the lines.19 The Vichy report was apparently confusing the Blue Division with the 30,000 Spanish workers which Hitler also demanded for German industry.20 A total of 24 Catholic chaplains also volunteered for the Blue Division, but to their surprise the Wehrmacht refused to recognise their right to officer rank. When they were enlisted as private soldiers they reacted with resentment.21 The División Azul, then, was presented as a token force drawn from a Legión Azul; by 1942 it numbered 18,000 and altogether some 50,000 men served in it. The dispatch of the Division and the labour force would allow Franco to send Hitler a bill for services rendered amounting to RM 220 million, or 38 per cent of the Civil War debt. Command of the Division was given to General Agustín Muñoz Grandes, the original leader of the Falange who had resigned on 15 March 1940; the reason given out was that Muñoz preferred military life,22 but the real cause was his quarrel with Serrano Súñer over the ideology of the Falange, reminiscent to some degree of the quarrel between Ernst Röhm and Hitler. Muñoz wanted to see the old Falange, or Falange Auténtica, take power and promote the continuing revolution, while Serrano aimed at steering his new Falange back toward conservative tradition. In his posture as ‘Padre de la División’, Serrano hoped to use the prestige of the Division to further his political ambitions. The send-off from Madrid of the first contingent on 14 July was a glorious affair, with martial music in the air and joy on every side. The Church was conspicuous. Leopoldo Eíjo y Garay, the bishop of Madrid also known as the Obispo de la Falange or the Obispo Azul, stepped out of his sleek black Daimler, a personal gift from Adolf Hitler,23 to give his blessing to the departing troops, the same blessing that Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris, was giving at that moment to the French volunteers heading in the same direction.24 Muñoz Grandes was not among the troops in the train, travelling to Berlin by air. After passing through Hendaye on 14 July they reached Bordeaux, entering the zone of the German Seventh Army, which provided them with German uniforms. The Spaniards, however, were forbidden to fraternise. The entire division crossed France in seven days,25 but not without incident: as their trains passed through the countryside, the phalangists were stoned


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and insulted at points along the route by Frenchmen and exiled Spanish Republicans, and there were fights at several stations.26 In Blois on 16 July, men of the Blue Division opened fire on French railwaymen who did not respond to the fascist salute or to cries of ‘Viva España!’ A Frenchman was wounded. It was the German authorities who intervened to disarm the Spaniards who had opened fire. At another train stop, the stationmaster was wounded in the same way.27 Even though such incidents were not repeated by later contingents of the Division, this behaviour was a harbinger of what was to follow on the Eastern front. After their arrival at their training base at Grafenwöhr near Munich, the Blue Division was formally incorporated into the Wehrmacht on 31 July as its 250th Division, on which occasion the Spanish volunteers, one by one, took a personal oath to Hitler.28 In light of Franco’s earlier policy—his refusal to denounce the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a violation of the Anti-Comintern Pact (as indeed it was), together with the respect that Spain then showed towards the new pact (by ending its denunciations of Stalin and moderating its attacks on communism)— Franco was now exposing himself to the charge that he was less interested in fighting communism than he was in providing military aid to Nazi Germany.29 Within days of the announcement from Madrid that Spain was sending troops to the Russian front, it was announced in Paris that Spaniards living in France and wishing to enrol were to report to the Jefatura de Falange on the avenue Marceau. In the interview he gave to Gringoire, Serrano Súñer made a ludicrous claim: ‘For every place in the fighting ranks there were one hundred volunteers from every social class.’30 Despite such reports that there had been a sensational response from volunteers both in Madrid and in Paris, discerning readers of El Hogar Español were not beguiled, for the same advertisement for volunteers appeared week after week. The Blue Division entered action on the Russian front in October 1941 and was to remain there until November 1943. Its first divisional headquarters were at Grigorovo, northwest of Novgorod, where it formed part of the XXXVIIIth Corps under General von Chappuis. This corps was part of the 18th Army under Generaloberst Georg Lindemann, assigned to Army Group North under Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb.31 The news reported from the Eastern front could not possibly have been more vague, or more inaccurate. Braun Weiler, counsellor in the German ministry of propaganda, announced in late September 1941 that the División Azul was taking part in the great battle of Kiev, and the

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Falange press described how the division had moved into action against the enemy in the south of Russia. There was no mention at all in El Hogar Español, in the winter of 1941–2, of the Russian reality: the division was fighting on the Volchov front south-east of Leningrad. Similarly, after General Moscardó had made a tour of inspection of the division’s positions on the Eastern front and had been received by the Führer, he stopped in Paris on his return to Spain and announced to the press: ‘Hitler spoke to me about our Head of State with singular affection, as if he was one of his best friends.’32 Moscardó added: ‘In the Division’s hospitals there are the wounded, naturally, but none who are sick.’33 We know, from the work of Raymond Proctor, that at the moment that Moscardó was speaking, in December 1941, over 400 Spaniards were out of action as a result of respiratory infections, frostbite or freezing.34 It is a curious fact that there was no talk of the extremities of the Russian winter before November 1941. It is, of course, well known that Hitler had made no winter provision for his Wehrmacht, precisely because he intended Operation Barbarossa to be concluded before winter set in, and the Balkans campaign had critically delayed the opening of the Russian campaign. The boots worn by the División Azul (now 250th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht) were the same as those worn in the rest of the Wehrmacht: the light winter variety made from fur, as used by air pilots, and useless in Russian temperatures where only the valenki boots used by the Russian peasants, made of a mix of sheepwool and cotton, are effective.35 Winter came early that year, and was much colder than normal. With the sudden realisation of what the Russian winter meant to the men of the División Azul, there was a sudden desire in the Falange press to provide help, and especially to supply the troops with something special for Christmas. In Paris, a subscription fund was opened ‘for a rapid dispatch of liquor’. Falange party members were asked to contribute one day’s pay, and Spanish government officials and businessmen a day’s salary or earnings. ‘We are certain’, the announcement concluded, ‘that the dispatch by those Spaniards living in France will be the largest of those that reach Russia.’36 A week later it was revealed, with obvious embarrassment, that the collection had amounted to only 9.141 FF, and two weeks after that the fund collectors became rather more demanding. Deploring ‘the tardiness in the flow of donations’, they announced that the subscription was ‘the obligation of all’, and threatened those who were remiss: ‘One’s own conscience should be enough to advise anyone against selfish


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behaviour, which by the way is not likely to allow such people to maintain a comfortable and carefree life-style.’37 It is of interest that the highest single donation to the fund was sent by the consul general in Paris on behalf of a group of Spanish Jews.38 At 10,000 FF, it was greater than the entire contribution in the first week. As for volunteers, the campaign did not abate. At its outer limit it reached even into the concentration camps where Spanish Republicans were being worked to death. In Mauthausen, its Politische Abteilung (Gestapo office) kept in constant touch with the Spanish embassy in Berlin and with the Spanish consuls in Vienna, Munich, Paris, Strasbourg and Helsinki, as well as with the offices of the Falange in Berlin and Paris. Some sources have reported that the Blue Division assigned an officer, José María Queralt Castell, to visit the prisoners in Mauthausen in the hope that with subtle propaganda and the promise of liberation he could persuade some Spanish Republicans to join Franco’s cause. On that question, Juan de Diego, the Spaniard who served as the camp’s third clerk (Lagerschreiber 3) and remains a top authority on the running of the camp, is insistent: ‘It is a lie to say that he visited the camp in order to enlist Spanish volunteers for the Blue Division. The reason for his visit was his desire to know the fate of a friend of the Queralt family, a certain Subils who was in the nearby camp at Gusen.’ Nevertheless, he did speak to Spanish prisoners and he did see for himself the conditions under which they lived, which he could have made known on his return to Spain. Furthermore, Juan de Diego served as interpreter when Queralt met Mauthausen’s chief of security, SS-Hauptsturmführer Georg Bachmayer. It was Bachmayer who suggested to Queralt that he try to enlist Spanish volunteers. When he did, the reaction of the Spaniards was a thunderous ‘No’.39 How were the Spanish troops on the Eastern front received, and how were they regarded by their German superiors? ‘In contrast to the Germans,’ runs one report, ‘the Spanish soldiers quickly established friendly relations with the Russian population of hamlets in the rear areas [during the period when their headquarters was at Grigorovo], particularly with the women, who came to the Spanish-occupied houses offering to do laundry, cooking and other domestic chores.’40 A quite different version of events is provided by the Wehrmacht command itself, as the following report in October 1941 makes clear. O.U., 23 October 1941 Deutscher Verbindungsstab der Spanischen Division. Abt. Ic Nr 69/41 geh.

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Betrifft: Verhalten der Angehörigen der spanischen Division beim Einsatz in Russland, der Heeres-Gruppe Nord. GEHEIM: SECRET The engagement of the Spanish Division in operations on Russian territory has so far given rise to a deplorable state of affairs: 1. Orders issued by German military and civilian authorities were not correctly carried out by elements of the Spanish Division. It has been shown that the Spanish command posts in general have little inclination to execute the orders they receive or to pay attention to the memoranda attached to the orders. Even worse is their failure to see that the orders are implemented all the way through the units down the line. With a deployment of units of the Division on a larger scale, these difficulties weigh heavily in the balance. 2. Discipline is in short supply, especially where it comes to association with the civilian population. Experience has shown that the performance of members of the Spanish Division, in their comportment, dress and behaviour, falls short of what is expected of anyone who wears German uniform. Add to that the violations of personal property, resulting in complaints and charges by German officials or by the local population. Their seizure of the property of others—especially cattle and foodstuffs of all kinds—is occasionally accompanied by violence or the threat of violence, to the detriment of our relations with the civilian population as well as with our V-Leute [informants or confidential agents]. 3. The lack of self-control of the Spaniards in their relations with women leads likewise to repeated cases of unpleasant scenes. An extended stay of the Spanish Division in a given area increases the incidence of offences in that area, quite apart from the matter of the danger to health. 4. In their negligent attitude to fire, the Spaniards resort to unusual practices, for example by lighting open fires inside houses, with the result that a row of billets has already been obliterated. It should be taken into account that these incidents will increase in the coming winter months if the Spanish troops are reinforced and billeted in the area. 5. Air raid precautions are so poorly respected by the personnel of the Spanish Division that the barracks are exposed to special danger. 6. During religious services in the field, the personnel of the Spanish Division are alerted to the smallest differences which on dogmatic grounds obstruct any union between the formerly Orthodox


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population and the Catholic Church. We can assume that the neutrality on the religious question which has been ordered and which is essential for the liberation of the country will not be long respected. 7. The fundamental attitude of the personnel of the Spanish Division on the Jewish question, as well as their treatment of people of other nationalities, especially enemies, does not correspond to the German model, which repeatedly leads to discord. Signed (illegible: Schulz?), Hauptmann i.G. und Leiter des Verbindungsstabes.41 The behaviour of members of the Blue Division in the weeks that followed was the subject of a further report from the division’s superiors that was no less critical. Abschrift. Oberkommando des Heeres Az.3a/n 56 Attachéabteilung II Nr. 19/42 geh. An Heerwesenabt. Berlin, 6. Jan. 1942 Betr.: Verhalten der spanischen Offiziere und Mannschaften. Headquarters East Prussian fortress Königsberg sent the following report on 31 December 1941: Headquarters reports the following pursuant to orders. 1. On the night of 29 November 1941, 78 Spanish officers (22 lieutenants, 56 second lieutenants), who had come into Königsberg without prior notification, were quickly billeted. Since all hotels were filled, the 78 Spanish officers were given accommodation in the hostel of the local headquarters. Among the officers, 34 were placed in the officers’ bedrooms; the remainder, in the absence of any other accommodation, were billeted in the rooms of other ranks. Among all of them, only one spoke German. The impression which the officers (some of whom were very young) made on the director of the hostel was anything but good. It was generally noticed that they cared nothing about their baggage, which was in a sorry state. It was further noticed that a number of the officers were picked up by girls waiting at the gate. Every day the rooms could not be cleaned because nobody was allowed to enter. On the evening of 2 December the convoy moved on, without

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any exact indication of its destination. With the emptying of the hostel, the rooms of the other ranks which had been assigned to the Spaniards were found to be in an indescribable condition. Clothing and military equipment, dirty underwear, smashed trunks and suitcases lay in wild confusion. The couches were filthy. One under-vest contained vermin. The following were left behind: 23 cooking utensils, 12 canteens, 12 haversacks, 6 gasmasks, 8 tunics, 1 pair of trousers, four steel helmets, 4 shovels, 10 ammunition pouches with and without ammunition, 2 trunks of stick-grenades. Only after a thorough cleaning were the rooms again inhabitable. 2. In public opinion, the appearance of the Spanish troops is not what is expected or normal for a soldier. Especially conspicuous is their bad dress and their even worse behaviour. Spanish soldiers entering local headquarters were seen wearing pieces of cloth on their shoulders and using these pieces of cloth, in a manner of speaking, as straps for their baggage. Others, while using the street trams, would wear their waist-belts around their necks or clamped under their arms. The behaviour of the Spanish soldiers, especially in the street trams, shows a lack of discipline; they are in general very loud; in one case that was witnessed, they deliberately obstructed passengers in the gangway, apparently for the fun of it. And when it comes to saluting, they do it hesitantly, and sometimes not at all. To stem the abuse to some degree, local headquarters have assigned to their patrols a Spanish-speaking interpreter. In addition, trustworthy patrols, composed of lightly wounded Spaniards at present convalescing in the field hospital, should be set up to watch over, reprimand, and if need be, arrest their compatriots whenever they misbehave in public. 3. It is noticed that a great number of Spanish soldiers do not carry the proper identification, and in some cases, any identification at all. Local headquarters suggests that Blue Division be informed of this deplorable state of affairs. Addendum for German liaison staff with the Spanish Division. It is requested that the general staff of the Spanish Division be properly informed, before their officers take up their positions, that the above instructions are to be carried out. Signed, F.d.R.d.A., illegible, Oberleutnant.42 These were the soldiers whose performance Hitler highly commended, adding that ‘their counterparts were always glad to have Spaniards as neighbours in their sector.’43


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Meanwhile, Franco’s aid to the Axis at sea continued unabated, with Italy equally privileged. By July 1941 the Royal Navy knew of the refuellings44 but lacked proof. Admiral Dönitz could report on 2 August: ‘U331 was duly refuelled in Cadiz and is assigned to Attack Area CG57, depth 1.60 Seemeilen (3,000 metres), in order to operate on traffic to and from Lisbon.’45 With the help of the Italian tanker Fulgor which had also anchored in Cadiz, an Italian submarine on the night of 19–20 September sank the British merchantman Fiona Shell. Six of the British crew were washed ashore. In defiance of international law, which required that neutral Spain intern them until the end of hostilities, they were handed over to the Italians who flew them to Rome.46 A change came in October when British vessels arrived outside Cadiz at the moment that U-564 was being refuelled by the Thalia. The British launched flares, lighting up the port.47 The British now had proof, and on 27 November Thalia serviced her sixth and last submarine. In Vigo, there were five cases of refuelling by the Bessel. After refuelling, U-434 and U-574 attacked a convoy sailing from Gibraltar on 18 December 1941. In an engagement with two British destroyers (Blankney and Stanley), U-434, commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Heyde, was badly damaged; it was forced to the surface and its crew taken prisoner. On the following day (19 December), the British sloop Stark, north of Madeira, destroyed the U-574. Survivors of the two German crews were interrogated and admitted that the submarines had been refuelled by the Bessel outside Vigo. Some of the prisoners carried Spanish matchboxes and German medicines stamped Farmacía Vigo. The British naval attaché in Madrid lodged a protest on 25 December to the Spanish minister of the navy, threatening to restrict the navicerts if this ‘anything but neutral’ aid did not end immediately. The Spanish authorities, alarmed at the thought that the British would retaliate with the superweapon that could choke the Spanish economy, told the Germans to stop. And, in fact, they did. The last servicing was carried out at El Ferrol by the Max Albrecht, which tended the U-68 in May 1942 and the U-66 in the following September, but for mechanical breakdowns only. Secret servicing to U-boats thus ended in December 1941, but even now the Bessel, while officially interned in El Ferrol, was transformed into a German auxiliary warship in the port’s own shipyards.48 All in all, in the war at sea, the services rendered by Franco were considerable. Between 30 January 1940 and 5 September 1942, there were, on record, no fewer than 24 cases of U-boat refuelling, and between June 1940 and June 1942 at least five Italian submarines were refuelled. Spanish air bases were also made available to Italian bombers that bombed Gibraltar and ran out of fuel, in defiance of

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international law that requires a neutral state to impound the planes and intern the crews.49 If Franco’s aid to the Axis now ended in this form, it simply changed its shape. By the end of 1941, the Germans had mounted observatories in Algeciras, Tarifa, Cape Trafalgar, Malaga, Cape Gata, Tangier, Ceuta, Tetuan, Cape Tres Forcas, Melilla and the island of Alboran. All were fully operational. Two of them were entirely Spanish, but the rest included German and Italian observers wearing Spanish uniforms. Algeciras alone transmitted some 20 messages a day. From the Abwehr in Madrid, Berlin received the corresponding information in less than one hour. The messages when decoded showed that the Abwehr had improved its installations in the Straits to the point that it could maintain its vigilance even at night or in bad visibility.50 The year 1941 was drawing to its close. A Spanish headline in midNovember urged the United States not to provoke Japan: ‘If Washington wants peace, it will reach agreement with Tokyo.’51 The Axis remained fully confident of final victory, and Franco fully satisfied with his choice of elastic neutrality. Away from all this, very much in the background of world events, was a proposal to restyle the very nature of the New Order. The proposal aimed at creating a new Spanish-Austrian imperial dynasty by arranging a marriage between Adolf Hitler and a Spanish bride, thus restoring the Hapsburg Empire in all its glory. The plot revolved around Pilar Primo de Rivera, daughter of General Miguel Primo de Rivera (the Spanish dictator of the 1920s) and sister of José Antonio, founder of the Falange. Pilar had been appointed in 1937 to serve on the Grand Council, and for 43 years she would remain the head of the Sección Femenina. The transactions surrounding her were revealed only in February 1977 when Ernesto Giménez Caballero, a leading Falange theoretician, published his memoirs under the title Genio de España. Giménez was invited to Weimar in the second half of 1941 to attend a congress of European authors, under the chairmanship of Joseph Goebbels. His wife Magda invited Giménez to their home. She talked to him of her Catholic background in France, then of the problems facing her husband who ‘does not feel deeply the ideas of the racist fanatics such as Rosenberg and Himmler, whose fantasies the Führer himself does not share’. Below the surface, Magda added, ‘Hitler is an Austrian sentimentalist.’ To her dreamlike approach to reality Giménez offered his own, a vision of recreating the Austro-Spanish dynasty destroyed in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht, ‘which cost us Gibraltar’. The dynasty could be recreated, they agreed, through a marriage between Hitler and a Spanish bride, Hitler thus becoming emperor.


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No bride was yet suggested. Magda said that she would discuss the proposal with her husband and then with Hitler. After winning Goebbels’s approval she continued in her role as go-between while Giménez returned to Madrid, where Franco, fully informed, was waiting to greet him at El Pardo. The plan was passed to the Vatican. The word came back through emissaries that there was great interest in the plan ‘which might bring Hitler back to the Church’. Giménez returned to Germany, this time to Berlin, to spend New Year’s Eve with the Goebbels family. Magda asked, ‘And who will be Spain’s candidate for Empress?’ To the fairy tale question Giménez followed the fairy tale script: ‘There can be only one, for the purity of her blood, her profound Catholic faith, and above all else her image, for all the youth of Spain goes with her: the young and beautiful sister of José Antonio.’ Pilar was consulted about the planned marriage. It was Magda who had to announce the impediment: ‘It would be possible ... if Hitler did not have a bullet in his genitals from the First World War, which has made him an invalid for ever. Impossible, my dear friend, ... impossible. The Führer would not be able to continue his own line.’52 At the press conference in 1977 called to announce the publication of his memoirs, Giménez expressed his regrets that the marriage had not taken place. He added that he had just received a letter from Pilar, now in her 60s and unmarried, saying that what lay behind the proposal was ‘a desirable ideal’. Pilar’s own memoirs, entitled Recuerdos de una vida, appeared in November 1983, when she was 72, and at her own press conference she called the affair ‘un disparate’ (a mad idea), but she acknowledged that the discussions took place.53 She died in Madrid in March 1991, aged 81, without ever denying the story that Franco had once arranged for her to marry Hitler and revive the Hapsburg Empire.

6 The War in the Mediterranean ( January–November 1942)

The entry of the United States into the war, and the halt of the German offensive in front of Moscow, did not bring about any discernible change of heart among the Spanish leaders. On the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Serrano Súñer ordered his staff to deliver letters of congratulation to the Japanese legation.1 Since the attack was delivered on a Sunday, and no Spanish papers appeared on the Monday, the press by Tuesday had had time to reflect and produce a balanced coverage. Instead of that, El Correo Catalán ran the headline: ‘Japan declares war on the UK and the US,’2 followed the next day by one more colourful: ‘Japanese squadrons fly over the Yankee coast.’3 Arriba’s first reaction was to express its understanding of the Japanese action. The new conflagration let loose in the Pacific comes as no surprise to those peoples who are accustomed every day to facing the struggle simply to exist. The war between Japan and the United States was foreseen by all these peoples who every day face the indifference of those who deny them everything. These peoples considered poor by the great plutocracies have a soul. Their patience, under the weight of the direst vexations, one day reaches the final limit. In the case of Japan, that moment has arrived.4 A further column in El Correo Catalán carried the headline: ‘Japan, acting in its legitimate defence,’5 while another of its columnists referred back to the meeting at St Florentin-Vergigny on 1 December between Goering and Pétain: ‘It is of little importance what the two marshals said to one another. For us Europeans, what counts is to know that France will occupy its place in the European concert.’6 70

The War in the Mediterranean 71

After a few days of further reflection, during which Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, Arriba described the attack on Pearl Harbor in a wider context: ‘There is an ever-working justice of God that watches over the march of humanity, and that justice has rooted out the obstructions facing Europe at exactly the right moment.’7 El Correo Catalán, for its part, made it even clearer on 18 December whose side it admired in the Pacific: A phrase, attributed to none other than Napoleon, tells us that in war what counts is money, money and money. That has become the American concept of war, and of course that of Roosevelt ... . The Japanese have a different idea; they believe the essential factor in war is morale.8 On the same day, Franco issued a decree reaffirming Spain’s nonbelligerence. According to the myth invented later, Spain that day established its policy in the war against Japan: Spain was on the Allied side. Franco’s death in 1975 came just in time to save him from an extreme embarrassment. In September 1978, the US National Security Agency turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration in Maryland 30,000 pages that included detailed material on Spanish collusion in a Japanese spy ring working in the United States. At the very beginning of the war, in September 1939, a network had been set up in the Spanish embassy in London that was financed by the Germans and at least partly controlled by the Japanese ambassador Yakichiro Suma in Madrid. The Duke of Alba, as Spain’s ambassador to London, was responsible for putting together a spy network whose main interest was the movement of Allied maritime convoys. This network, known as To– (from the Japanese word meaning door, but also east) took on a new dimension after 7 December when Japan selected Spain to represent its interests in the United States. Thoughtfully, in leaving their Washington embassy, the Japanese left $500,000 in a wall safe to cover the initial expenses of the Spanish government in financing the To– operation in the United States. The network, controlled from Madrid by the To– ringmaster9 and the Japanese ambassador, employed between six and eight men, all but one of them Spaniards. The team included the Spanish military attaché in Washington,10 the Spanish consuls in New York, New Orleans and San Francisco, and a Frenchman assigned to the Spanish consulate in Vancouver. The information from these port cities on the size and time of departure of Allied convoys was of vital importance to the Axis.

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Once the Americans had broken the Japanese diplomatic code they knew of the ring, but to protect their secret they never broke it up.11 ‘In the war against Japan,’ Franco would say later, ‘Spain was on the Allied side.’ The claim rings hollow. When the Japanese Imperial Army entered Manila on 24 December 1941, the news was greeted with delight by Spain’s ambassador to France, José Félix Lequerica. At a diplomatic dinner in the Spanish embassy, Lequerica, sporting the Falange Party uniform, toasted his Japanese guests on their capture of the Philippine capital.12 Lequerica was nevertheless outdone by José del Castaño, Spain’s consul general in the Philippines, who sent the following letter to the Japanese conqueror: Manila, 7 May 1942. no. 75. To Your Excellency General Masaharu Homma, Commander in Chief, Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines, Manila. Excellency: On behalf of the Spanish community in Manila, I have the honour to convey to Your Excellency and to the valiant troops under your brilliant command our most sincere congratulations for the recent and decisive victories in Mindanao and Corregidor. May this country, under the protection and guidance of the great Japanese nation, now enjoy the benefits of a prosperous and lasting peace. In the rude task of keeping reconstruction going, the Spanish community of the Philippines once again guarantees its full and enthusiastic cooperation with the Japanese Military Authorities. Very respectfully, José del Castaño13 Del Castaño not only expressed his satisfaction over the death or capture of thousands of American troops in the fall of Corregidor but also denounced those Spaniards in the Philippines who resisted the Japanese. Among these was the Spanish Republican Pío Braun, editor of the revue Democracia, whom the invaders arrested and shot.14 This readiness of official Spain to kowtow to America’s enemies stands in stark contrast to the reaction of the Spanish American republics, deaf to Spain’s appeals to the bonds of Hispanidad [the Spanish global community] and responsive instead to the call issued at the conference at Rio de Janeiro. There, on 15–28 January 1942, with Brazil in support, all the Spanish American states except Argentina and Chile (which remained neutral) signed the resolution in support of the United States.


Meanwhile in Spain, anti-Allied demonstrations continued. Since 1940, the British embassy in Madrid had suffered almost daily stonings,15 and on 4 July 1941 the total absence of Spanish officials at the reception offered by the American embassy attested to the growing chilliness towards the United States.16 In Valencia, Falange thugs broke into the US consulate and tore a picture of President Roosevelt off a wall in the press office.17 In Madrid, in late October 1942, a Spanish carpenter stopped by the US press office to pick up a copy of the weekly news bulletin. He was followed and arrested under the charge of being a communist. He was finally released, but warned to stop reading American propaganda.18 It was not forgotten that Ambassador Weddell had granted asylum to several prominent refugees from northern Europe, including Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the composer and former prime minister of Poland, who, like others, had been mistreated by the Spanish police.19 At one point in his discussions with Serrano, Weddell reported, the Spanish foreign minister went so far as to threaten, indirectly, that Spain would go to war with the United States.20 In the Falange press in France, the news of America’s entry into the war could hardly have been more downplayed. El Hogar Español presented it in a small column set aside for world news: In Japan, as soon as they learned about the humiliating terms expressed in Roosevelt’s note, air and naval forces opened hostilities in various places ... . Now Roosevelt has the war that he hoped to put off while he feverishly prepared for it, and now Russia and England can say goodbye to the supplies of war matériel that they were promised, because Washington won’t have enough even for its own army and navy.21 Franco continued to express his confidence in the final victory of the Axis. On 12 February 1942, a meeting was held in Badajoz between Franco (accompanied by Serrano Súñer) and the Portuguese leader Oliveira Salazar. According to Stohrer, who based his report on a conversation he had with Serrano on 18 February after the Spanish minister had returned to Madrid, ‘Franco began with a detailed review of the military situation, and with the backing of Serrano Súñer declared that a British victory was absolutely impossible ... . Serrano Súñer is certain that, as a result of this discussion and of the information that was passed on to him, Salazar went away convinced that it was no longer possible to count on a British victory.’22 Stohrer’s report was in tune with the celebrated statement made by Franco on 14 February in the

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Alcázar in Seville, on his return from Badajoz: ‘If ever there were danger, if ever the road to Berlin were open to the enemy, it would not be a division of volunteers that Spain would raise but rather a million men to defend the capital of the Reich. Of course, as I’ve said already, I’m certain that won’t be necessary.’23 The Spain that Franco proclaimed autarchic could not even return to its pre-Civil War economy. The index of agricultural production had sunk from 109 in 1935 to 70 in 1940, and by 1942 it had still not risen beyond 75. Industrial production in 1942 amounted to little more than half of what it had been in 1936.24 Franco clung to his imperturbable air. On 13 April 1942, Franco received Ambassador François Piétri25 at El Pardo and told his sympathetic listener: ‘Perhaps fascism is not a perfect form of government, but it is the only force that can oppose the Marxist wave. In Latin countries like ours, fascism must be tempered and ennobled by Catholicism.’26 In Vigo, on 20 August of that year, Franco declared: ‘War is the normal state of peoples ... . Peace is accidental. Those countries who abandon themselves to the easy bourgeois life are dead as countries ... . Life is continual struggle ... .’27 The Falange press continued to proclaim the mutual loyalty between Hitler and Franco, while in Paris, on 10 May 1942, a conference entitled ‘Bolshevism versus Europe’ was held in the Salle Wagram in Paris. Franco’s spokesman Antonio Tovar made the following comments: After the national revolutions in Italy and Germany, Spain became the third country to align itself with the New Order ... . Spain aligned itself definitively on the side of the driving forces of the New Europe: National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy. We Spaniards feel ourselves to be, after Germany and Italy, the first in line of entitlement in the New Europe. We rank third in priority ... . Spain is in this war. Its special circumstances keep it in the role of non-belligerent.28 What was Hitler saying meanwhile about Franco and Franco’s Spain? On any given day he could be heard saying that even communists were preferable to ‘clerical-monarchist muck’ like the government of Franco, ‘that inflated peacock’ smugly seated on his ‘pretender’s throne’.29 Albert Speer, speaking in 1975 at the time his diaries were published,30 remembers Hitler saying of Franco in 1942: ‘Instead of a leader with a personality I found [at Hendaye] a little fat sergeant who could not grasp my worldwide plans ... . We should keep [relations with] the Red Spaniards warm ... . The idealism during the Civil War was not to be


found on the side of Franco and his reactionary mob but among the Reds.’31 On 5 June 1942, Hitler was informed of Franco’s decree of 22 September 1941, awarding the full honours of a field marshal to Our Lady of the Fuencisla, the patron saint of Segovia. He replied: ‘I have the very gravest doubts that any good can come of nonsense of this kind ... . Eventually I may visit every other European country, I shall never go to Spain.’32 Two days later he said: ‘In Spain, unfortunately, someone will always be found willing to serve the political interests of the Church. Serrano Súñer, the present Minister for Foreign Affairs, is one of them. From my first meeting with him I was conscious of a feeling of revulsion, in spite of the fact that our Ambassador, with abysmal ignorance of the facts, introduced him to me as the most ardent germanophile in Spain.’33 On 3 July 1942, Serrano Súñer told Ambassador Stohrer about his recent visit to Rome, where (this time) the Pope had received him very cordially and the meeting had been conducted in absolute frankness. Stohrer passed this on to Ribbentrop, who underlined the word ‘frankness’, and added an exclamation mark in the margin. Serrano provided Hitler with more quiet and private merriment: Serrano told Stohrer that the Führer had assured him that, on principle, he did not interfere in matters of the Church.34 Later in that week of July 1942, the memory of the meeting at Hendaye came up again at Hitler’s dinner-table. Field Marshal Keitel was quoted: ‘The Spanish guard of honour was deplorable, and their rifles were so rusty that they must have been quite unserviceable. When the meeting was being arranged, Admiral Canaris warned me that the Führer would be disillusioned to find in Franco—not a hero, but a little pipsqueak [statt eines Helden ein Würstchen].’35 Hitler’s loss of faith in Franco was not just table talk: the Caudillo’s name could no longer be uttered in Hitler’s presence.36 He had by now formulated a vague idea of using the Blue Division and its core of Old Falange (Falange Auténtica) to overthrow Franco and impose Muñoz Grandes as the new Caudillo. There was considerable irony in this new concept. Muñoz Grandes represented the Old Falange; Serrano Súñer, the New. Both movements wore blue, but the blue of the Old was darker in hue than the blue of the New. The Old represented the ongoing Revolution; the New, the forces of reaction, or at least the compromise with the Church37 and conservative tradition. The result was that Serrano and Muñoz were archenemies. In this context, Franco and Serrano Súñer had been anxious to see Muñoz take command of the Blue Division so that he would no longer be in a position in Spain to challenge the regime. What changed their attitude was the prestige that

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Muñoz quickly earned as commander of a division that was initially victorious. Franco quickly learnt to distrust and fear him, and well he might. To the Old Falangists, Muñoz was the military leader who could implement their revolution. Franco was receiving reports that Muñoz in Berlin was deep in intrigue and had given his opinion that Spain should enter the war immediately, on the grounds that ‘the internal political problems of Spain cannot be resolved without first taking the necessary decision in foreign policy.’38 To Hitler and his entourage, it was Serrano, even more than Franco, who stood as the obstacle to close GermanSpanish collaboration, and Muñoz was their natural choice. Muñoz, for his part, was being hard-tested on the battlefield, and any German praise of the Blue Division was most welcome in Madrid. In December, Arriba ran the headline: ‘The Völkischer Beobachter pays special tribute to the exemplary valour of the División Azul, in combat in the Northern sector.’39 Nevertheless, on 23 March 1942, Muñoz informed Colonel Hans Wilhelmi, assistant military attaché at the German embassy in Madrid, that 10 per cent of his men were demoralised by the hardships they had suffered and by the fact that upto 20 February of that year, the Division had sustained 2,292 casualties, or 12 per cent of its original strength.40 A month later, General Carlos Asensio, the new Spanish Army Chief of Staff, visited Berlin to coordinate the transfer of Spanish volunteers with the German High Command (OKW). Moving on to Königsberg to meet Muñoz Grandes on 24 April, he informed him that Franco had decided on his recall. Returning two days later to Berlin, Asensio met General Ernst Fromm of the general staff, who expressed his dismay at the decision.41 The strong opposition in Berlin to the recall of Muñoz allowed Muñoz to retain his post provisionally. Franco’s choice to replace him was General Emilio Esteban Infantes, commander of the Barcelona Military Region. He was expected to take up the post on 26 June, but on his arrival in Berlin on 18 June he found his passage blocked by the OKW.42 Hitler’s dinnertable discussion in the first week of July explains why: ‘We must promote as much as we can the popularity of General Muñoz Grandes, who is a man of energy, and as such the most likely one to master the situation. I am very pleased indeed that the intrigues of the Serrano Súñer clique to get this general dismissed from the command of the Blue Division were frustrated at the last moment; for the Blue Division may well once more play a decisive role when the hour strikes for the overthrow of this parson-ridden regime.’43 On 12 July 1942, under the strictest secrecy, Hitler received Muñoz at the Wolfsschanze. Muñoz had already won the Iron Cross First Class,


conferred upon him at Grigorevo on 6 January 1942 by his corps commander General von Chappuis, to which the Knight’s Cross was added in March. Muñoz told the Führer that he was ready to bring Spain to order. The immediate result of the meeting was that Muñoz was left in command of the Blue Division, with Esteban Infantes, who did not reach the Division’s headquarters at Grigorevo until 8 August, serving as his second in command. No news of the meeting reached Spain. Even the German ambassador was not informed.44 Esteban’s arrival coincided with an unprecedented test for the Division. On 23 August, the Division was moved to the area of Vyrica, south of Leningrad, setting up its headquarters in the small palace of Pokrovskoye, between Pushkin and Krasny Bor. It now formed part of XXIV Korps under General Hansen, still within General Lindemann’s 18th Army. On 27 August, the Soviets launched a massive attack on the Leningrad front which shattered the entire 18th Army. Meanwhile, Hitler’s Weisung (Directive) no. 42 of 29 May 1942 introduced Operation Ilona and cancelled Operation Isabella. More limited in scope than Isabella, Ilona no longer protected the entire Spanish Atlantic coast but merely the Spanish side of the Pyrenees and potentially the harbours on the northern coast of Spain. In this way it formed an extension of the Atlantic Wall.45 The directive was not to be discussed with any Spaniard or with any other non-German.46 On 1 August 1942, Hitler took up the central matter again: ‘The real tragedy for Spain was the death of Mola; there was the real brain, the real leader. Franco came to the top like Pontius in the Creed. The most evil spirit is undoubtedly Serrano Súñer ... . In reality he is the gravedigger of modern Spain.’47 Hitler’s rebuke of Franco was undeserved. On 27 May 1942, Hoare visited Franco at El Pardo to deliver a memorandum prepared in London concerning the observation posts set up on Spanish soil designed to help the enemies of the United Kingdom and the United Nations in their attacks on Allied vessels. The memorandum pointed out that the help provided by Spain was no less serious than if Spain were to permit the Germans to set up artillery sites on Spanish soil, or to allow German bombers to use Spanish airfields. The note demanded that the procedure be ended immediately, and that no such facilities be provided in the future to the Germans, the Italians or the Japanese.48 In open defiance of that memorandum, a bolometer was installed by mid-June 1942 in Algeciras, and another by August in Ceuta. The information that these two observation posts passed on to the Axis caused unprecedented losses to the Royal Navy in its efforts to maintain supplies to Malta.49

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So grievous were these losses that the British government was seriously considering a Special Operations Executive (SOE) raid to destroy the observation posts, especially in the light of the forthcoming Operation Torch. It was nevertheless decided to continue along the path of diplomacy.50 Serrano Súñer’s star had been on the wane for months, despite the growth of membership in the Falange.51 On 21 May 1941, he had seen his powers reduced when José Luis de Arrese was made the new Party secretary. In choosing Arrese of the Old Falange to replace Serrano of the New Falange, Franco was taking a serious risk. Franco was getting rid of a man who had become an embarrassment to him in his family life,52 and an impediment to him in his desire to keep his political options open. He knew that Hitler despised Serrano for refashioning the Falange to make it more palatable to the Church, and he knew that Hitler much preferred Arrese and the Old Falange. But the Old Falange also meant General Muñoz Grandes and spur to the ongoing revolution, which was no more part of Franco’s position than Serrano’s Germanomania. On 20 November of that year, Serrano’s hopes were shattered. His plan to install a Falangist totalitarianism based on the model of clerico-fascism was anathema to Hitler. Now came the final coup. The incident that triggered it took place on 15 August 1942 outside the little old church of Begoña, near Bilbao. It was the day of the Assumption and was marked by a solemn requiem mass. Afterwards, outside the church, a bomb was tossed at the minister of war, General José Enrique Varela, a traditional monarchist and arch-enemy of the Falange of whatever colour. The investigation found that the would-be assassins were from Valladolid and associates of Serrano.53 Even if the plot had succeeded, it is hard to imagine that Serrano would have gained any ground, given the moment in which it occurred, but, since it failed, it was Serrano’s undoing.54 Serrano Súñer, Hitler’s loyal servant, who claimed to be ‘padre of the Division’ and was looking forward at that moment to a visit to the front that he had scheduled for January 1942, was certainly unaware of how deeply despised he was by the Führer he served. On 5 September, three days after Serrano’s ouster, Hitler expressed his dinner-table judgment: Serrano Súñer, had he been given the chance, would gradually have engineered the annihilation of the Falange and the restoration of the monarchy. His disgrace has certainly been accelerated by my recent declaration that he was an absolute swine! ... Franco has assimilated all the mannerisms of Royalty, and when the King returns, he will be the ideal stirrup-holder.


I think one of the best things we ever did was to permit a Spanish Legion to fight at our side. On the first opportunity I shall decorate Muñoz Grandes with the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Diamonds. It will pay dividends ... . When the time comes for the Legion to return to Spain we must re-equip it on a regal scale, give it a heap of booty and a handful of Russian generals as trophies. Then they will have a triumphal entry into Madrid, and their prestige will be unassailable.55 Hitler did as he intended. In his return from the Eastern front, Muñoz Grandes, who received the order to return home from the Spanish embassy in Berlin on 12 December, was received by Hitler in Berlin on the following day. The Führer conferred upon him the Oak Leaves of the Knight’s Cross (Eichenlaub zum Ritterkreuz) of the Iron Cross, a distinction conferred on only two other non-Germans: Marshal Baron Carl Gustav von Mannerheim of Finland and Marshal Ion Antonescu of Romania, who had performed the same service as Muñoz in the summer of 1941.56 Hitler was loath to see Muñoz return to Spain, but on this issue he had no choice. Franco’s reasons for recalling Muñoz were simple: he feared what the Germanophile general could plot in Berlin to destabilise his regime in Spain. His return to Madrid on 17 December was a curious affair. Every general and minister was there at the station to greet him, except the head of state. Through cheering crowds, the national hero Muñoz was driven to El Pardo to hear what Franco intended for him. This consisted of a promotion to three-star rank and a political and military isolation, allowing Franco a free hand to play both sides of the street in terms of the outcome of the war. Inevitably, Madrid and all of Spain were rife with rumour. It was said the general’s wife was sick; his son was sick; he had been appointed a member of the Cortes; Franco had offered to appoint him High Commissioner for Spanish Morocco.57 According to another rumour—one that infuriated Hitler because it ran against the facts—Muñoz had been sent by Hitler to demand that Franco enter the war.58 In point of fact, Muñoz was neither interested in remaining in command of the Blue Division (convinced that it could not add to its prestige in any new offensive) nor interested in receiving any post in any Spanish government that was not prepared to enter the war on Germany’s side.59 The dismissal of Serrano Súñer on 2 September 1942, described by Víctor Morales Lezcano as ‘a furtive wink from the Prado to the AngloAmerican powers’,60 was unquestionably a watershed in Franco’s foreign

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policy. The Falange press chose to introduce the new foreign minister without mentioning Serrano at all, and insisted that this was a mere changing of the guard. Only in decadent democracies would such a change mean a shift in national policy—so ran its argument. On the matter of his resignation, Serrano’s memoirs still leave many questions unanswered. Serrano had allegedly fallen from Franco’s favour as early as November 1941.61 In Serrano’s opinion, Hitler had found him too intractable and had forced Franco to dismiss him. The question closely concerned the Spanish ambassador in Berlin, General Eugenio Espinosa de los Monteros, who on 19 July 1941 had read a speech in which he explained that he was leaving Berlin because he wanted to defend his honour and that he would return when someone else occupied the office of Spain’s foreign minister. This is apparently how it appeared to Ribbentrop, who blamed Serrano for recalling the ambassador for no other reason than that the latter was too sympathetic towards Hitler.62 When, on 12 August, Espinosa made a farewell visit to Hitler, the Führer complained once again of Franco’s failure to take Gibraltar63 and said as much in a letter that Hitler handed the ambassador to take back to the Caudillo.64 Franco’s action in changing his foreign minister has been interpreted by some as an indication of a change of direction, if not of heart. His choice was General Francisco Gómez Jordana, Conde de Jordana, a traditional Catholic conservative whom Hoare esteemed highly for his moral integrity. He was to die prematurely, on 2 August 1944, as a result of a hunting accident. Among his first assignments as foreign minister was a mission to Lisbon. On 8 October 1942, following an AngloPortuguese agreement, British forces had taken possession of two air bases in the Azores. This agreement naturally exposed Portugal to the possibility of reprisals on the part of the Axis. Douglas Wheeler has shown that Salazar truly feared such reprisals, and clauses were added to the agreement whereby Britain would go to Portugal’s aid in the event that Portugal was invaded by Spanish forces, or by German forces operating through Spain. Jordana’s visit to Lisbon on 26 November 1942 indicates no change in Franco’s policy, because the visit served to mask a simultaneous and secret agreement between Hitler and Franco whereby Hitler guaranteed to defend Spain and its possessions against any Allied incursion.65 The question that had deeply worried the planners of Operation Torch (the Allied landings in French North West Africa) concerned the Spanish observation posts and the help they could give to Axis aircraft and submarines in their attacks on Allied convoys.


Curiously, there was not one sinking before the Torch landings. Even though the messages received from Bodden (the code-name for the observation post intelligence) spoke of over 140 ships passing through the Straits, no German submarines were deployed, presumably because, as the result of Allied deception, the Axis intelligence services were too confused as to where the convoys were headed.66 Berlin should not have been disappointed, however, in the readiness of Franco to continue his assistance. A German report dated 20 November 1942 referred to a vocal agreement between Franco and the German leaders on 27 September and to Spanish apprehensions regarding the possibility of an Allied landing in Africa. Berlin, 20.11.1942 Weekly report (9–15.11.1942): Propaganda

International

law,

Politics,

1. On the basis of a conversation on 27 September 1942 between the head of OKW/Ausland-Abwehr and General Vigón, General Franco has expressed his agreement to the erection of two aircraft stations on the northwest coast of Spain. Navy Attaché Madrid is to find out when the German agent responsible for installing the instruments at the chosen site can be sent to Spain (1 Skl. 25320/ 42 g. Kds.). ... 3. The German Embassy in Madrid reported in a telegram at the end of October that the Spanish Foreign Ministry considered an Anglo-American landing in North West Africa or Dakar as a probability. Spain would thus be in great danger too. The possibility of an Anglo-American landing on the Iberian Peninsula, in the formation of a second front, seemed perfectly logical to the Spanish Foreign Minister. In such a case he is counting on German help, which in his opinion should start at once with the delivery of weapons captured from the enemy. OKW—W.F.St. and Vice Admiral Krancke have been informed of this report by teleprinter (1 Skl. 38156/42g.).67 A further German report drawn up in the week immediately prior to Operation Torch referred to a variety of problems in Spain. Berlin, 16.11.1942 Weekly report (2–8 November 1942): International law, Politics, Propaganda

82


IV. Spanien: a. In the matter of compensation for the Monte Gorbea, the Foreign Ministry now agrees with OKW and Seekriegsleitung, in their desire for a smooth settlement of the case, that in the reply to Spain no monetary amount should be mentioned but instead a natural solution in the form of offering Spain the Cauldi, the German-owned vessel currently in Spanish waters (1.Skl. 36929/42 g.). b. According to a report by the German Naval Attaché in Madrid, it is clear that numerous shipwrecked mariners were brought ashore from an enemy convoy that was recently attacked. Enemy guncrews were among them. According to the Renault clause, military personnel who are shipwrecked cannot be interned if they reach a neutral shore in civilian vessels. If, however, the shipwrecked soldiers are brought ashore in Spanish vessels, the matter of internment becomes a different question. The Spanish Foreign Ministry has been requested to discuss with the German Ambassador in Madrid the possibility that this case offers an opportunity to free the U boat crew held in Spain, by way of compensation (1. Skl. 36673/42 g.). c. This situation of stress over the production of the G 7a torpedoes forces us to take immediate action in order to relieve the strain on our own front-line supply. T Wa proposed a temporary suspension of the delivery to Spain of the 42 torpedoes that are still outstanding. Supreme Naval Command, however, could not agree, for military and political reasons, to a total halt to deliveries to Spain. We deduce, from a report by the Naval Attaché in Madrid, that the Spaniards have been engaged for a long time in transforming the torpedo tubes, so that it seems possible that the torpedo deliveries can be postponed. Supreme Naval Command is in agreement that deliveries to Spain must be immediately suspended and that only in February 1943, with the dispatch of five torpedoes, can they be resumed (1. Skl. 27966/42 g. Kds.).68 Meanwhile Franco continued his balancing act. While he allowed the submarine bases and the observation posts, and while General Vigón turned over to the Germans for their inspection the British and US planes which were forced down in Spain or in Spanish Morocco, the Caudillo also allowed Allied airmen to pass through Spain to reach French North Africa.69 The British government had long understood that several of the Spanish military leaders, including Vigón, Orgaz, Kindelán and Enrique de Borbón (commanding the 2nd Division in

The War in the Mediterranean

83

Madrid) were monarchists, with Kindelán becoming Anglophile as a result of his friendship with Sir Samuel Hoare.70 The British ambassador was now receiving greater consideration. Admiral Canaris, Hitler’s chief of intelligence, arrived in Spain to spend nine days from 26 December 1942 to 4 January 1943. One of his deputies, a general in the Abwehr whose name has not been revealed, contacted a Spanish Basque by the name of Ignacio Olagüe whom he had met in the Basque country in 1937. The general was then a colonel of intelligence, and being half-English and eager to make contact among the British colony in the region, he befriended Olagüe on account of the latter’s good contacts with local Britons. In Madrid, they agreed to meet for lunch at the Hotel Mediodía. The general asked Olagüe if he had any contact with the British embassy. Olagüe replied that he did not know Sir Samuel Hoare but he did know Bernard Mallett, the first secretary, and Walter Starkie, the cultural attaché. Through these contacts the general persuaded the British ambassador to cable Churchill for permission to meet Canaris, whose purpose was presumably the same as that of Rudolf Hess, who had flown to Scotland the previous year. The instructions that Hoare received from Churchill not to receive the German emissary showed, however, that a separate peace was out of the question.71 A similar action was attempted by the Spanish ambassador in London. On 12 October 1942 (‘Day of the Race’ in Spain), the Duke of Alba handed Sir Alexander Cadogan, permanent undersecretary at the foreign office, a memorandum in which he first summed up the Spanish position in the world conflict and then offered the services of his government in seeking a peace formula which could be acceptable to both sides. The British government at once informed the Soviet government of this offer and of the reply it had already delivered, in which the British government assured the Spanish ambassador that none of the Allies was ready to encourage any such initiative.

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

The Anglo-American landings on 8 November 1942 at various points in French North Africa (French Morocco and Algeria) came to the Axis as a total surprise. Maintaining the secrecy of this Operation Torch was a remarkable achievement of Allied security,1 especially in light of the preparations that were visible in Gibraltar, but German intelligence in Madrid clearly failed in its task of interception. Charles Halstead, working in the US archives, found that Count Jordana was sufficiently aware of the plan in order to do everything he could to prevent it from being carried out. On one occasion the new Spanish foreign minister ( Jordana) bluffed the American ambassador (Weddell) to the point of hinting (as Serrano Súñer had previously done to the same ambassador) that Spain would declare war.2 To the French ambassador, François Piétri, Jordana said that Spain expected Vichy to resist the Allies, and that if Vichy failed to do so Spain would consider the Spanish zone of Morocco to be under threat.3 Admiral François Darlan, who happened to be in Algiers at that moment, indeed ordered French forces to resist the Allies, and his naval forces (if not his army and air force units) obeyed the order. The action was brief but fierce, and the landings resulted in Vichy breaking its diplomatic relations with the United States. In the wake of Operation Torch, a situation report sent to Berlin on 10 November 1942 by the German naval attaché in Madrid described the prevailing mood in Spain as ‘very nervous’. There was good reason for this. Thanks to Gibraltar, British and American troops were now present in number on the Iberian Peninsula, and Grand Admiral Raeder warned the Führer on 19 November that control of the Peninsula offered attractive rewards to the Allies, who could thus 84

Fortunes Reversed 85

close off the Bay of Biscay.4 The report of the German naval attaché continued: Spanish military circles place no confidence in the Anglo-American pledge not to attack Spain. The situation in Spanish Morocco, following the success of the Anglo-American landings in French North Africa, is seen as hopeless. As a result, Anglophile circles and Red elements in Spain now consider their moment has arrived. Spaniards are now waiting with the keenest interest for the official German statement on the newly created situation.5 If the attack on Pearl Harbor had gone unexplained in the Falange press, the politics behind Operation Torch went unmentioned, and it was left to the reader to glean the truth from various bits and pieces. Arriba thought it best to run the headline: ‘The Führer reaffirms his faith in the victory of the Reich,’ while its correspondent in Rome, Ismael Herráiz, contributed an article entitled ‘Consequences of an over-generous armistice,’ implying that Germany had been wrong to allow French North Africa to remain under Vichy.6 In El Correo Catalán, Modesto Suárez wrote oddly that ‘England and the United States have opted to pursue this war in the easiest and fastest way,’ as if that were faulty strategy. The issue carried in a subheading a reassuring message from Hitler: ‘Now the clock will strike the hour of our response.’7 Arriba announced that Canada, Cuba and Mexico had broken their relations with Vichy, and presented a convoluted view of the wider arena: ‘Spain today holds up before the world a catalogue of claims, ... but neither does it disregard the need to temper its demands in the context of world events, because it believes that in this way it is contributing to not worsening the gravity of the general situation.’8 The German occupation of the Vichy zone of France on 11 November 1942 evoked no sympathy among the editors of Arriba who promptly ran a subhead: ‘Berlin considers Pétain’s protest a mere formality.’ Together with a reference to British and American citizens in the Vichy zone now interned by the French authorities, it reported that the personnel of the American embassy, together with American journalists, had left Vichy by special train bound for Lourdes.9 The Falange journal’s main heading for 13 November announced the voyage of Laval to Munich for discussions with Hitler and von Ribbentrop. Another of its headings was more dramatic, and certainly more imaginative: ‘It was announced today in Berlin that the Queen Elizabeth, the largest ship in

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the world, has been torpedoed.’10 There was to be no follow-up, understandably, to this announcement. Instead, Arriba moved to more comfortable ground. Mindful of the support that Franco enjoyed in Argentina, Arriba made much of the arrival in Madrid on 13 November of its new ambassador, Alberto Palacios Costa. In his welcoming address Franco made an ominous declaration: ‘At the present moment, our two countries, looking toward the future, realize that the moment is coming for us to pronounce together those transcendental words that define our common purpose and validate our spiritual heritage.’11 As if he were Pétain himself, Marcial Retuerto in El Correo Catalán lambasted what he called ‘the insouciance of the French’ for their lack of concern over the events of the previous ten days: The most terrible thing of all is that there are still Frenchmen to be found who smile when they are told of the calamities that stab anew at the tortured body of their nation; who smile with the insouciance of narcissists when they are told that what the Anglo-Americans are seizing from them by force of arms will never be returned to them, any more than what was seized from us in the past by the pirate Drake and his descendents, or by those who despoiled us not so long ago of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, was ever returned to us. The French have sunk into their passive dementia, into their suicidal estrangement from the new Europe which would have been their only means of salvation. Marshal Pétain has just addressed his nation in these terms: ‘I think I have just gone through the darkest days in my life.’12 Quickly setting aside such gloom, El Correo Catalán made it clear there was no reason for dismay. Under the heading ‘England will receive an answer beyond its imagination,’ it reported on the speech by Dr Goebbels in Wuppertal’s town hall in which he promised retribution without parallel.13 The same issue commented on the ‘refrain long repeated in the propaganda of the democracies according to which the Italian people feel no stomach for this war [el pueblo italiano no siente la Guerra]’, adding that the refrain made no sense, and today less than ever.14 The second great humiliation of the French navy (after Mers el-Kébir) came on 27 November 1942 when the fleet in Toulon was scuttled just as German units were nearing the dockfront to take over its command. The tragic self-destruction of the French fleet offered no opportunity to Franco’s press except to report the facts. Nevertheless, even for a press that reported as fact whatever rumours it favoured, the announcement in El Correo Catalán that General de Gaulle had yielded the leadership


of the Free French to General Henri Giraud,15 proved to be an embarrassing error, however much it was known that Giraud was the preference of Roosevelt. At Casablanca on 12–24 January 1943, the friction between the two Free French leaders seemed to be amicably resolved, with a legendary handshake between the two, but Giraud would soon be politically outmanoeuvred by de Gaulle.16 The dramatic events of November 1942 certainly forced Franco to consider that Hitler, despite all that had been promised, might just possibly lose this war, and it was now, more than ever, necessary that Franco use language that, in the odious event of an Allied victory, could distance him from the Axis cause. At the same time, Franco was betrayed by his own passionate impulses. On the occasion of the Caudillo’s 50th birthday on 4 December 1942, José Luis Arrese, the new head of the Falange and hence party secretary minister (Secretario General del Movimiento), presented his greetings and spoke of the virtues of fanaticism and intolerance. Franco replied: ‘In the great work of a nation’s redemption, fanaticism and intransigence are indispensable when you are in possession of the truth. To your faith and your fanaticism I pledge my own.’17 Fanaticism was entering a new age of glory. Two weeks later, on 17 December 1942, Joseph Goebbels in Berlin launched into one of his most frenzied and contemptuous tirades, to be followed two months later by his tour de force: ‘Do you want total war? [Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?]’ Not to be left out, the Spanish navy approached the German navy for closer ties: The Spanish Naval Attaché has proposed to M Rü that a contract for auxiliary labour should be concluded between the Spanish Navy and the Rhein–Metall–Borsig firm. Skl [Commander in Chief Navy] considers such a contract very desirable for military-political reasons, because such a contract would be in perfect alignment with the basic orders of Supreme Command regarding the response to Spain’s desire for a weapons industry. M Rüm Skl.Qu A I and A/WAa Stab A have been advised on this issue.18 The speech by the Caudillo in the Palacio del Consejo Nacional in December 1942 shows no softening in his prayer for the ultimate triumph of Nazi Germany: We stand at the end of an era and at the beginning of another. The world of liberalism is dying, the victim of the cancer spreading from

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its errors, and with that dying world commercial imperialism joins in its collapse ... . What the British masses are thinking is no different from what the German masses are thinking ... . When the war is over ... the destiny of our era will emerge either in the form of a barbaric Bolshevik totalitarianism or in that of the patriotic and spiritual template represented by Spain or in whatever other form the fascist peoples introduce ... . Those who dream of re-establishing liberal-democratic systems in Western Europe on the very frontier of Russian communism are quite mistaken. Those who speculate on liberal peace-making or bourgeois solutions are living in a world of fantasy. The real world is moving in other directions. The supreme reason of God was never better served than it is by our regime.19 This grandiose talk was vented while, on the Eastern front, the men of the Blue Division were facing their second Christmas in the lines.20 The same pre-Christmas appeal was launched in the press in December 1942 as in December 1941, but this time it was not for liquor. It was for foodstuffs and thick clothing.21 This time there was no fanfare, and no week-by-week announcement of what had been contributed. Much was made, instead, of the prestigious award that had been conferred by Hitler on General Muñoz Grandes. If Franco had withdrawn his ambassador to Berlin for being too Germanophile, Hitler, for his part, now withdrew his own ambassador, von Stohrer, for being too Hispanophile.22 Stavnik attests to a Nazi conspiracy in 1942 ‘aimed at fomenting a revolution in Spain, overthrowing Franco, and installing a puppet government in Madrid in the pay of Berlin’. All German officers, non-commissioned officers and men who knew Spanish were allegedly withdrawn from their units and sent to the south-west of France. Crozier supports Stavnik’s theory by reporting the arrival in Perpignan in January 1943 of five German divisions.23 This would seem to be in preparation for Operation Gisela,24 which called for the invasion and occupation of Spain in the event of an Allied landing in the Peninsula. Later, Kleinfeld and Tambs presented a detailed account of the conspiracy, in which General Muñoz Grandes was implicated.25 But Operation Gisela itself does not support the theory of a conspiracy, nor does it entirely prove that Hitler’s patience with Franco was exhausted, since (as Charles Burdick shows26) the plan took into account the possibility that Spain would invite the Germans to enter. In any event, the five German divisions


were not kept long in Perpignan: from 14 June 1943 the Pyrenees frontier on the French side was guarded by only two reinforced regiments and by a few squads of labourers.27 Hitler’s choice of ambassador to replace Stohrer was Hans Adolf von Moltke, who was considered a more reliable Nazi.28 Soon after taking up his post on 11 January 1943, he sent Ribbentrop the following appraisal of the situation in Spain: Germany is considered a friend, while England, America and Bolshevism are the enemies of Spain ... . Spain would welcome any indication from Berlin as to how it might help Germany, for example by initiating an action which could result in friction between England and the Soviet Union or even between England and America. The urge toward hegemony on the part of the United States offers, in Franco’s opinion, an interesting starting point in this work of uncoupling [Zersetzungsarbeit/acción disgregadora].29 Von Moltke’s term was brief, however. He died of appendicitis on 22 March, only ten weeks after he arrived. In 1943, Franco’s public and private statements and actions continued to favour the Axis cause. In January, the Falange press announced that ‘the year 1942 [had] passed into history as the decisive year for the viability of a totalitarian structure for the governance of Spain.’30 On 17 January, José Luis Arrese, as head of the Falange, arrived in Berlin at the head of a team31 that stayed until early February, inspecting the social services of the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV).32 Arrese then took the train to the Wolfsschanze for an audience with the Führer, who was accompanied by Ribbentrop and Bormann.33 In the same week an editorial written by Tomás Borrás for ABC summed up the stakes in the struggle, for Spain no less than the Axis: ‘There is no other choice than that which Hitler set out in his last proclamation: “Either victory or Communism. Either Germany will triumph, bringing Mongol barbarism to an end, or Russia will triumph, leading to revolution in every State and a tsunami of Jewish-Masonic-Communist revenge”.’34 No reader of the press in Spain would ever have understood the dimensions and the stakes in the Battle of Stalingrad. Never was a titanic battle so little reported. The surrender of General Paulus and his Sixth Army was admitted on 2 February, but it was placed in a subordinate position to the headline of the day: ‘Failure of the Bolshevik attacks in the Caucasus.’35

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On 17 March 1943, the Caudillo opened the Cortes with the following address: In this great world conflict, we have reached what we might call a dead end in the struggle, despite all the optimism that precedes great enterprises ... . The objectives of the war have totally changed from what they were at the beginning. A short war would have allowed these goals to be attained.36 Franco clearly meant by this statement that he had hoped for a Blitzkrieg ending in an Axis victory, in which Spain would not be forgotten. But he did not explain what he meant by the change in the objectives of the war, for if it had passed through three essential stages, as he said it had, the opening had been in no sense an anti-Bolshevik struggle. Two months later, in May 1943, Franco explained in Seville that the first stage of the war had concerned only the nations of the North: ‘Germany against Poland, Finland against Russia, England against Germany. These conflicts were not vital questions for Spain.’37 On the other hand, Franco added, his policy of non-belligerency was adopted only when the war entered its second stage, ‘at the point it extended into the area of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, when it took on a new aspect: the struggle between civilisation and bolshevism’.38 It required no great intelligence to realise that the Battle of the Atlantic had been waged from the very first day of the war and that the anti-Bolshevik struggle had been far more deeply engaged in the first stage than in this second stage running from June 1940 to June 1941. Then, in this same Andalusian tour which he undertook in spring 1943, Franco declared in a speech in Almería on May 9: ‘Neither of the belligerent sides has the strength necessary to destroy its adversary.’39 He called for peace negotiations, to be followed by a fairer distribution of the world, in which, once again, Spain would not be overlooked. Franco’s efforts did not go unnoticed: El Diario of Buenos Aires proposed Franco and Ramon S. Castillo, then president of Argentina, as candidates for the 1943 Nobel Prize for Peace.40 The Falange, caught between Franco’s political need to preach peace and its own penchant for war, still found war more palatable: ‘War as historical phenomenon is inevitable. This ancient truth was overlooked by our intruders of 1931 in their intellectual and moral bankruptcy.’41 What Franco had said in mid-1942, when he reopened the Cortes on 17 July, was now seen as another attempt to beguile Allied opinion,


since Franco made it perfectly clear, during his Andalusian tour, that he had no intention of liberalising his regime. He even refuted now his own more tolerant opinion expressed to the Cortes in March 1943. In Huelva in May 1943 he declared: The liberal form of government is against nature, it is a regime based on injustice ... . This liberal form of government is the creator of modern slavery ... . The regime that we have established puts an end to oppression and to the exploitation of man by man ... . Man is not free until his freedom is guaranteed by the rule ... of authority.42 Such warnings continued to the end of the Second World War, and beyond, but they are interspersed with high-sounding promises of social reform. In April 1943, Franco deemed it advisable to reconsider his ley penitenciario [criminal law], which he had introduced on 4 June 1940 at a time of maximum fear. He now described its code as too ‘inflexible’ and in need of some charitable mitigation.43 Arrese made his own contribution to this political New Look, ignoring the past and now insisting, in Burgos in September, that ‘the Falange is not seeking the establishment of a totalitarian state’.44 Meanwhile German documents show that the Spanish leaders were still doing all they could to further the Axis cause, handing over to the SD—in the original copy—the plans they had discovered concerning the target of the imminent Allied invasion of southern Europe. Everyone agreed on one point: an Allied attack on some point in Europe’s ‘soft underbelly’ was the sole reason for Operation Torch. While Mussolini, understandably, feared that Sicily was the Allied objective, Hitler focussed on Sardinia and the OKW in general on the Balkans.45 Hitler, however, also feared an Allied landing in Spain, and if the Peninsula fell to the Allies the situation for the Axis would be critical in the extreme, not only from the military point of view (the invasion of south-western France, a hotbed of resistance activity often led by Spanish Republicans) but even more so from the economic point of view (the loss of wolfram, lead, lithium, zinc and other raw materials).46 None was more valuable than wolfram, which in 1939 had been as worthless as dust, as Ambassador Hoare described it, and which in 1943 was selling at £7,000 a ton.47 This mineral, also known as tungsten, is extremely heat-resistant and is therefore used for ammunition capable of penetrating steel armour. Spain, most of whose wolfram mining areas are in the region of Galicia, was second only to Portugal among the wolfram producers of Europe.48

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Nevertheless, on 14 June 1943, Hitler formally cancelled all plans for an invasion of the Peninsula, restricting German strategy in that area to the defence of the Pyrenees. From that day, as we have seen, the total Wehrmacht strength on the Pyrenees frontier did not exceed two brigades. Hitler was thus concentrating his mind on guessing the target of the Allied attack from the south. The hoax popularly known as ‘The Man who Never Was’ has a place in military history alongside the Trojan Horse. The ruse to convince the Axis that the next Allied landings would come not in Sicily but in Greece and Sardinia was the brainchild of Lieutenant-Commander Ewen Montagu, RN. The stratagem worked: when the Allies landed on the beaches of Sicily, they were only lightly defended. The plan overlooked nothing in its preparation. In the early morning of 30 April 1943, the Royal Navy submarine Seraph threw a corpse into the sea off Huelva. A few hours later, Spanish fishermen in the nearby Laguna del Portil discovered the body, with a briefcase chained to its wrist. The autopsy showed that the man had drowned, and the bogus papers in the briefcase identified the corpse as that of Captain (Acting Major) William Martin of the Royal Marines. The briefcase also contained various documents, including a personal letter from Lt. General Sir Archibald Nye, deputy chief of the imperial general staff, to General Sir Harold Alexander, deputy supreme allied commander Mediterranean. Written in a very personal style, the letter intimated that Greece and Sardinia (Operation Brimstone) would be the next objectives in Allied landing operations, but to deceive the Axis, a simulated attack would be made in Sicily (Operation Husky). In other words, a grand pincer movement was afoot, to meet in northern Italy. Lieutenant-Commander Alan Hillgarth, the British naval attaché in Madrid,49 on receiving news of the identification of the corpse, rushed to claim it and everything that belonged to it. But before that, the Spanish leaders had reported the find to Colonel Gustav Wilhelm Leissner, head of the Kriegsorganisation-Spanien in the German embassy in Madrid, who was then allowed to examine the documents. The corpse and the briefcase were duly handed over to the British consul in Huelva, who buried the body in that town. In Berlin, General Alfred Jodl, Hitler’s chief of operations, informed the Führer on 9 May that the documents were possibly authentic, while Madrid, two days later, informed Berlin that it was absolutely convinced of their authenticity. On May 14, the fatal decision was taken. At the end of a minute study of all the documents in Martin’s


briefcase, the Seekriegsleistung concluded that their authenticity could not be doubted.50 Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff, who took up his post on 30 April 1943 as the new German ambassador to Madrid, expressed to Ribbentrop his own conviction that at the moment that Jordana and Doussinague handed the documents over to Germany they believed them to be authentic Allied plans. So, too, did General Muñoz Grandes and the minister of the navy, all of which carried the highest importance for the SD.51 Already, on 12 May, Jodl had taken measures to fortify Sardinia and the Peloponnesus. Ten extra divisions were sent to the Balkans to reinforce the eight already there, and another eight divisions were sent to Greece to reinforce the one division there. Further reinforcements were sent to Corsica. In Sicily, on 10 July 1943, Germany had only two divisions to meet the Allied landings. The loyalty of the Spanish leaders to serve the Axis cause had provided the Allies with an overwhelming success. Indeed, even after the Allied landings in Sicily, Franco was still confident as to how the struggle would end, denouncing, before the Consejo Nacional del Partido Único, ‘that liberal capitalism which has disappeared for ever’.52 Once again, in the interview which Serrano granted Charles Halstead, on 8–9 July 1971, Serrano stated: ‘Until the autumn of 1943, Franco still believed in a German victory.’53 Underlying this conviction one can see his personal fear: according to the US archives, the Caudillo shared, up to December 1943, the opinion of the German ambassador that he could never survive an Axis defeat.54 It is therefore only at that point that one can accurately label Franco’s policy as a policy of ambivalence. The position of Jordana in that summer of 1943 was one of defiance. In a note dated 14 June 1943 and addressed to the new American ambassador Carlton Hayes, Jordana objected to the title of the recent American documentary Inside Fascist Spain. The term ‘fascist’, said Jordana, in reference to Spain, was notoriously untrue. Hayes seized on the opportunity to reply to Jordana in a long letter that he hoped would reach a wider readership than the Spanish foreign ministry. In explaining why Spain was generally viewed as fascist in the democratic world, Hayes wrote: Spain has a single political party created and imposed upon the country by executive decree. No other political party is permitted to exist and all open opposition to this single party is suppressed. The members of this party wear uniforms and are organized on a semi-military basis, as in the case of the Nazi and Fascist parties.

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A form of salute made popular by the Fascists and Nazis has been adopted by this party and is made compulsory for all inhabitants of Spain, whether or not they are members of the party. The party possesses an armed militia, as do the Nazi and Fascist parties. The party has a totalitarian doctrine, as do the Nazi and Fascist parties. The Spanish press is strictly controlled by a censorship under party direction. The press openly attacks all enemies of the party and of the regime, while giving no opportunity for reply, or for criticism of the party or regime. There is no freedom of public assembly except for members of the party ... . The German Gestapo has been allowed unusual facilities in Spain and has intimate relations with the Spanish police. The so-called Himmler agreement has permitted the Gestapo to obtain custody of and to return to Germany persons whom the Gestapo has wished to take into custody, and such persons have been deprived of the elementary right of self-defence and appeal to Spanish courts. Hayes concluded with a blistering challenge: Inasmuch as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reiterated ... the opinion that the Spanish system is not a Fascist system, the Embassy would be interested to receive and to communicate to its Government the Ministry’s opinion as to the precise ways in which the Spanish system can be differentiated from the Fascist system.55 Whatever impact this had on Jordana, it did nothing to change the tone of Franco’s state-controlled press. On 29 June 1943, Arriba reported the speech given in Vienna by Dr Sündermann, assistant director of the press of the German Reich, in which he responded to the Four Freedoms proclaimed by the Allies. To the distress of no one on the staff of Arriba or within the Spanish government, Dr Sündermann proclaimed the ‘Four Liberties’ of the Axis cause: 1. Freedom from Jewish influence. 2. Freedom from the nightmare of Bolshevism. 3. Freedom for intellectuals and manual workers alike from capitalist exploitation, with freedom for creative development. 4. Freedom from Anglo-North American imperialism.56


One of the very few areas in which the Franco regime in the Second World War gained prestige and gratitude concerned the help given by the Spanish embassy in Budapest to assist the Jews.57 Other diplomatic exchanges concerning the Spanish Government and the Jewish question show varying levels of compassion. Eberhard von Thadden, the German foreign ministry specialist for ‘Final Solution’ international complications, reported to Adolf Eichmann that a member of the Spanish embassy in Berlin had informed a representative of the German foreign ministry orally that the Spanish authorities would not mind handing over to Germany Spanish Jews from Greece ‘if only they could be certain that they would not be liquidated’. One month later the British embassy in Madrid reported that the Spanish government would welcome the idea of permitting Jews with Spanish passports to come to Spain as an alternative to being sent to Poland where they would presumably die.58 The invasion of Sicily brought with it, on 25 July 1943, the collapse of Mussolini’s government and the arrest of the Duce. Four days afterwards, Ambassador Hayes was received by the Caudillo. Franco assured the ambassador that Spain was holding to a policy of ‘benevolent neutrality’, that is to say benevolent towards the Allies.59 This phrase, reeking with opportunism, was the ironic echo of the exact words used by Hitler when, at the all-important military conference on 22 August 1939, the Führer described the role that Franco was to play in the imminent conflict as one of ‘benevolent neutrality’,60 that is to say benevolent towards Germany. Franco’s remark to Hayes was the more astonishing by reason of the photographs of Hitler and Mussolini that were still in place in Franco’s reception room.61 They had been removed, however, when Hayes paid his next visit, on 6 July 1944, a month after D-Day.62 The forced resignation of the Duce on 25 July 1943 was an event too grievous for commentary in Franco’s press, which reduced the news to a headline: ‘The Emperor King of Italy assumes command of all its Armed Forces,’ leaving the event in second place under the subheading: ‘Mussolini replaced by Marshal Badoglio.’63 Italy’s unconditional capitulation on 3 September 1943 would receive equally brief mention, but behind the scenes the Franco government was showing its concern. An illustration of this was the approach tried on 23 August 1943 by a Franco envoy to a German field marshal living in retirement. The envoy was the Spanish priest Conrad Simonsen; his target was Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb. Von Leeb had long been associated with the German military’s opposition to Hitler’s war plans. In 1934, Hitler had found him an ‘incorrigible anti-Nazi’ and, in January 1938, von Leeb had found himself one of the 16 high-ranking Wehrmacht officers forced into

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retirement. His military prowess, however, was such that he was twice recalled to service, and it was under von Leeb, as commander in chief of Army Group North, that the Spanish Blue Division had entered battle in the siege of Leningrad. Von Leeb was close to capturing Leningrad when Hitler intervened with an order that the city should instead be starved into surrender. On 18 January 1942, von Leeb advised Berlin that Army Group North should withdraw from the Leningrad area. He was promptly dismissed and took no further part in the war. He was thus at home in Bavaria in August 1943 when Father Simonsen called to propose, on behalf of the Caudillo, nothing less than that von Leeb should organise a plot to overthrow Hitler. Von Leeb replied that he would be happy to oblige but he had no support, and the idea was therefore abandoned.64 Publicly, Franco was sounding more and more like a detached observer with no interest in the war except in so far as anti-communism was concerned. This was to be the primary purpose of the interview he gave to the United Press (UP) correspondents, when he turned the past upside down to justify Spain’s policy since 1940. Party Minister José Luis de Arrese showed the way in a speech delivered in Burgos on 11 September 1943, a week after the Italian capitulation, in which he described the purpose of the Falange, and of the Blue Division which represented it, as ‘the integration of mankind into a universal community which has been Spain’s mission throughout history.’65 The purpose was to make a distinction between the Falange and fascism. No matter that the last words of General Muñoz Grandes heard in public by his troops in Russia were ‘Arriba Alemania!’66

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

If the Conrad Simonsen affair cannot be authenticated, and if Franco did not want to see Hitler overthrown, then certainly he still wanted to see Germany win. To gauge the Caudillo’s sentiments after the fall of his fellow-dictator Mussolini on 25 July 1943, we turn again to Serrano Súñer who, in his interview with Charles Halstead on 8–9 July 1971, declared: ‘Up until autumn 1943, Franco still believed in a German victory.’1 Some sources show that Franco retained his belief, and not merely his hope, well beyond that. With the capitulation of Italy on 3 September 1943, the Spanish embassy in Rome remained accredited to the king, but Franco’s ambassador, the Falangist Raimundo Fernández Cuesta, new at the post, left for Spain and did not return to Italy. A semi-official relationship with Mussolini continued through the Spanish consul in Milan. In Madrid, the Italian ambassador, who had been offered the post of foreign minister by Mussolini, sided instead with the monarchy, but not all the personnel in the embassy followed his example. From the end of 1943, there was a semi-official representative of Mussolini in Madrid, to the great indignation of the Allies. This representation in Madrid of the Italian Social Republic did not end until after the execution of Mussolini on 28 April 1945. The capitulation of Italy could not easily be presented to the Spanish people, but Arrese, as head of the Falange, rose to the challenge. His solution was to present the situation first in the widest possible framework: In response to the cold desire of those who always find good in some period or other in the past and yearn to return to it, we have to establish a new model of service to the people ... to bring the world 97

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together into a spiritual and Catholic norm, ... into beliefs that derive their roots and sustenance from Christian dogma. Catholicism has always been Spain’s mission in the world. When it failed in that mission, Europe sank into the power of Luther, and afterwards of Rousseau, and after that into the claws of Marx. The choice is between the coexistence of the European peoples under the spiritual hegemony of Catholicism, unchanging and transcendent, or else its atomization into implacable rivalries.2 It was a full week before the news of Italy’s capitulation was announced in Spain. Arriba did so without any embellishment: ‘Italy has capitulated unconditionally: the armistice was signed on the 3rd after negotiations that began two weeks earlier.’3 Its next issue, however, ran the heading: ‘The Fascist National Government issues a call to the Italian Armed Forces,’ and reported that Genoa had been occupied by the Germans.4 The same issue reported that Rome had capitulated to the German Army under Kesselring, and in a subheading, that Field Marshal Rommel had taken up his new post as commander of an army group in northern Italy.5 On 1 October 1943 (Day of the Caudillo), in an address to the National Congress of the Falange, Franco referred to Spain’s ‘vigilant neutrality’— a new term—adding that ‘Spain’s national policy requires absolutely no adjustment.’6 The next day Foreign Minister Jordana had to explain to Ambassador Dieckhoff the difference between vigilant neutrality and non-belligerent neutrality: non-belligerent neutrality had no real meaning. Spain’s policy from the beginning of the war, explained Jordana, had been based on its sympathies with the Axis. These had never changed, but the present situation in the war had increased Spain’s dependency upon the Allies. It might be called a situation of temporary need. According to Ambassador Hoare, Franco’s minister of war and other generals were still convinced, in that month of October 1943, that Germany was invincible.7 It was no doubt on that presumption that Franco once again gave free rein to the courts. In that same month, the Tribunal para la Represión de la Masonería y el Comunismo handed down sentences, in absentia, of up to 30 years’ imprisonment and exile to several Republican leaders. Among those sentenced for membership in Masonic lodges were Álvaro de Albornoz, Julio Álvarez del Vayo, Augusto Barcia, Santiago Casares Quiroga, Ángel Galarza, Luis Jiménez de Asúa and Diego Martínez Barrio. Those sentenced for other offences included José Antonio Aguirre, Luis Araquistáin, Juan García Oliver, Victoria Kent, Francisco Largo Caballero and Juan Negrín.8

The Tightening of the Allied Vice 99

As for French diplomatic representation in Madrid, while Piétri remained the representative of Vichy, General de Gaulle thought fit to appoint his own. His choice was Jacques Truelle, a hero of the First World War and a career diplomat who had rallied to de Gaulle’s 1940 appeal. Taking up his post on 1 October 1943, Truelle was employed primarily in helping the ‘refugees’ from France, almost all Gaullist or communist volunteers, to join the French forces in North Africa. His activities angered the Falangists. In Madrid, on 29 October, they seized and burned a flag of the Forces françaises de l’Intérieur (FFI), whose symbol was the Croix de Lorraine, while the press engaged in violent attacks on the ‘communist’ government in Algiers.9 The bishop of Madrid, Eíjo y Garay, was no less emphatic about separating the wheat from the chaff, giving instructions in writing that Mass or any other use of the Catholic chapel attached to the French embassy was to be strictly limited to those loyal to Vichy.10 Franco’s relations with the United States were no better. Following the installation in the Philippines of a pro-Japanese puppet government under José Laurel, the Franco regime sent Laurel a telegram on 18 October 1943 whose content the United States regarded as a conferral of de facto recognition on his government.11 The upshot of this was an official statement from Washington on 21 February 1944 that accused Franco of seeking the restoration of the old Spanish empire, and it identified the Falangist movement as the Spanish counterpart of fascism and National Socialism. The proclamation brought diplomatic relations to a new level of strain. This was intensified by the total embargo on oil exports to Spain imposed by the US government on 28 January 1944, and by the Spanish censorship of American films such as Casablanca and the RKO documentary The Vatican of Pius XII, the latter banned in October 1943 and permitted only after Emmet Hughes had sufficiently embarrassed Arias Salgado. In a letter made public, Hughes asked Arias why a film that treats of the persecution of the church in Nazi Germany, of the presence of an American envoy in the Vatican, or of the current visit of the Pope to the United States could find itself the subject of censorship in Catholic Spain.12 On 3 December, the Caudillo told Hans Dieckhoff,13 the new German ambassador and the last of Hitler’s envoys to Madrid: ‘A neutral Spain providing wolfram and other products is at this moment of greater value to Germany than a Spain at war.’14 Even now, in a memorandum dated 15 December, Dieckhoff attested in Berlin to the loyalty of Franco, who was ‘hoping with all his heart for the victory of Germany’.15 Inherent in this hope and belief was Franco’s own personal interest: according to US

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archives, the Caudillo, even in December 1943, shared the opinion of Dieckhoff that he could not survive the defeat of the Axis.16 A number of incidents and aspects attested to Franco’s continued loyalty.17 By December 1943 the Allies had lodged, in the space of 19 months, 15 official protests against German espionage and sabotage based in Spain. Their activities continued unmolested.18 At the beginning of 1944, there were still 250 Abwehr agents and 2,000 Vertrauensmänner active in Spain.19 Even Argentina, on 26 January 1944, agreed to break off diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan. Only in February 1944, when the Allies threatened a total embargo on oil to Spain if Franco did not send his German spies packing once and for all, do we see a difference.20 But even then, Franco continued to provide Germany with what it needed most. The shipments of wolfram to Germany continued.21 According to General Vigón, Franco wanted Germany ‘to receive as much wolfram from Spain as possible. He was convinced that the German officials in Spain would be able to smuggle sufficient amounts of wolfram across the border.’22 Equally undisturbed were the observation posts (the German operation Bodden on both sides of the Straits). FH Hinsley shows in his official account that Bodden was the most important of all the facilities provided by Spain to the Axis, even more important than the U-boat refuelling operations. By 15 April 1942, 14 observation posts had been erected, nine of them at sites north of the Straits and five at sites on the southern coast. The posts were equipped with infrared, supplemented by special night telescopes. Manuel Ros supports this: ‘Bodden received the largest budget, the most modern technology, and the highest trained personnel, and it did not end its activities until July 1944 ... after D-Day.’23 Even when Franco made concessions to the Allies, it did not reflect any change of heart. In April 1944, Juventud, the weekly publication of the Falange Youth Front, warned the Allies: ‘The war has reached a point of such scope and confusion that it is absolutely impossible for it to end with the absolute victory of either side.’24 The next month, on 12 May, Franco tried a new effort at disengagement with a wild swing delivered in a speech in Alicante: ‘For us two questions are unrelated: the struggle against bolshevism and the fight in the West between the civilized nations.’25 The great symbolic gesture of this new Spain of ‘vigilant neutrality’ was the recall of the Blue Division from the Russian front. On 24 September 1943, Franco decided to transform the Division into a new and smaller unit, the Legión Española de Voluntarios. This force, comprising a regiment of about 1,500 men and modelled on the Tercio or Spanish Foreign Legion, would remain at the front.26 Franco’s purpose


was to look less like a belligerent and thus deny the Allies the right to invade Spain. Jordana would have preferred a total withdrawal.27 That Hitler, too, feared an invasion of the Peninsula explains his agreement to the withdrawal of the Division. The recall of the Blue Division, while it was a political decision, was, from the military point of view, entirely logical. It had served at the front for two years without interruption. Even the Condor Legion in Spain had had a turnover of its volunteers every two months.28 The order to withdraw went out from Franco on 5 October 1943. On the same day General Lindemann informed General Esteban Infantes that the Division was to be withdrawn ‘for rest and training’, and, on 12 October, Esteban handed over command of his sector to a German division. The day before Franco issued the order, the Spanish High Command decided not to announce the withdrawal to the press or radio. It should be remembered that the Spanish public was very poorly informed on the war situation: the Soviet victories were unknown.29 According to Ambassador Hoare, Franco wanted the Spanish troops to come home gradually, to avoid attention.30 It was thus decided that they would be disguised, in Ruhl’s phrase, ‘as tourists’,31 and to move them at a steady rate of 800 per week, passing from Volosovo to Dresden, Hof (Bavaria) and Metz.32 The first group left on 21 October, changing out of their uniforms in Hof and leaving for Spain six days later, while the German weekly news-film Deutsche Wochenschau omitted all reference to their departure. On 29 October, the first 800 returning Spaniards crossed the frontier at Irun. A military band was present to greet them, but the crowd was noticeably smaller than that which had sent them off. It was not until 26 November 1943 that the general staff in Madrid formally acknowledged the formation of a volunteer Legión Española, or Legión Azul, numbering 1,500 men, who would remain at the front under the command of Colonel Antonio García Navarro.33 After being received by Hitler at the Wolfsschanze on 7 November, General Esteban Infantes returned to Madrid by air on 18 December, almost exactly a year after the return of Muñoz Grandes. Esteban’s welcome was very different. The press had not announced his arrival, and Arrese was the only cabinet minister to join Muñoz Grandes and other military leaders in greeting him in the capital.34 His troops fared no better. There was no heroes’ welcome waiting in Madrid. The American journalist Emmet Hughes, then in Madrid, presents the blackest picture: ‘They returned to Spain not with glory but with Russian loot and venereal disease.’ Later, when it became politically expedient to bury all memories of the Blue Division, Gabriel Arias

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Salgado, vice-secretary of national education, would dismiss the Blue Division, in conversations with Hughes and others, as a ‘good-hearted gang of exceptionally virile men who did nothing on the Russian front but propagate their race’. Arias found humour in the allegedly fantastic number of ‘Spanish’ babies born of Polish and Russian mothers. Because of this, he felt that the Blue Division should be regarded as ‘nothing more than a bawdy kind of political joke’.35 Was this assessment unfair? The most reliable judge of the level of discipline within the Blue Division is surely the Wehrmacht. This was its assessment in February 1944, when the Division had become the Legion: General commanding Security Troops, Heeresgebiet Nord Abt. Ia Tgb. Nr. 415/44 geh. Headquarters, 5 February 1944 Subject: Spanish Legion Reference: Heeresgruppe Nord, Ia Nr. 1052/44 geh. v. 30.1. To: General Headquarters, Heeresgruppe Nord In accordance with subject order, the Spanish Legion with a strength of some 2,000 men is to be accommodated in the region of Tapa (Estonia). I have already become well acquainted with the Spanish troops over the last two years. They were known from the start for a lack of discipline behind the front so extreme that in no way did it correspond to the concept of a civilised army. Violations of every kind against the civilian population, acts of arson, theft, plunder, armed robbery, sexual assault, etc. were everyday occurrences. I have been informed that their discipline since then has sunk to a new nadir. If the behaviour of the Spaniards on Russian soil was bad enough for the detrimental effect it had on the civilian population, with dire results for us, the expected effect of their indiscipline on the Estonians is totally unacceptable. Adequate police and security forces to keep the Spanish troops under surveillance are simply not available. Billeting them inside the camps is not possible. It is nevertheless absolutely necessary to protect the Estonian population from the transgressions committed by the Spaniards. In the present situation it is vital to avoid any deterioration in our relations with the Estonians and to uphold law and order throughout the country.


In these circumstances, I must request that the Spanish Legion not be transferred to Estonia. In case the transfer is at present unavoidable, I ask that its stay in Estonia be the shortest possible and that arrangements be made for its rapid departure. Signed: General der Infanterie (illegible)36 It would appear that Hitler was not being informed about matters like these. In commenting on the fearlessness of the Spanish soldiers, the Führer added that their counterparts were ‘always glad to have Spaniards as neighbours in their sectors’.37 The retention of any Spanish troops at all on the Russian front in 1944 was more than the Allies would accept. On 19 January, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told the House of Commons that he had informed the Duke of Alba of ‘the most serious effect’ which the continued presence of Spanish volunteers on the Russian front could have on Anglo-Spanish relations. It was the second time in less than a week that the British government had expressed its dissatisfaction with Spain’s ‘unneutral neutrality’. On the same day that Eden spoke, the Blue Legion, still in the Leningrad area, was ordered to pull back southward to Luga, which it reached on 31 January. Only on 20 February was the order given to the Legion to return to Spain. On 21 March, after handing back to the Wehrmacht the last weapons of the Blue Division, the legionnaires began leaving by train for Königsberg, continuing by rail to Spain.38 The last contingent of the Legion left the Eastern front on 9 April and, on 25 April 1944, the Blue Division was formally liquidated.39 Spanish casualties in the Second World War were enormous in proportion to the numbers committed. Of the 47,000 Spaniards who fought in Russia between October 1941 and January 1944, casualties exceeded 25 per cent: 3,934 dead, 8,466 wounded and 326 missing in action. Of these, 94 died in Soviet prisons and 219 were repatriated in 1954, leaving 13 unaccounted for.40 If Hitler had allowed the Blue Division and the Legion to disband, he was nonetheless desperate for men, and more than ever eager to promote international brigades of volunteers. It should be remembered that Hitler had expressed his admiration for the tenacity of the ‘Spanish Reds’. However unrealistic his idea may have been, Hitler thought at this moment that the concentration of Spaniards in southwestern France could provide the nucleus for a foreign legion.41 Official French sources show that at least one detachment of the Blue Division had still not returned to Spain in early 1944 but was stationed at SaintAstier, near Périgueux. Up until February of that year, Spanish

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volunteers were also housed in Versailles, at the Caserne de la Reine (5, rue Carnot).42 Meanwhile, among the men of the Legion in Russia, a number of them (estimated by Ramón Garriga at 1,500) had refused to return home and now formed a Spanish battalion which was incorporated into the Waffen SS.43 These adventurers received no encouragement from the Spanish government when it announced, in early April 1944, that any Spaniard remaining in the German forces (or ‘any foreign forces’, as it preferred to say) would forfeit both his pay and his pension. On 22 April Franco went further, warning that any Spaniard remaining in Russia would lose his Spanish citizenship.44 Despite this, Hitler sent General Edwin Hexel to Madrid to organise the numerous veterans who were eager to return to combat. Although the Spanish government now maintained a tight control of the frontier, a certain number of Spanish volunteers (perhaps only 150) crossed the border and assembled at a base in the tiny village of Cauterets, 25 kilometres south of Lourdes. This and other such centres along the Pyrenees were under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Heyde and, at Cauterets, the Spaniards were given combat training by Captain Karl Tägert of Special Staff F.45 Though dressed as peasants so as not to attract attention, their presence and purpose was understood by the Spanish guerrilleros in the region who opened fire on them whenever the opportunity arose. The new volunteers were then incorporated into the Waffen SS and sent to join the Spanish base at Königsberg. This Spanish battalion, under the command of Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Miguel Esquerra Sánchez, thus went on fighting to the bitter end: in August 1944 against the Partisans in the Carpathians; in September against others in Yugoslavia; as part of the Charlemagne Division, taking part in the battles around Berlin; and, finally, according to tradition and perhaps in fact, dying in May 1945 in the defence of the Berlin Chancellery.46 The Allied curtailment of petroleum exports to Spain in January 1944, if only for a few days, was sufficient to force Franco, in a secret agreement signed with the Allies on 2 May 1944, to close the German consulate-general in Tangier, hand over to the Allies Italian vessels interned in Spanish ports and cease the exportation of Spanish minerals to Germany. Although this much of the agreement was revealed as early as 1964,47 further secrets emerged only in February 1979 when the dossier was turned over to the US National Archives by the National Security Agency. In return for the resumption of oil shipments to Spain, Franco undertook to refrain from giving Germany any further intelligence aid.


Despite this pledge, the dossier shows that Franco continued to supply Germany with aid right up to the end of the Second World War. Two days before D-Day, Churchill sent Roosevelt a curious message which revealed the prime minister’s personal desire to forget the worst about Franco’s aid to the Axis and seek the best possible relations with Spain in the post-war world. ‘I do not care about Franco but I do not want to have the Iberian Peninsula hostile to the British after the war ... .’ As Paul Preston has pointed out, ‘it did Franco and his regime enormous good nationally and internationally’.48 So, too, would have Churchill’s remark in November, had it been made public at the time. Three of Britain’s political leaders (Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden and Ambassador Hoare) proposed in that month the application of further pressure, political and even economic, on the Franco government. Churchill replied: ‘This is a very serious proposal ... to interfere in the internal government of a country with whom one has not been at war and who has done us more good than harm in the war ... . I certainly would rather live in Spain than Russia.’49 Churchill’s comments on Franco’s Spain towards the end of the war and after the war are contradictory, but to know all sides of Churchill requires a reflection on how ready he was to forgive and move on. His reaction in 1940 to the French acceptance of defeat had been devoid of bitterness. And later, in giving a title to the fourth volume of his history of the Second World War, the choice came naturally: ‘In Victory, Magnanimity.’

9 From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge ( June–December 1944)

As long as Nazi Germany was unbeaten, everything was still possible. New wonder weapons could turn everything around. The fierce German resistance in June 1944 to the Allied landings in Normandy seemed for a moment to offer hope. Arriba’s first issue after D-Day carried the headline: ‘Violent German reaction against the forces disembarked in Western Europe,’ followed by two subheadings: ‘German resistance grows stronger with every hour,’ and ‘All paratrooper units have been annihilated, except in the sector of the Carentan road.’ A photograph showed ‘the first Allied prisoners’: British troops under German guard. Manuel Aznar, Arriba’s correspondent on the German front in Normandy, wrote in the same issue: ‘It can be said that there was no strategic surprise. If there was any tactical surprise, it was apparently very limited.’ A few lines later, Aznar changed his tune. Forced to consider that the Luftwaffe over Normandy was almost nowhere to be seen, and that Germany’s much vaunted secret weapons were equally absent from the battle, Aznar wrote: Everything is a mystery. But the greatest mystery is in aviation. For months and months it has been said that Germany was holding back its powerful air force reserves, and that they would not be used until the moment of the decisive battle. Throughout D-Day, these reserves have not been seen in action. So what should be said in reference to the new weapons? Do they exist? Is it power of that kind, or is it rather the fabulous courage of the German soldier that is the weapon with which the battle will be won? Facing the Allies is the most perfect war machine that the world has ever known, the army with the finest technical equipment of any that ever fought.1 106

From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge

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The next day Luis de la Barga wrote in the Falange’s daily: ‘The report that Churchill wanted to accompany the expeditionary forces on board a warship has created a stir. He gave up the idea only when he ran into intense opposition.’2 As for Manuel Aznar, his volatile pen now paid tribute to the men of British Airborne who were ‘showing one of the classic warrior virtues of the British people: a terrible tenacity in defence, their deep conviction that the Empire has conferred upon them a binding mission, the highest concept of personal dignity’.3 In the uncertain days that followed, Arriba picked up on an editorial in The Times of London that saw the success of the Normandy invasion as dependent upon how much pressure was maintained on other fronts. From that, Arriba formed its headline: ‘British opinion dissatisfied with Russian inactivity.’4 Gunger Weber, a war correspondent for the Transocean Agency, was confident that the Allies would be rolled back into the sea: ‘The mopping-up operation now underway in one sector of the front, which for obvious reasons cannot be disclosed, is almost in its last phase ... . Wehrmacht forces have captured the entire general staff of an Allied division.’5 Five days after D-Day, however, Arriba had cause to fear that the invasion had succeeded in establishing firm beachheads. It responded: ‘Normandy is the stage where the finest youth of three of the most civilized countries in the world are transformed into protagonists in a sinister spectacle.’6 La Voz de España offered both hope and a warning. ‘The Luftwaffe is back in the fight and German fighterplanes are in action in all sectors,’ ran its headline, but it allowed Jacinto Miquelarena in Buenos Aires, ‘one of the most objective observers of the present conflict’, to voice a jarring opinion: ‘The great meaning of the invasion is that it destroys the concept that only the Germans can win the war.’ The same issue ran an article by José María Castroviejo who lamented the growing destruction of Europe’s treasures which, if not stopped, would end one day with the pulverisation of Cologne’s cathedral or the Sistine Chapel.7 A week later the first V-1 flying bombs were unleashed on England, with London as the target. Aznar devoted his whole column to Germany’s secret weapons, beginning with a dramatic account describing Germany’s first use of poison gas in the First World War and the devastating effects it had had.8 The new situation restored the hopes of La Voz de España, which ran the heading: ‘Day and night, without interruption, meteors of dynamite rain on England.’ ‘For reasons of security,’ it added, in a flight of fancy unrelated to any truth, ‘George VI is leaving London. Since neither the air-raid shelters nor the Underground stations can withstand the impact of the explosions, the order has been

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given for the immediate evacuation of the capital. The flight of the population of the metropolis to the countryside has taken on such proportion that it exceeds even the evacuation of 1941.’9 Then came the Wehrmacht’s defeat at the Falaise Gap. As the Allies advanced towards Paris,10 dismay struck the offices of El Hogar Español whose reports and editorials grew blander the closer the Allies approached. In its last issue on 8 July 1944, it spoke nevertheless as if it was facing a temporary interruption.11 La Voz de España now offered a new horizon, with the headline: ‘A Russo-German agreement considered possible,’ which it explained in its subheading: ‘Against capitalism and plutocracy’: In spite of the failure of German diplomacy to drive a wedge in the enemy camp by negotiating a peace either with the USSR or with the Anglo-Americans, the Wilhelmstrasse has not allowed itself to be discouraged and pursues its attempts to reach agreement with one or other of the camps. At the present moment it is trying to reach a settlement with Russia ... . The aim is to destroy bourgeois capitalism and plutocracy. Russian Communism has evolved, and for its part NationalSocialism has done the same in the opposite direction: it has become proletarian. Thanks to the action of the Party and the destruction caused by enemy air attacks, large layers of the bourgeoisie have ceased to exist as an economic factor. We are fighting not against the British and American peoples but against their economic systems. We believe that we have an opportunity to reach agreement with the Soviets, asking only that they leave us a free hand in the West. Two leading members of the Party, one of them Dr Ley, is trying to win over the Führer. In Germany, where money is worth virtually nothing, having been replaced almost entirely by purchase coupons as a means of exchange, everybody is equally rich. The result is a society of perfect equality.12 Meanwhile in Madrid, the sudden death on 3 August 1944 of Count Jordana, the foreign minister, created a considerable shock.13 To replace him, Franco chose José Félix de Lequerica, who had served from March 1939 until that moment as ambassador to Paris14 and then Vichy. According to Serrano Súñer, he had won a reputation in Vichy as a collaborator.15 His departure from Vichy provided Franco with the opportunity to suspend his diplomatic relations with the Pétain regime.


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In return, Jacques Truelle, who had served since 1 October 1943 as de Gaulle’s unofficial representative in Madrid, moved on 27 August 1944 into the French embassy to represent the Provisional Government, following the resignation of Piétri three days earlier. Spanish recognition of the Provisional Government of the French Republic followed on November 18.16 Guile and subterfuge were more than ever the hallmark of the Franco regime. On 23 September 1944, the national press delegation gave orders to the press that the word ‘Party’ was never to be used in reference to the Falange organisation.17 Emmet Hughes reported from Madrid that no word had yet been published in the Spanish press regarding the persecution of Jews or Christians in Germany.18 While Lequerica was now given the task, in early November 1944, of convincing the Allies that Franco had never meant them any harm, Franco himself showed the way. On 18 October, he instructed his ambassador, the Duke of Alba, in London to express ‘with the utmost frankness to our good friend the British Prime Minister the willingness of Spain to play its part in the future concert of Western Europe.’ The Caudillo explained that only Spain had the resources and the resolve to join Britain in defending a devastated Continent against the insidious might of Bolshevism.19 The letter to be delivered to Churchill ran: ‘After the terrible nightmare that Europe has suffered, those nations of Europe that have shown themselves to be the strongest and most virile are England, Spain and Germany. Once Germany is destroyed, England will find only one country in Europe worthy of its regard: Spain.’20 Shortly afterwards, on 7 November, Franco granted an interview at El Pardo to two journalists, A. L. Bradford, the director of UP foreign services, and his UP colleague Ralph E. Forte. The Caudillo stated categorically that Spain had ‘never been fascist or Nazi, nor had it associated—secretly or in any other form—with the Axis powers’. Back in July 1940, he had insisted, ‘Spain gave her new neighbour Germany tokens of her friendship.’ For Spain, he explained, the Catholic idea takes precedence over all others; Spain, therefore, could not have tied itself ideologically to a State which lacked Catholicism as its guiding principle. Franco made no mention of the fate of Catholic Poland. As for the Blue Division, its participation, he insisted, was motivated not by the desire for conquest or by animosity towards any country but was simply resistance to communism, which was rooted in the tradition of the foreign legions.21 ‘When the Spanish Government understood’, he concluded, ‘that the presence of these volunteers might affect its relations with those Allied countries with which it was on friendly terms, it took the necessary measures to

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oblige those volunteers to return home.’22 Friendship, then, was what Spain offered, a friendship based on shared democratic values: ‘Spain ..., in reality, is already ... a true democracy.23 ... No system of law in other states surpasses ours in its readiness to yield to the workers whatever they need in life.’24 These official protestations of friendship with the cause of the Western Allies shock not merely by their naiveté but by their contrast with the tone expressed in the controlled Spanish press and with the pro-German activities that continued. If the Spanish leaders had indeed changed direction, why, we may wonder, did the Spanish press continue to show its admiration and support for Nazi Germany? And why would the Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires feel the need to offer a dinner, on 23 August 1944 (anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), in honour of the Axis-leaning President Edelmiro Farrell?25 Fear of a German invasion is the stock answer. But, from August 1944, there was not even a remote possibility of German invasion, and yet, in the very week that Toulouse was liberated, the Madrid Catholic daily Ya preferred to pay tribute to the German resistance in the final engagement in the battle of Normandy: ‘The Battle of Verdun was child’s play compared with that of Falaise.’26 In the same issue, its correspondent in Berlin wrote: ‘Germany can win the war or she can lose it, but what she has given us in this war is a magnificent example.’ On 17 August 1944, OKW in Berlin finally gave the order to Generaloberst Blaskowitz, commanding Army Group G in the southern half of France, to withdraw all his forces to a new defence line in the north-east. The most affected by the order was General Karl Sachs, commanding LXIV Corps in the south-west, whose units close to the Spanish frontier were the most remote.27 On 21 August, the German ambassador Hans Dieckhoff, accompanied by his military attaché and other leading officials of the German embassy, crossed the frontier at Hendaye to bid farewell to the German military and civilian leaders in the area. On their return to Spain later that day, General Krüger, the German military attaché in Hendaye, accompanied them to say goodbye to his friend Colonel Julio Ortega, commanding the frontier post at Irun, a gesture which caught the attention of La Voz de España.28 Paris was liberated two days later.29 On the eve of its liberation, as El Correo Catalán showed, and even stated in a headline, the Caudillo was spending the day incognito in Santiago de Compostela.30 There was still no sign of a reduction in the help that Spain offered Germany. In October, when a delegation of the Spanish air ministry was invited to a civil air convention in the United States, the delegation


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served as spies for the Luftwaffe.31 At the same time, Spain was receiving shipments of penicillin from America, penicillin being a priceless commodity discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming and now entering mass production in the United Kingdom and United States. Such shipments were public knowledge. El Correo Catalán ran a headline: ‘An important shipment of penicillin has arrived in Spain. It will be distributed to those who are most in need.’32 Those who were most in need included those in Germany, where the search for penicillin was desperate. Johannes F. Bernhardt, director of the German-controlled firm Sofindus, was more than happy to cable Berlin: ‘After surmounting the greatest difficulties, we obtained possession today of penicillin brought directly by air from America. It will be sent to Germany as soon as possible.’ The penicillin arrived at Tempelhof airport on 25 October.33 The inexorable pattern of retreat frayed on the nerves of all who backed the Axis, but Germany still had vast resources and many a diehard supporter in Spain. The Madrid daily Informaciones, in particular, still seized with delight on every Allied setback. Its publisher, Víctor de la Serna, had visited Berlin in October 1941 and January 194334 and with the new Spanish ambassador, Count de Mayalde, he had visited the front.35 In mid-1943, however, Serna had been facing bankruptcy and had turned to the Germans for a loan.36 The money was not wasted. Informaciones described Berlin at this time as ‘having the look of one vast military camp’, and gave its headline of 13 November to Hitler’s proclamation of the day before: ‘I do not doubt that we shall pull through this time of trial and that the Almighty will grant us His blessing. These momentary reverses will never force us to give in, and the day will come when all our hardships will be rewarded.’37 ‘French Forces Surrounded in the Mulhouse Sector,’ ran its headline on 27 November 1944. Its reports from the Eastern front told of incessant Soviet disasters. One such headline ran: ‘Stunning German Success in Hungary: Russians Beaten on All Sectors of the Front.’ Franco, with totalitarian control over his press, was still not ready to yield, still not ready to believe that Hitler was doomed. ‘With the secret weapons,’ he was heard to say, ‘nothing is certain.’38 When, in November, the United States made a written request to Franco to cooperate with the Allies in locating gold plundered by the Nazis, the request was ignored. The reason given in the foreign ministry’s file for ignoring the request was ‘political circumstances’.39 As Christmas approached, some editors in Madrid known personally to the American journalist Emmet Hughes actually refused to report German military communiqués because, as one of them said, ‘their tone

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is too despondent’.40 But then, on 16 December 1944, seemingly out of nowhere, came the Ardennes counter-offensive. This sudden thrust, whose shape made it known as the Battle of the Bulge, proved to be Hitler’s last throw of the dice. Significantly, it was thrown against the Western Allies rather than at the Red Army, and while its impact soured the Christmas festivities in the West, Informaciones described the scenes of revelry in the German capital. Under the headline ‘Joy in Berlin,’ it quoted Georg Schroeder, editor-in-chief of the Transocean Agency: ‘Many have abandoned their homes with grieving hearts, but those same people today have greater faith than ever in final victory ... . I saw a mother holding her son in her arms, crying, “This new offensive is the best Christmas present that the Führer could have given us.”’41 ‘US First Army beaten and out of joint’ ran another of that day’s headlines.42 Two days later it added: We have already said that von Rundstedt’s offensive is not the last German effort but instead the opening battle of a new war ... . The technical and moral superiority of the Luftwaffe outweighs the numerical difference. Similarly superior in weapons and morale is the Wehrmacht soldier, that soldier who has sown panic in an army which, only a week ago, triumphed over the field and now finds itself out of joint, broken, encircled and in rout. What explains it? Nothing but the joyful and heroic discipline that is so dear to the German people. This Germany that after two years of sublime suffering still believes in itself and in the motto that its soldiers carry in the buckle of their belts: ‘Gott mit uns.’43 It was indeed a joyful Christmas in the German camp, and for all those supporting it, but there was also fear that von Rundstedt’s triumph would be short-lived. Arriba meanwhile took aim at those abroad, such as the News Chronicle’s Vernon Bartlett (‘one of our relentless enemies’), whose spotlight on Spain’s role, past and present, could prove most damaging in the future.44

10 The Death of Hope (January–May 1945)

The year 1945 opened with the Catholic daily Ya carrying in full the New Year’s address of the Führer, in which he declared: ‘The war cannot end except in the victory of Germany.’ The speech appeared on the journal’s front page and covered seven columns, while Churchill’s speech of the same day, in which he described the destruction of Germany as inevitable, was presented on page 3 and abridged.1 In its own first issue of the year, Arriba highlighted Hitler’s opening phrases: ‘It is not because of New Year that I speak to you today. The time requires more of us than speeches, but I can assure you of this: there will never be another Ninth of November 1918 in the history of the German Reich.’2 In the previous issue of Ya, published on New Year’s Eve, an editorial struck quite a different note. Federico Izquierdo Luque, director of the Falange youth journal Juventud and winner, in January 1945, of the national prize for journalism,3 wrote: ‘It would be a good idea to revise the formula “unconditional surrender” ... . It is an error of political judgment which, apart from opening up the war to unknown extremes of passion, can result only in exposing Europe to new misfortunes in the future ... . Is there really an ideological cause that justifies the struggle? Quite clearly, no.’4 Quite clearly, Izquierdo Luque did not consider antifascism a justification for the struggle. Nor, for that matter, did Ya’s readers hear of the fate of the Blue Legion, for never once did Ya refer to it, insisting instead on Spain’s constant adherence to the policy of absolute neutrality. To that end, Spain had rearranged its relations with Italy. In 1943, Franco had declined to recognise Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic. His ambassador, Raimundo Fernández Cuesta, was assigned to the Badoglio government,5 but, on 3 January 1945, Fernández Cuesta was recalled and replaced by José Antonio de Sangróniz, hitherto consul in 113

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Algiers.6 The arrival in Algeciras (via Gibraltar) of Italy’s new ambassador, Duque Tommaso Gallarati Scotti, was announced on 12 February.7 Hope still remained, hope that clutched at every real or imagined Allied setback. Arriba found instant comfort in a statement made by the US senator Burton K. Wheeler (Democrat, Montana) as he denounced ‘the Soviet and British expansionist policies in Europe, which are not to be tolerated’8 At the end of Hitler’s gamble in the Ardennes, the Falange journal ran the headline: ‘Several American military leaders have been relieved.’ A subheading added: ‘The names have not been released.’9 A week later Manuel Aznar reported important shifts in the command structure of the Wehrmacht. In this ‘Battle of Europe’, as Arriba called it, General Heinz Guderian, now chief of staff to Field Marshal Keitel, had been appointed to a second responsibility: supreme commander of the Axis forces on the Eastern front.10 The information was false.11 Germany’s bad news continued, but not in the columns of Informaciones where its readers were reassured on 25 January: ‘Every day—today again—brings the impression of an improvement on the German front. Every day the situation looks better, despite the fact that the German plans are still in the initial phase. It could not be otherwise. The Atlantic is swarming with U-boats.12 We think it right to warn that these reinforcements are nothing to what is in store ... . The same is true of the Luftwaffe.’13 ‘But where is the Luftwaffe?’ Arriba itself was to ask a few weeks later. As Germany’s agony stretched into February, the Spanish press gave prominence to the reports from the East attesting to the barbarities committed by the Red Army. Arriba voiced a protest that overlooked all the atrocities committed earlier in the German invasion of Poland and Russia: When war outsteps the bounds of Europe’s moral compass, when it falls into Asiatic primitivism, when it brings back memories of the barbarous tribes that destroyed the Roman Empire, of the hordes of Genghis Khan, then we ask ourselves: was anything that happened then worse than the present use of tanks and every other modern machine of war?14 Informaciones meanwhile, under the pen of ‘Unus’, offered a message of defiance: Neither unconditional nor conditional. Germany will not surrender! It holds in its hands a monumental strength backed by an indomitable will ... . All proposals, in good faith or bad, will be

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drowned out by the apocalyptic thunder with which Germany puts an end to the conflict.15 Arriba followed with a proposal of its own for an ending to the conflict. ‘Peace is possible only if capitalism and Bolshevism vanish.’16 Rather than discuss ideology at a time like this, Informaciones returned to the spirit of defiance, running a headline (which was not a quote): ‘The capitulation of Germany will never come to pass.’17 Side by side with these expressions of admiration for the cause of Nazi Germany, a series of articles emerged to address the more personal question of Spain’s past and future. Franco’s government, it was constantly repeated, had remained faithful to its policy of neutrality, and if that had temporarily shifted to non-belligerency, it surely intended no harm to the Allies. Conscious of the fact that others might view it differently, that others might dredge up official statements made in the past that could embarrass the Franco government, Arriba rose to the challenge: Facts, when they belong in the past, are no longer understood by words but by actions. A declaration of neutrality is worthless if the neutral State takes actions that in fact transform it into a belligerent. In the case of Spain, it is its neutral behaviour that validates its declaration ... . Spain defined itself in those days as ‘a neutral state on guard and vigilant [una neutralidad atenta y vigilante], which in international law is usually termed an ‘armed neutrality’ [neutralidad armada], although this term by itself has little meaning, since neutrality is always more or less armed. It depends upon the arms possessed and the risk that is run.18 Every opportunity was taken to present Spain as a land of tranquility in a war-torn, starving Europe. La Voz de España gave prominence to a letter published on 13 February in The Times of London. The writer, a long-term resident of Madrid, offered a spirited defence of the Franco regime, accusing the BBC and the British press of committing an injustice whenever they spoke of Spain other than as it was: ‘an oasis of peace and abundance in the middle of a Europe wracked by violence and hunger.’19 Such arguments did nothing to quiet the international criticism that grew in volume from day to day. In response to the opinion throughout the democratic world that Spain was a totalitarian state woven from the

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same cloth as any in the Axis, the Spanish press searched far and wide for arguments. La Voz de España took up the question as to whether the term totalitarianism was properly applicable to any state, and in doing so tied itself into knots: No state that accepts the doctrines of the Church as the norm of its behaviour can ever be called totalitarian. But it can almost be stated that no totalitarian State has ever existed. Italy was not, even when Mussolini called it so, because fascism was not total, among other things because it introduced an egalitarian economic revolution, and because it yielded to the forces of capitalism and allowed itself to be beaten by them. The Soviet Union is not totalitarian, because communism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, a partial dictatorship, a dictatorship of the group over the rest of the country. Perhaps it could be said that Germany is a totalitarian State, because nationalsocialism is the system that has achieved for a European people the most perfect equation between the national and the social, giving it the strongest unity of any people, giving it a common norm, a high morale, egalitarian justice and a solid destiny. But national-socialism has found its wellspring in the myths of race and purity of blood, which contradict the spirit of the Catholic Church. The Christian concept held by the Falange in regard to man, to authority, to freedom and to the State has nothing in common with totalitarianism or with tyranny.20 The same Times of London that had published the supportive letter from Madrid also published a letter by the exiled Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga in which he described the Spanish regime as ‘identical to the one that the Gestapo honed for the Nazis’. Fortunately for Franco’s public relations, an organisation existed in Spain called Libertad Vigilada, under the direction of Pérez Torreblanca, whose job it was to investigate any report of an act of injustice committed in Spain. Interviewed by The Times correspondent in Madrid, Pérez assured him that in Spain there never yet had been a case of a verdict handed down by a court in the form of revenge, and that all ‘common’ crimes had been judged in accordance with laws predating 18 July 1936. The accusation by Madariaga, Ya concluded, was therefore without merit.21 Developments in the diplomatic area, meanwhile, were of growing concern. The United Nations had met at a preliminary meeting in San Francisco on 1 January 1945.22 The republics of Spanish America stood

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out as an important future voting bloc. Mindful of that, Eugenio Montés, in Arriba, offered a reflection on the historic role of Spain, omitting any reference to the wars of independence that its former colonies had been forced to fight. The glory of Spain is to have created eighteen nations in America. That creation, in the purest European tradition, owes much to the Monroe Doctrine, which is often badly interpreted. For that doctrine upholds, with perfect legitimacy, the right of the United States not to allow any British interference in the development of that creation.23 Eugenio Montes would have done well to examine in greater depth the background and the application of the Doctrine to which he referred.24 The eyes of the world turned meanwhile to a new Allied conference, that of the Big Three at Yalta that opened on 4 February 1945. Security measures required that the location be kept secret, so a false location, the Romanian port of Constanza, was deliberately leaked. Arriba swallowed the bait, running the headline ‘Los tres gordos están reunidos en Constanza’ [The Three Fatties are meeting in Constanza]. In imagining the meeting of ‘the Big Three’ in Romania, Arriba remarked that it would surely be ‘a disappointment for the Bolsheviks’ not to have the meeting at home. It also remarked that the meeting would be held without the presence of de Gaulle.25 With or without a French presence at Yalta, considerable attention was being given to Marshal Pétain, now in Germany with the remnants of his Vichy Government. His former minister for foreign trade, PierreEtienne Flandin, was currently on trial in Paris, accused of collaboration with the enemy. Flandin claimed in his defence that, in November 1940, Pétain had entered into a secret treaty with Churchill under which France would re-enter the war on the Allied side as soon as circumstances permitted. An envoy sent by Pétain allegedly met with Churchill in London on 24–6 October of that year. The agreement, supposedly signed by Churchill, was then submitted to the Vichy government for its approval; the Marshal then supposedly ratified the agreement on 11 November and the British government on 24 November.26 It was a claim that Pétain would repeat at his own trial. It did neither any good: Flandin was sentenced to five years of national disgrace and Pétain to death (commuted to life imprisonment). The story was a total fabrication, as Churchill made clear, but the idea of

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claiming a hidden role was attractive to apologists of Franco, and for that reason La Voz de España did not pass it by. The retribution process, known in France as l’Épuration, had been underway since the Liberation, targeting all that were suspected of collaboration with the Nazi invader. Among those arrested and put on trial was Charles Maurras. In Arriba, Eugenio Montés, a member of the Real Academia Española, expressed his dismay that Maurras should be subject to such a fate, and invoked the memory of Severinus Boethius, the Roman Christian philosopher who had served Theodoric the Great only to be put to death on false charges of treason: ‘As with Boethius, imprisoned in the dark night of the ancient world, so with Maurras, imprisoned in this dark night of the modern.’27 In La Voz de España, Juan de Hernani similarly deplored this process of épuration, insisting that they were shooting ‘the best men in France’.28 No segment of the population in France was more determined to bring fascists to account than the large number of Spanish Republicans in exile, and their activities were bound to vex the Franco authorities sooner or later. Arriba protested: ‘Using the charge of collaborationism, extremist elements are destroying everything that can serve as resistance to communism.’ That protest was followed by an accusation so outrageous that it would have incensed not only Spanish communists but every Spaniard in Republican ranks: ‘The Spanish communists who today are disguising themselves as enemies of Germany collaborated most effectively in the Todt Organization in the construction of German fortifications along the Atlantic Wall.’29 In France at this time, the German Army still retained the Atlantic pockets, ranging from Brest, with 30,000 Germans, to Royan (GirondeNord), with 5,700, as well as others in Dunkirk, Pointe-de-Grave (Gironde-Sud), Lorient, La Rochelle and Saint-Nazaire. These pockets were to resist to the end. As Ros Agudo points out, the Anglo-Americans would have left them to rot, but the FFI thought differently. The Germans vainly thought that the bases could impede Allied supply lines. Theoretically, they could continue to serve as submarine bases, but their supplies were short and getting shorter, and they were under constant air attack. From October 1944, the German naval command planned the use of small vessels to bring in supplies from Spain. Between 1 January and 31 March 1945, Spanish vessels made 18 sailings from the Cantabrian coast to the French. The supplies made all the difference: one single Spanish vessel reaching Konteradmiral Michaelis in Bordeaux provided him with supplies for 45 days.30 Another Spanish vessel, weighing 350 tons, plied a longer voyage, sailing regularly from

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Cadiz to Royan between November 1944 and April 1945 with a cargo of flour, sardines, oranges, chocolate and nougat. Of the cargo it brought to Royan on 31 December 1944, one third passed to the German-held pocket at Pointe-de-Grave.31 Audeguil, the mayor of Bordeaux, reported on 6 February 1945 that meat factories in Pamplona were producing canned meat made from smuggled French beef and selling it at five times the price in France. The meat was then sent by submarine to the German forces in Royan and La Rochelle.32 Was Franco still hedging his bets? Did he believe, as Hitler did, that the fortunes of war could be reversed even now, with the introduction of new and hideous weapons that the Allies could not match? Serrano Súñer states that he was informed about the experiments that led up to the V-1s and the V-2s. ‘I also knew that eminent scientists across the Rhine were studying the use of nuclear energy. They were on the track of the atom bomb and I thought they would succeed.’33 The imminent arrival of the V-3 had already been announced by Arriba on 12 January. Under the headline ‘The V-3 has made its appearance, reports a Swiss agency,’ Arriba added subheadings that described its effects as ‘apparently terrifying’ and promised ‘new weapons of war more frightful than anything now known’. Its subliminal message was a call to the Allies to put an end to a war that no longer had a meaning: ‘This war, which should and could have ended in the space of twenty-four hours, now looks like continuing indefinitely. The Western peoples, in their maniacal obsession, are headed for the abyss.’34 To the abyss or not, the war went on, and Franco’s press still held out hope. ‘These are the decisive days,’ wrote ‘Unus’ in Informaciones: The days of the surprises, the surprises that we ourselves predicted for the Ides of March: a plane capable of flying at 1,400 km an hour, with a flight capacity of some 45 minutes. It has been tested only once. It was over Bremen, three months ago. Out of 64 Allied bombers that entered the space of the venerable Hanseatic city, NOT A SINGLE ONE STAYED IN THE AIR. [In block capitals in the original.] All 64 were shot down within minutes. Other surprises are also discussed. The certainty that they exist helps to sustain the morale of the German people, a people who are little inclined to give in to collective hallucination ... . That iron will that enables rail traffic to be resumed in 12 hours after it would seem to be permanently disrupted, that patriotic fervour that steals from the hours of sleep and holds 90 million beings in a state of fever, all this is the stuff of miracles ... .

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Germany has known for many months that it ‘needs’ to win. In this holocaust, this vital need, every German accepts the cruellest sufferings and, at the end, offers up his life. The example he sets, in its grandeur, fills the world with awe.35 If Informaciones was a pro-Nazi paper, and even in German hands, the same cannot be said for the Catholic organ Ya. It should be borne in mind that popular support for Franco was less monarchist and Falangist than Catholic. The new foreign minister, Lequerica, was described as Catholic, and the Catholic press undoubtedly provided the best measure of Franco’s personal thinking. But Ya was no less ready, even now, to give a headline to every real or imagined Allied reverse. Even if the only source for the report was Berlin, whenever the Germans claimed the recapture of a market town (such as Lauban, near Görlitz in Silesia, on 8 March), Ya was at hand to dignify the claim.36 In La Voz de España, Félix García Blázquez wrote of the consequences of a German shipwreck: ‘If Germany sinks, then all of Europe sinks, for it is to Germany that Europe owes virtually all its specifically Western philosophy, its music, its poetry, its historical research. To Germany we are indeed deeply indebted.’37 Meanwhile it was the task of Foreign Minister Lequerica to persuade the democratic world that Spain was a part of it. ‘A deep-rooted Spanish democracy has always existed’, he proclaimed on 16 March 1945, ‘through a thousand institutional forms.’ It was out of admiration for democracy that the municipality of Seville invited American diplomats on 17 March to be entertained in its famous Cuarto courtyard. ‘Spain will always be American,’ the Venezuelan minister to Spain said that day, ‘because without America, Spain’s place in history would be mutilated.’38 As for Argentina, it finally ended its support of the Axis cause, entering the war on the Allied side on 27 March 1945. Ya described Argentina at the end of that month as ‘more at peace than ever’. It added that the crew of the Graf Spee were finally made prisoners of war, while all Axis diplomats were reportedly interned.39 Chile’s declaration of war on Japan on 11 April was also duly noted in the Spanish press.40 As March 1945 drew to a close, the Spanish press ran a series of headlines that ranged in mood from troubled to defiant. ‘Where is the Luftwaffe?’ asked Manuel Aznar,41 only five days before he was appointed minister plenipotentiary in the Spanish embassy in Washington. ‘Not even the fall of Berlin will put an end to the war in Europe,’ wrote Francisco Lucientes.42 ‘With unshakeable courage the Germans fight back in the lower Rhine,’ wrote Informaciones.43 Ya assured

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its readers that Nazi Germany was undeterred by its present adversity, citing a report by Max Krull, military correspondent of the Deutches Nachrichten Büro (DNB) in Berlin: The German Supreme Command has in no way lost its nerve, because it knows that what happened in France in 1940 could never happen in Germany, for the following reasons: firstly, the civilian population will never support the Allies because it sees them as enemies [thus suggesting that the French civilian population saw the Germans as friends]; secondly, in areas conquered by the Allies they will face armed resistance [the Allies faced sullenness, but not overt hostility]; and thirdly, in the new sectors of hostilities, new units of the Volkssturm are blocking the Allied advance [ineffectively]. Moreover, the Allied problems of supply and reinforcements increase commensurately with the length of their advance, while the German resistance finds all the supplies it needs to carry out its mission.44 While the German defences continued to retract, Ya held steady in its support: If it is true that the German fronts are crumbling, it is no less evident that the rearguard remains firm. The ‘liberation movement’, as it is called, is nothing less than the preparation for guerrilla warfare on a grand scale. The movement will be equipped with secret short-wave radio transmission, ... and its ranks will be open to all: women, children and the old.45 Further reassuring news followed. ‘Eisenhower foresees guerrilla warfare in Germany,’ wrote Ya,46 and the same issue included a report, from Berlin, that the Allied advance had slowed down.47 Ya continued to offer hope, with a full headline on 12 April: ‘The German guerrilla fighters will prolong the resistance in the occupied zones.’48 In the same Catholic daily, Luis López-Ballestero paid his own tribute to the gallant defenders: The German soldier goes on fighting without a backward look. The Third Reich endures. Rumours come and go of peace at hand, but nothing suggests a capitulation, nothing is seen that can staunch the rivers of blood that flow from a resistance fighting for every inch. The Third Reich is hushed, fights on without losing heart, passes the penultimate weapons to the penultimate man, while the sounds

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that float in the air are the words of that leader of the German Nation who has said: ‘God pardon me for the last ten days of the war!’ Does Hitler have a weapon of such terrible and catastrophic power that it can still save the Third Reich? The balls of fire seen over Oslo49 may well be flight tests of a V-3 ... .50 Although Franco had declined in 1943 to recognise Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic, he continued to maintain diplomatic relations with Japan up until 11 April 1945.51 The rupture in these relations was greeted by Arriba with the subheading: ‘The murders and the wanton destruction committed by the Japanese are incompatible with the maintenance of normal friendship.’52 The murders and destruction Arriba was referring to dated back to the arrival of the Japanese in the Philippines, when, as we have seen, Spain and Arriba had shown the Japanese a high degree of forbearance. The next day Arriba noted proudly that the US press had given prominence to the action taken by Spain in severing its relations with Japan.53 On the very day it did so, Arrese suggested to an officer of the American embassy in Madrid that he was prepared to lead a new Falange Blue Division, this time against the Japanese!54 Lest anyone in Spain should think that the Falange had lost its fascist teeth, Blas Pérez González, minister of home affairs, issued a public warning in mid-April 1945 to the people of Jaén: Seeing me here, serene and calm ... is the best proof that our policies are correct. The Caudillo and his government are sufficiently strong not to be swayed by false rumours, impulsive actions, impassioned critiques and various stupid causes. We stand ready to repel these isolated cases of insurgency, which serve only to show in full clarity the impotence of those behind them.55 In the same week that Franco’s minister of home affairs was promising no change in Spain’s social fabric, Buchenwald became, on 11 April 1945, the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by the Western Allies; its subsidiary Ohrdruf, had been liberated six days earlier. There were relatively few prisoners to liberate, since half of the population had been evacuated south to Dachau or Mauthausen, and most of the rest had been massacred by Hitlerjugend just before the Americans arrived. Photographs and documentary film were quickly circulated throughout the free world, some showing Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton all present inspecting the scene. Ya, its Catholic conscience pricked, took the lead in Spain in reporting on what the Allies found, but it also took

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its time in doing so, and rather than describe the horror of the camp, Ya considered the main interest in the story of Buchenwald to be the tragic death of an Italian princess: ‘the daughter of King Vittorio Emmanuelle of Italy, Princess Mafalda de Hesse, died as a result of an air attack on the camp’s arms factory where the prisoners were working.’56 The death of Mafalda was hence the result of indiscriminate Allied bombing. Returning to the story a few days later, Ya was content to say: ‘Some days ago, at the time that the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated by Allied troops, they discovered inside it, in truly horrifying condition, several thousand British, American, French and other prisoners. Many prisoners had died from exhaustion and others were not expected to live ... . One of the prisoners, the French general Challe, died yesterday in Paris after his repatriation.’ The only other prisoner mentioned by name was again Princess Mafalda, whose death was now attributed to ‘gangrene resulting from a wound in her arm’.57 The fact that Buchenwald held more Spaniards than any other camp apart from Mauthausen was not mentioned; in fact there was no mention of a single Spaniard. The liberation of the SS camps was a matter of the keenest embarrassment for the Franco government, which had been informed about every detail of the fate of the Spanish Republicans who had been sent there in and after August 1940.58 The news of the death of President Roosevelt on 12 April 1945 caused sensation in Spain as elsewhere, and every journal had its comments to make. Informaciones responded in a column by its editor ‘Unus’: The death of Franklin D. Roosevelt will today monopolize radio and teletype. Understandably, the news last night moved the entire world. The deceased President was a man of exceptional stature who, like his two principal allies and his two principal adversaries, already holds a place of foremost rank in contemporary history. From our point of view, as Spaniards, we mourn the departure of a political leader who, bucking the opinion of his supporters and his allies, had begun to see, behind the curtain of smoke of a vengeful propaganda, the truth about Spain. Personally, we have faulted him on a number of occasions. But insofar as Roosevelt as an individual moved ahead, ... to a point where he began to intuit and perhaps to descry the Spanish reality, we retain a pleasant memory of the deceased President by virtue of the last months of his life. May God grant him His pardon.59 The Catholic Ya reported Roosevelt’s death by giving its headline to the comment by the foreign minister: ‘Spaniards feel America’s loss as if

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it were their own.’60 The next day Ya reported in its headline that the Caudillo had expressed his sorrow at the death of Roosevelt, adding: ‘Many Madrileños yesterday visited the American Embassy to express their condolences to Ambassador Norman Armour.’ A photo showed Lieutenant-Colonel Chacón, aide de camp of Franco, coming out of the embassy after delivering to Armour the letter of condolence of the Caudillo.61 In the same issue, Ya added: ‘In the chaos of the postwar world, with its self-interests, its hatreds and its passions played out in quarrels where no one listens, the President who has passed on would have represented, for many peoples in the world, a guarantee of a just peace and a just order.’62 Again, in the same issue, another headline reported an action taken by the Franco government that might possibly have been influenced by the death of Roosevelt: ‘The judicial measures taken in regard to crimes stemming from the Marxist rebellion [of 1936–9] have now been concluded.’63 On the same day, under the headline ‘Deep emotion throughout the world over the death of Roosevelt,’ Arriba reported in a subheading: ‘The Caudillo has sent a telegramme of condolences to the new President,’ and continued: ‘Now is not the time to discuss whether Roosevelt’s work was for good or bad. At least no one doubts he was a man like few others in the history of the world.’64 Such emotion was not shared by ABC’s Mariano Daranas, who referred to Roosevelt as ‘one of the three hounddogs [ gestores del acoso] of National-Socialist Germany.’65 The day after Roosevelt died, Informaciones expressed its rage against Montgomery’s announcement to his troops that the German Army had more or less ceased to exist: ‘We continue to think that the German Army will go on existing for a very long time.’66 Arriba saw a chance of fomenting inter-Allied friction by reporting that, in Soviet eyes, Americans and Germans were virtually fraternising: ‘The Soviet press, led by the daily Red Star, has mounted a campaign accusing the Americans of behaving gently with the Germans, with the result that the Germans are treating the Americans “as if they were a neutral power.” All that was blocking the American advance, it added, were the long lines of Germans taken prisoner.’67 Meanwhile, Vienna was falling to the Red Army. An editorial in Ya reacted: Vienna, the imperial city, with the Gothic spires of St Stephen’s Cathedral clambering to the sky, prepares to sacrifice itself to the invader, in a scene without precedent in History. A book just published by Professor Christopher Dawson, of University College Exeter, entitled The Origins of Europe, appears most

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timely and has been well received. Perhaps it could show us the way to save Western civilization from collapsing in the way it did in the darkness of the Middle Ages.68 The same Catholic journal added a warning: ‘Eisenhower does not believe it likely that a German surrender will be total. German divisions and even army corps would continue to resist as long as they have the means of doing so.’69 The next day, Informaciones chose for its headline: ‘It is considered unlikely that the capture of Berlin will put an end to the war.’70 Two days later Ya presented long extracts from Goebbels’s speech on the eve of Hitler’s 56th birthday, refraining once again from adding any criticism whatsoever: ‘International Jewry does not want peace until it has accomplished its satanic mission of world destruction.’71 In the same week the Spanish press finally confronted the Holocaust, only to dismiss it as the inevitable result of wartime chaos.72 The capital of the Reich was almost encircled,73 the last forces of Hitler were disintegrating, the Führer refused to appear again in public or even to speak on radio —and in Madrid a regime that was supposedly neutral was sounding the last cry of hope for National Socialism. The responsibility for a peaceful settlement, according to Antonio Mira in Ya, rested on the Allies. ‘The ending of the war will depend upon Allied occupation policy,’ ran his headline, with a subheading that warned: ‘It is believed that Germany can prolong the struggle from Norway and the mountain ranges of the Alps.’74 Two days later, Ya returned to this theme, this time with an estimate of German strength in Norway that invited ridicule: Even with the fall of the capital of the Reich, it seems likely that the war will continue in two quite different regions, both of them extraordinarily endowed with defence lines and troop reinforcements. These two areas, according to calculations, are Norway and Bavaria. In Norway alone, the German command today has at its disposal more divisions than those currently fighting against Eisenhower’s advance on the Western front.75 But the capital of the Reich had not fallen. ‘Hitler is directing the defenses of Berlin in person,’ Ya proudly announced: The Party leaders and officials have taken up positions in the streets, armed with Panzerfaust weapons, machine-pistols and rifles, and are engaged in intense fighting. Neither the serious casualties inflicted

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by the Soviets nor their material strength have been able to subdue the defenders of the capital of the Reich. Side by side with their comrades in the Wehrmacht and in the Volkssturm, the Party members have proved their valour in the most difficult conditions.76 The same issue quoted Dr Goebbels: ‘This is a moment that will be indelibly recorded among the greatest events in the history of Man.’77 Germany was undefeated, and pushing back. ‘German troops re-conquer Liegnitz in Silesia,’ ran a headline in El Alcázar, followed by a subheading: ‘Reaching the outskirts of Baden, south of Vienna.’78 On 28 April, there was further good news: ‘Again the Russians fail to encircle Berlin.’79 The same day Informaciones reported from the capital the birth of a new daily paper entitled Berlinerfront Nachrichtenblatt and announced an improvement in the German positions in the region of Semmering in Styria.80 Accompanying all these euphoric reports from the battlefront, whether drawn from Berlin or invented in Madrid and Barcelona, were several articles to reassure Spanish readers that peace, when it came, though it meant the tragic capitulation of Germany, was altogether good news for Spain. ‘For Spain,’ wrote Arriba, ‘the reestablishment of peace will be the dawn of a great day, with unlimited prospects of calm and rebirth ... . Spain maintained its neutrality most scrupulously. For this great feat time will heap the highest praise on Franco.’81 El Alcázar added its praise, comforted in the thought that Franco’s policies had preserved the integrity of Spain: This peace in Europe is at the same time the victory of Spain ... . Spain has maintained a neutrality of dignity and fertility, because it has shown intelligence and a will to peace and a capacity to resist the temptations of the day ... . Spain has been noble and dignified to the very end. It triumphed over its own weakness by refusing succulent offers of territory and position, and by not wanting to take advantage of those transcendental moments in the conflict by stabbings others in the back.82 In Arriba, Salvador Lissarragüe argued a different nuance: Spain had fought for peace, while dealing from strength. At every moment Spain proclaimed, through the voice of Franco, that it disapproved of war between Christian, European and American peoples, precisely because it could endanger our common and universal civilization ... . A country such as our own, which

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brought into being the first Army in its modern form, an Army that was invincible for a century and a half, ... cannot look kindly on any abstract, tearful and weak-willed pacifism.83 In ABC, Mariano Daranas was equally pleased with the outcome: Providence, which for three centuries has never spared Spain from moments of trial, has saved us from ignominy. From this derives our immortality. Peace is the culmination of its efforts, over nearly six years, to maintain a sincere and dignified neutrality.84 There was another reason why Franco’s Spain should not feel vulnerable. Surely the Allies were grateful for the help that Spain had provided them. Ya seized on a report in the News Chronicle on a speech given by Lord Templewood (hitherto Sir Samuel Hoare) at a banquet of the Overseas League in London. Templewood referred to the ‘thousands of escaped British prisoners who had found their way home through Spain. Many of the men were paratroopers who had been dropped on French soil.’85 At the same time, in ABC, Mariano Daranas argued that the charges of treason leveled at Leopold III of the Belgians by his countrymen and his allies were quite unfounded. Rather than treason, his act of capitulation made good sense. [The King of the Belgians] had, at the core of his being, an admiration for national-socialism ... . He wanted to preserve his country from war ... . He rectified or slackened the diplomatic commitments contracted by his father, foiling in this way the political and military aims of the Allied chancelleries ... . His sole purpose was to prevent his country from serving once again as a battlefield ... . Overpowered, and deprived of all help from France and Britain, he capitulated in order to prevent his Army from being exterminated. ‘Le roi félon’ he was called by Paul Reynaud, at the time head of the French Government ... . The one positive thing left is that Belgium now yearns for the return of a Head of State who, if he does not take his place among the victors—like Edward VIII, he had stopped believing in the efficacy and vitality of the Western parliamentary system— neither does he figure among the losers, because between National Socialist Germany and his admiration for it, the invasion and the occupation opened an abyss.86 None of this kind of reasoning would help Leopold of the Belgians, who would eventually be forced to abdicate. As for Léon Degrelle, Belgium’s

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fascist leader as head of the Rexist Party, a Belgian court would soon sentence him to death for treason, but like untold other fascists on the run, he would find a safe refuge in Spain. Already such charges were being made, and Arriba tried its best to refute them, publishing a note from the foreign ministry: ‘Concerning reports of “war criminals” who have allegedly taken refuge in the Balearic Islands, the story is absolutely false and a total invention ... .’87 The foreign ministry, it might be noted, did not deny that fascist fugitives were finding succour on the mainland. As foreign press attacks on Spain increased, the Franco press searched for support and found some sympathy in Portugal, where the Lisbon daily A Voz rallied to Franco’s defence: ‘Spain is the target of a non-stop campaign of insults and falsification, a campaign backed by a large part of the European and American presses.’88 May opened with news of the death of the Duce. In Informaciones, ‘Unus’ wrote on 1 May of ‘the foul murder of Mussolini and his loyal followers’, then turned to the scene in Berlin: The various episodes in the defence of Berlin reach heights of grandeur that will never fade. Mounds of corpses of men and women of pure race and of a culture never surpassed rise like a pulsating wall to block the onrush of the putrid yellow wave. Historians will not find words, nor poets images, to capture the ineffable beauty of this vast tableau. The day will come when Art will find a symbol for the heroic city, and there will not be a city square that does not erect in its centre a monument to Berlin ... . We believe that when the victorious marshal Eisenhower turns his eyes to the East and glimpses the horizon thick with the smoke of Berlin’s sacred pyre, when he perceives the savage grandeur of its defense, he will feel a choking sensation in his throat, however much his throat may be used to voicing gruff commands ... . If one day the US flag flies over the ruins of Berlin, it will fly at half-mast. And a picket of the finest athletes will stand permanent guard over the tomb of the heroes. Of that we are convinced.’89 To those who saw Hitler as the hope of the world, 1 May 1945 was more than a day of mourning. ‘Throughout Europe the cry goes out: “Stand up”!’ wrote Informaciones. Adolf Hitler, son of the Catholic Church, has died defending Christianity. His tomb, the funeral pyre of Berlin, can carry a Spanish epitaph: El que está aquí sepultado, no murió, que fue su muerte partida

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para la vida. [He who is buried here did not die. From death he departed into life.] If Adolf Hitler had been allowed to choose his death, this is the death he would have chosen, that he might turn death into life. Together with the palm of martyrdom, God bestows on Hitler the laurel of victory ... . Hitler died that Europe might be free. The profound mystique created in Europe by his death will end in triumph over all Humanity.90 Hitler had preferred to sacrifice himself for Europe, it added, rather than unleash his secret weapons.91 ‘He earned the respect, the sorrow and the admiration of the world,’ added El Alcázar,92 and a day later: ‘There, in front of the Soviet enemy, the leader of Germany went out to meet death as a soldier. Nothing is known of the mortal wound, nor has anything yet been said concerning the final hours of the German caudillo.’93 The obituaries did not stop. ‘Memories of Hitler will live in the German mind for thousands of years,’ wrote Informaciones in a new headline.94 He was a man of peace and goodwill, a subheading suggested: ‘Never once did the Führer voice a word of hatred or unfriendliness toward England and France.’95 Despite their ingratitude, Germany would live on: ‘Germany, that resisted for six years against the entire world, can never be crushed.’96 In Arriba, Eugenio Montés of the Spanish Royal Academy, in a front-page article entitled ‘Germany’s Symphonie Pathétique’, praised the ‘eternal values’ of German life, concluding ‘Germany cannot die.’97 ‘The Allied victory’, added Informaciones, ‘was merely the triumph of materialism over heroism.’98 A front-page heading was given to the visit of the Irish leader De Valera, accompanied by his foreign minister, Joseph Walshe, to the German embassy in Dublin, where they expressed their grief to Dr EE Hedphill, the German minister to Eire.99 On 1 May 1945, Hitler’s Chancellery was in Soviet hands, but not so for El Correo Catalán. ‘The Russian penetration eliminated in the sector of the Berlin ministries,’ ran its headline on 2 May.100 Other headings attested to the ‘tenacious resistance of the Berliners from house to house’, and to ‘indescribable scenes in the battle of Berlin’.101 If the German Army was beaten, its supporters in Spain were not. Even on 5 May, Arriba reported in a headline: ‘Several Soviet and Polish divisions annihilated in the region of Bautzen,’ while a subheading reported: ‘The city of Lommatzsch [in Styria] among the many places reconquered.’ Another reported: ‘Breslau continues to resist.’102 On 6 May its front-page headline ran: ‘Many German combat groups still resisting in Berlin,’ while ‘Large-scale battles [were] expected in the Meissen sector.’103 Even three days after the

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German capitulation, readers of Arriba were told: ‘Schoerner’s army refuses to surrender to the Russians.’104 Such reports of undiminished German defiance filled a large part of the press, and what remained was dedicated to praising the wisdom and skill of the Caudillo in maintaining his steady hand on the helm of the ship of state. On the day of Germany’s capitulation, every newspaper in Spain received the order to hail the capitulation of Germany as a triumph ... for Franco.105 Accordingly, ABC on that day carried a frontpage picture of the Caudillo with the caption: ‘He appears to have been chosen by the benevolence of God. When everything was obscure, he saw clearly ... and defended and sustained Spain’s neutrality.’106 Arriba, on that day, presented not a single picture of an Allied leader. Instead it published a three-column photograph of Franco, with the caption: ‘The Caudillo of neutrality.’107 On the same day, Ya presented another photograph, with the caption: ‘The Caudillo saved Spanish neutrality, and with it the honour, dignity and sovereignty of a nation ready, as always, to continue to work effectively in concert with free peoples.’108 ‘Satisfaction in the hour of peace,’ ran the heading of an editorial in La Voz de España: ‘The end of hostilities marks the crowning of Spain’s position of neutrality. That position has been maintained with dignity.’109 One tribute to Franco and his neutrality was noticeably missing, that of ‘Unus’, the chief editorial writer of Informaciones. Its editor published a message from ‘Unus’ to the effect that he was now taking ‘a short vacation’ and thanked his readers for the many letters of support that they had sent him. The editor added that ‘Unus’ had left without wishing to reveal his identity.110 Loyal to the last, it was only on the day of Germany’s surrender that Franco broke off diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany. Only then were the swastikas removed from the German embassy building, which was then sealed.111 In reporting the ratification of the armistice in Berlin, Arriba drew its coverage from the UP agency in London. Its report was therefore objective, and even critical of Field Marshal Keitel, who ‘maintained his arrogance to the end’. The instruments of surrender were signed in the Hall of the Military Academy of Engineers, situated between Friedrichstrasse and Rheinsteinstrasse. ‘At midnight the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur Tedder, and Marshal Georgi Zhukov, commander in chief of 1st Belorussian Front, entered the room. Eight minutes later Keitel and Friedenburg appeared. Keitel could not contain his tears.’112 As if to redress the balance, Arriba took obvious pleasure two days later in presenting a front-page photo entitled

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‘Molotov’, whose only purpose was to remind its readers of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939. The caption read: ‘Following the defeat of France by the German Army, Mr Molotov was in Berlin for talks with Hitler, Goering and Rudolf Hess.’ The photo showed the Soviet foreign minister reviewing German troops. Immediately to his right was Ribbentrop, and to Ribbentrop’s right, Keitel.113 One unappealing matter remained: how to reveal, or conceal, the operation of the SS camps to which some 8,000 Spanish Republicans had been sent. While over 90 per cent of these had been sent to Mauthausen, the remainder had finished up all over the SS archipelago and the Spanish records were incomplete. After Buchenwald, the first camp to be reported in the Spanish press was Bergen-Belsen. Ya’s correspondent in London drew from the Evening News the statement made by the camp’s last commandant, SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Kramer, who had been arrested by the British. Thousands of people, Kramer admitted, had died in the camp under his command and he felt very sorry for them. ‘It does not weigh on my conscience, though,’ he added, ‘because everything was done for them that could be done. If you take into consideration the conditions that existed in Belsen, you will pardon me and all my guards. Believe me, we did everything in our power to improve the lot of those who were interned here.’114 Kramer was hanged on 17 November 1945. On 12 May, Ya reported in a front-page headline that the horror of the concentration camps was ‘indescribable’, and in keeping with its statement, it offered no description. By that date, the camp that the Spanish press had the most interest in covering had already been liberated for a week, but the name of Mauthausen was still not mentioned. The press continued to lag. On 15 May, Ya introduced Spanish readers to Dachau, ‘a camp of horrors.’ Its front page reported the abolition of NationalSocialism in Germany, but the report on Dachau was relegated to page 3 and it spoke primarily of typhus. Even further down in the newspaper, on page 4, Spanish readers received the first mention of Mauthausen, in a report from Paris: Paris, 14 May. The US Third Army has found, to the east of Salzburg, a concentration camp which reduces those of Buchenwald and Dachau to the level of a child’s game, in the words of a US Army colonel to a delegation of the US press. The colonel added that this camp was intended for political prisoners who were forced to work in limestone mines ‘for hours and hours, without more food than a scoop of potato soup per day.’115

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The next day Ya, the Catholic daily, gave further news of Dachau, albeit on page 3: ‘More than 1,000 priests perished in the camp at Dachau.’116 There was no mention of Dachau’s Spaniards, anymore than there was mention of the Spaniards of Mauthausen, many of whose survivors were at that moment reaching the Hotel Lutétia in Paris, ready, if they still had the physical and mental strength, to tell their story to anyone who cared.

Epilogue: Duplicity Rewarded (1945–1953)

In the five difficult years that lay ahead, Franco would succeed in covering the traces that would have implicated him too deeply in the Axis cause. The policy of guile and duplicity that he had followed over the previous five years was hardly a noble one, but it allowed him afterwards to point to the ways he had helped the Allies. If, on the other hand, it had been the Axis that won the war, then no doubt a book would have quickly appeared under the title Franco and the Allied Stigma, based on substance so light that Franco would have had no difficulty in dismissing it. The Atlantic Charter of 14 August 1941, in its Article 3, had affirmed the right of every people to choose the form of government it desires, and the Yalta Agreement, of 12 February 1945, had promised assistance to the peoples of the former Axis satellites in order that they might solve their problems through free elections. On the occasion of the conference in San Francisco (25 April–26 June 1945) which established the United Nations, a delegation of Spanish Republicans attending the conference as observers attempted to introduce measures whereby the jurisdiction of the War Crimes Tribunal established by the Allies could be extended to cover crimes committed by Spanish Nationalist forces during the Civil War. Their attempts were futile, for not even the crimes that the Axis forces committed in Spain, notably the destruction of Guernica, were included in the charges presented at the Nuremberg Tribunal. On the other hand, the conference did adopt, on 19 June 1945, and by acclamation, a Mexican resolution which barred any state whose regime had been installed with the help of the armed forces of countries at war with the United Nations from membership in that body so long as that regime remained in power. Only Spain matched such a description. The resolution adopted in San Francisco was ratified 133

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by the Three Powers in their final communiqué after the meeting in Potsdam (17 July–2 August 1945). This time the Spanish government was mentioned by name. At Potsdam, Clement Attlee, who had won the British general elections on 7 July 1945, and had become prime minister on 27 July, replaced Churchill in mid-conference. He proceeded to follow a policy towards Spain much more conciliatory than might have been expected, in the light of his pro-Republican activities during the Civil War. Churchill, for his part, had evolved somewhat in the other direction. On 24 May 1944, in the House of Commons, Churchill had expressed his acknowledgement to Franco for not having taken advantage of the situation in 1940–2 when Allied fortunes were lowest. But when Franco, on 18 October, attempted a friendly gesture towards Churchill, by proposing in a letter a common front against Bolshevism, the prime minister answered him in hostile terms, reaffirming his loyalty to the Anglo-Soviet alliance which he considered a buttress of the new world organisation.1 Official British documents released in March 1975 show that Stalin tried to get British and US support in Potsdam in a bid to overthrow Franco, and that the move against Franco was cautiously welcomed by Truman,2 resisted by Churchill, and finally rejected by Attlee and his foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin. Churchill, according to the minutes, said he detested the Franco regime, but he saw difficulty in the proposal that the newly formed United Nations break off all relations with it. Truman said he would be happy to recognise a government other than Franco’s but it would be for Spain to settle that. A draft declaration singling out Spain for special rebuke was eventually drawn up but scrapped when Bevin objected to it, even though Bevin, too, was to cry out in the Commons, on 5 December 1945: ‘We detest this regime.’3 To offset such remarks, Franco’s press reminded the Spanish people of their good fortune. In the same month as Victory in Europe Day (VE Day), the Falange press announced: ‘The events which have come to pass in the world only confirm the clear-sightedness of the National Movement ... . Spain has prepared herself for this moment and she can therefore view events with serenity.’4 Less serene was the Spanish government’s reaction a few weeks later to an incident in France. A train was passing through Chambéry in June 1945 when it was attacked by a crowd. Some 150 people were injured in the melee. According to the prevailing rumour, the train was transporting to Spain the last veterans of the Blue Division who had volunteered for the Blue Legion. It was also said that all kinds of precautions had been taken by the French

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government to hide the fact that the passengers were Blue Legion volunteers. The truth of the matter is that the train, coming from Switzerland, was carrying only Spanish diplomatic personnel together with some workers.5 Spain lodged a formal protest, claiming that French troops and even French officers had taken part in the incident. A demand for 4 million francs in damages was presented, rejected, presented again and rejected again.6 Although the last Falangist ministers resigned from the government on 20 July 1945, their press remained unstinting in its praise of the Blue Legion. Oblivious to the fact that in Catholic Spain the works of Jacques Maritain, now French ambassador to the Vatican, were totally banned, Arriba wrote: ‘Franco has made Spain the bulwark of the Catholic faith in the West; without his valour and his wisdom, almost the whole of Europe would today be Sovietised.’7 Then, in a series of political switches that followed Victory over Japan Day (VJ Day), a decree of 11 September 1945 put an end to the fascist salute. The Spanish authorities explained their reason for banishing it: a salute that during the world conflict was no more than ‘an expression of friendship and cordiality’ could now, in the new circumstances, be ‘interpreted in a twisted light’.8 Not only the blue shirt of the New Falange but also the black shirt of the Old Falange disappeared from public view as if dispelled by some magician, while several veterans of the Blue Division took the distinguishing insignia off their tunics.9 Nevertheless, only weeks later, in November 1945, the Falange evening paper El Pueblo published a series of articles entitled ‘Man of the Day’. While featuring Axis leaders such as Kesselring, Raeder, Yamamoto and Keitel, no one on the Allied side appeared except the American isolationist senator Burton K. Wheeler.10 Meanwhile, on 26 October 1945, Franco decided to give an address in Toledo, on the ruins of the Alcázar, to 200 officers of general rank who had all received their promotions from him. The speech was not reproduced in any Spanish journal. Since those present were forbidden to take notes, it took the foreign press agencies several days to reconstruct, bit by bit, an approximate text. The reason for such precautions was apparently the fear that Franco felt over the fragility of his regime. His address, however, contained a message that he intended for a much larger audience than that in front of him at the Alcázar: ‘I promised a million bayonets to defend Berlin against the Russians. Today I offer three million to the Allies in the defence of Europe.’11 None of the Powers, in any event, recognised the Spanish Republic in exile. Stalin withheld recognition out of fear that it would have raised the question of the Spanish gold that had been shipped to Russia

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during the Civil War. The Spanish gold carried by the Vita to Veracruz, it should be added, had not deterred Mexico from recognising the Republic.12 The ‘Spanish question’ was the subject of continual debate in the United Nations throughout 1946. Franco began the year by denying, in a long interview with DeWitt MacKenzie, the Madrid correspondent of Associated Press, that he had ever on any occasion supported the Axis.13 It was in response to these attempts to dissemble that Sir Samuel Hoare, in his memoirs published that same year, called to mind that ‘this was the man who at every critical moment of the war had publicly insulted the Allies ... . No public man within this generation had proved himself so continuously wrong about the course of the war.’14 According to a report which was widely distributed among the Spanish exile sectors, in 1946 there were in Spain between 100,000 and 500,000 Germans, including 6,000 scientists and technicians.15 The source of this story was Carmen Guturbay y Alzola, Marchioness of Yurreta y Gamboa, who based her estimate on her own investigations in Spain during the 29 months between 1 August 1943 and the end of December 1945. Communist propagandists moved into such reports immediately. There were rumours, fed by the Polish government, that a certain German heavy water specialist by the name of Hermann von Segerstady was working on atomic energy at a heavily guarded plant at Ocaña near Toledo, and that Spain had between 600,000 and 700,000 troops mobilised for action. Dismissing such talk as ‘patently absurd’, Keith Hamilton points out that ‘all that [UN official Sir Victor] Mallet’s staff could find at Ocaña were a brick factory and an alcoholic distillery.’16 With nothing but his own disgraced word to support it,17 André Marty claimed that Spain had admitted 40,000 armed Nazis without interning them as international law requires, and that Alberto Martín Artajo, Franco’s new foreign minister,18 had acknowledged on 12 January 1946 that 100,000 Nazis were currently in Spain.19 Marty had apparently distorted the statement made by Martín Artajo in his first press conference held on that same 12 January, in which he declared that there were between 7,000 and 8,000 Germans in Spain, many of whom had been living in the country for 25 years without having any political affiliations. During the war, he added, a considerable number of German diplomats had also arrived, as well as a tiny number of other Nazi officials. Many of them, he said, had asked to be repatriated, and the Spanish government was studying the means of their doing so.20 But there was more to this story than communist propaganda and Francoist denials. Spain’s refusal to prosecute or extradite Nazi war

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criminals reinforced the image of a Spain ideologically attuned to the Axis cause. Sam Pope Brewer wrote in the New York Times that many of the Nazi fugitives who were reaching Spain were travelling with Spanish passports.21 In this clouded area of Nazis fleeing from justice, facts are still hard to obtain. Johann Zimmermann reported from Germany that an underground organisation existed there known as Tod oder Spanien. Its purpose was to encourage and assist young Nazis under threat of arrest by either the Allied or the West German authorities. Its most active centres were in Hamburg and Munich. The Spanish consulate in Zurich was reported as recruiting volunteers for the Spanish Foreign Legion (the Tercio), while the Nazi escape route, Tarbes, served as the last stopping place before Spain. In Spain, the German services continued to work actively. The Servicio de Información in Madrid, under the direction of Colonel Ignacio Moyano,22 continued to work on inventions and discoveries begun during the Third Reich. Lieutenant Colonel Zea, awarded the German Eagle first class for his service in the Blue Division, and Lieutenant Colonel José Barrón were among the Spaniards working with them.23 Long is the list of Nazi criminals that were given asylum in Spain. SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny worked in Spain to set up the network that allowed hundreds of high-ranking SS to escape to South America; he himself lived out a life of luxury in Spain and at his country estate in Ireland until his death in 1975.24 Among the less known was Herbert Habel, the former private secretary to Gauleiter August Eigruber in Linz, Austria; after escaping in 1945 to France, he moved to Spain and thence to Argentina under the alias Kurz Repa, dying in Bariloche on 28 July 2000.25 The fascist former foreign minister of Italy, Dino Grandi, escaped Mussolini’s revenge26 by fleeing to Spain. From there he moved to Brazil before returning to Italy in 1973, dying in Bologna on 21 May 1988. Léon Degrelle, head of the Rexist Party in Belgium, had served as an SS-Sturmbannführer and commander of the 28th SS-Panzer-Grenadier Division (‘Wallonien’). In May 1945, he flew from Norway to Spain and stayed there for the remainder of his life. At the time of his arrival the Belgian government demanded his extradition. The Franco regime refused, using as pretext the fact that he had been seriously injured when his plane crash-landed on the beach at La Concha in San Sebastian. Brussels continued to demand his return. In August 1946, Madrid announced that Degrelle had been expelled. In fact, he had been told to go into hiding and was living in Madrid, and especially on the Costa del Sol. In the 1950s, he surfaced in Madrid long enough to be interviewed by a Dutch TV crew, but otherwise he lived,

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under the name León José de Ramírez Reina, in near-total seclusion in the province of Malaga.27 In April 1946, the UN Security Council had before it a dossier drawn up by eight groups including the Congress of Industrial Organizations; the dossier alleged that there were currently in Spain at least 50,000 and perhaps 100,000 Germans, that Nazi holdings, open and cloaked, amounted to between $100,000,000 and $200,000,000, and that Nazi scientists were indeed engaged there in research on atomic energy and jet propulsion.28 On 12 April, Fernando de los Ríos, the Spanish Republic’s former ambassador to Washington, claimed in New York that more than 1,000 former members of the Gestapo were currently serving in Franco’s security police.29 Official French reports tended to support these claims. In February 1946, the French intelligence services estimated the number of Germans and former members of the French Milice in the whole of Spain at about 100,000; according to one French agent, they were stationed primarily in Barcelona, San Sebastian, Madrid and Saragossa, while their headquarters had been set up in Sitges, south-west of Barcelona.30 The same French agent reported that the Germans in Barcelona province numbered 20,000, and that in Barcelona itself they were living in the wealthiest districts, particularly on the Diagonal, Ramblas, calle de Valencia and calle de Balmes. Others disguised as clergymen had taken up residence in the monastery of Montserrat.31 A later French report attested to the presence of large numbers of German officers in Lérida and Saragossa, where they were learning Spanish in the Convent of Los Cartujos; having acquired the language they would be incorporated into the Army.32 Reports of this nature had their effect on the attitude within the United Nations. In London, on 8 February 1946, the first session of the General Assembly approved, by 45 votes and two abstentions, with four members absent, a resolution proposed by Panama to reinforce the decision taken at San Francisco by excluding Spain by name from the United Nations Organization. ‘The government of General Franco,’ ran the resolution, ‘imposed by force with the aid of the Axis powers, does not represent the Spanish people.’ On 21 December 1945, the American ambassador Norman Armour had left Spain, and the United States was thenceforth represented in Madrid only by a chargé d’affaires. The United States, however, refused to agree to a French proposal to bring the Spanish question before the Security Council, insisting instead on a tripartite declaration by the three Western powers. The American diplomat Sumner Welles deplored the ambiguity in his country’s policy. By refusing to intervene in Spanish internal affairs at the same time that

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it was urging Spaniards to overthrow the Franco regime, the United States, in the opinion of Welles, was at once sponsoring action outside the United Nations and giving the Soviet Union an extra incentive to take unilateral action against Franco.33 On 4 March 1946, the three foreign ministers ( James Byrnes, Ernest Bevin and Georges Bidault) issued their communiqué denouncing Franco’s regime as one assisted to power by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, ‘on whose regimes the Spanish regime is modelled’. The communiqué expressed the hope that liberal elements in Spain could obtain the peaceful withdrawal of Franco, the abolition of the Falange and the establishment of a provisional government which would allow the Spanish people to choose their system of government freely. But the United States, despite its efforts to prevent it, was forced shortly afterwards to allow the question to be presented to the Security Council. There, on 17 April 1946, the Polish delegate Oscar Lange voiced the opinion that the Franco regime was a ‘threat to peace’ and presented the far-fetched notion that German scientists in Spain were working on the development of the atomic bomb. Poland’s proposal for an immediate suspension of diplomatic relations with Spain was not supported by the United States or the United Kingdom, who applied their veto. In the subsequent stalemate, the question was passed to an investigative subcommittee. This subcommittee (comprising Australia, Brazil, China, France and Poland) reported on 1 June that the Franco regime represented ‘a potential threat to international peace and security’. Finally, on 12 December, the UN General Assembly, in its new session held at Lake Success, adopted a resolution by 34 votes to 6 with 13 abstentions and one absent.34 The resolution, which crowned the efforts made by the Spanish Republicans in exile, excluded Spain from all agencies and conferences of the United Nations, called on the Security Council to study the measures to be adopted if, within a ‘reasonable time’, Spain still lacked a government based upon the consent of the Spanish people, and summoned all member states to withdraw forthwith their ambassadors and plenipotentiaries from Madrid. The resolution also recommended that an economic blockade be established against Spain. Among those who bewailed the UN resolution was the Anglophobe François Piétri, the former Vichy ambassador to Spain and a close associate of Pierre Laval, with whom he had maintained both an official and a secret correspondence. After his resignation as ambassador on 24 August 1944 he had stayed in Madrid, understandably so, for in 1948 he was sentenced in absentia by a French court to five years of national indignity. In 1950 he returned to France where he lived for the rest of

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his life in political isolation. Twelve years before his death in 1966 he published his memoirs in which he wrote of ‘the fate of a few hundred French who in late 1944 had crossed the frontier to escape bloody reprisals: Vichy officials, Parti populaire français (PPF) members, who had nothing to be reproached for, other than the simple fact of their employment or their affiliation. A half of these were very soon able to find their way to South America.’35 Turning to the UN’s ‘incomprehensible policy toward Spain’ he stated: ‘Spain, to whom we owe, when all is said and done, our victory in the war, is faced with a hostility which is the more open for the fact that it no longer carries a risk. [In 1940] Spain was a danger that everyone had to treat with care. Today it is innocuous, and everyone is free to curse it.’36 France had emerged during this time as the Western power most hostile to the Franco regime. No man was more hated and despised by the French than Pierre Laval, disingenuously so by those who had taken no part in the Resistance but who saw in the person of Laval the embodiment of their country’s disgrace. The fate of Laval was a topic of national consequence in France, but the drama was actually played out in Spain. It opened in Sigmaringen in Bavaria, where the Vichy leaders had set up their government after leaving Vichy on 20 August 1944. On 2 March 1945, Laval and his wife Jeanne, together with five former Vichy officials, headed by Maurice Gabolde, Garde des Sceaux,37 were escorted by the Gestapo from Sigmaringen to nearby Wilflingen, to stay on an estate owned by the von Stauffenberg family. There Laval wrote to Walter Stucki, the former Swiss ambassador to Vichy, now in Berne, asking for permission to stay a fortnight in Switzerland to prepare his defence. On 19 April, Ribbentrop gave categorical orders that Pétain and Laval were not to fall into Allied hands; they were to leave for the Bavarian or the Tyrolean Alps. Maurice Gabolde suggested Spain instead. Laval readily agreed. He carried everywhere a letter from Franco warmly thanking him for his speeches in the Senate during the Civil War in which he defended the cause of French non-intervention. ‘I will never forget it,’ wrote Franco. Laval could surely also count on Lequerica, the foreign minister who, while ambassador to Vichy, would refer to Laval everywhere as ‘Pierre, my very dear friend.’ Laval therefore wrote to Madrid to request asylum for himself and Gabolde. Then, on 26 April, Laval received a reply from Stucki: Laval’s colleague Charles Rochat was accepted into Switzerland, but not Laval or Gabolde. Laval then tried Liechtenstein. The Principality immediately refused. On 29 April, after Abel Bonnard, the Vichy minister of national education, had joined the party at Feldkirch, the news arrived from Lequerica: Spain

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agreed, on condition that his stay not exceed a simple transit. Dr Rudolf Rahn, Hitler’s former representative to the Italian Socialist Republic, offered him a Junkers-88 which was used for shuttling between Merano and Barcelona. The plane had already taken to Spain the family of Claretta Petacci, the mistress of Mussolini. No sooner had Laval received his letter of acceptance into Spain than the party left Feldkirch for Merano, where Dr Rahn and Franz Hofer, Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, met them on 2 May 1945. The plane, carrying eight (its two pilots, Laval and Jeanne, Gabolde, Jacques Guérard, Abel Bonnard and his brother), arrived that evening at the Llobregat airfield in Barcelona—and immediately ran into problems. The civil governor of Barcelona, Correa Veglison, arrived on the scene. After a delay, phone communication was established with Madrid. Lequerica affected surprise but promised to contact the minister of the interior about a provisional and secret stay-over.38 On 3 May, Franco and Lequerica informed Laval that he could not stay in Spain. The rest of the party, including Jeanne, were free to stay as ‘ordinary political refugees’. Laval had ‘the choice of destination’. They suggested Ireland or certain countries in South America. At this point Spanish friends of Lequerica’s did not hesitate to call his conduct ‘ignoble, unworthy of a Spaniard’. Laval and his party were given accommodation in the Montjuich citadel, the same prison that earlier had been used for those Spanish Republicans delivered by Vichy to the Germans and by the Germans to Franco. Laval’s party were treated differently, and lodged in officers’ quarters. An envoy arrived from Lequerica with a promise: ‘The Spanish Government will never hand over to the French Government a political refugee.’ Laval and Jeanne regained their confidence. But the promise was quickly diluted. Lequerica had succeeded in persuading Franco only to allow Laval and his wife to stay in Spain three months. The next message promised even less. Franco would not turn Laval over to the French or even to the Americans ‘unless it became absolutely necessary’. On 31 May, Veglison brought news that was even worse: the Spanish government could not hold Laval one day more. He was to take the plane the same night. The governor proposed Ireland: ‘he will be well received.’ The party agreed to leave for Ireland, but then Laval changed his mind. The news that Pétain was to stand trial for treason made Laval decide to return to France. His fear now was that friends of Le Maréchal would use Laval’s absence as an excuse to make him the scapegoat for Vichy’s actions. He thus resolved to return to France and explain his policy under the Occupation. This he would do, he announced, as soon as he had recovered his health. His further letters

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to Lequerica were never answered, and, on 21 July, Lequerica was replaced as foreign minister by Alberto Martín Artajo. On 30 July, Martín sent Major Gonzalo, chief of military security for Catalonia, to Montjuich to tell Laval that he was to leave the following day. Laval told the pilot to fly to Linz, where he would turn himself in to the Americans, in the hope that his son-in-law’s dual citizenship would protect him. Jeanne accompanied him. The Americans at Linz airport promptly handed Laval over to the French Army. On 1 August, Laval and Jeanne left Austria for Le Bourget. From there they were driven to Fresnes, the prison where so many heroes of the Resistance had suffered and died.39 Laval was subsequently tried, sentenced to death and executed on 15 October 1945.40 Another French collaborator, Louis Darquier (who assumed the appendage de Pellepoix) had served in the 1930s as assistant editor of the anti-Semitic Paris daily Le Jour, and from 6 May 1942 to 26 February 1944 as Vichy’s commissioner for Jewish Affairs. As such he was responsible for the round-up and deportation of 75,000 Jews, but, in February 1944, he was dismissed by the Vichy government for embezzling funds left behind by deported Jews and sequestering confiscated Jewish property. Leaving France in 1944 just before the Liberation, Darquier found refuge and a new identity in Spain. Under the name Estève, he lived in Madrid in a luxurious apartment, working for a time as an official translator for Franco’s diplomatic service and otherwise as director of a language school. In 1947, a French court sentenced him to death in absentia for ‘espionage on behalf of a foreign power’. Since he had been convicted only of treason and not of war crimes, Franco’s courts rejected all demands for his extradition, and the sentence was automatically voided in 1967 in accordance with the 20-year statute of limitations. In October 1978, the Paris weekly L’Express succeeded in locating and interviewing him. Far from expressing remorse, he traced his anti-Semitism to his origins in Cahors where, he said, ‘We never liked the Jews. A tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages.’ It was his famous comment on the Holocaust (‘At Auschwitz they used gas, yes, but only against the fleas’)41 that led, in 1979, to a new attempt, equally unsuccessful, to extradite him. Darquier died on 29 August 1980, aged 81, in a country chalet near Carratraca, 40 km north-west of Malaga, not far from the home of Degrelle. It was not until 23 February 1983 that his death was reported. The villagers who buried him in the municipal cemetery knew Darquier by his real name but knew nothing of his past.42 The man that all of them served, Philippe Pétain, enjoyed, up to his death on 23 July 1951, the highest regard that Franco could express.

Epilogue 143

In an interview granted to Arriba on 24 February 1951 (three days after the 35th anniversary of the opening day of the Battle of Verdun), Franco described Pétain as a personal friend and offered the Maréchal, whom a French court had now sentenced to death for treason, ‘Spain’s warm hospitality, should the occasion arise in which he could accept it’. Pétain and his wife were so moved by Franco’s reference to the Marshal’s ‘profound patriotism’ that La Maréchale wrote the Caudillo a letter of thanks. This was carried to Franco at El Pardo by Jacques Isorni, Pétain’s lead advocate at his trial for treason, and Franco in turn bestowed a full ceremony on Isorni, complete with the Moorish Guard. Following the Marshal’s death, Franco was the only head of state to send condolences. Arriba added its own, addressing them to ‘all Frenchmen of honour’.43 It was in this context of ill feeling, which stretched out over the years, that the French government proposed to Washington and London on 14 December 1945 a concerted policy towards Franco. On 19 December, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Constituent Assembly requested the government to break off relations with Madrid. On 17 January 1946, the National Assembly also voted in favour of this measure.44 In its session of 22 February, the Assembly adopted a motion taking under advisement the execution by Franco of the former FFI resistance fighter Cristino García,45 and it again called upon the government to break off relations. On 26 February, Foreign Minister Georges Bidault gave orders to close the Pyrenees frontier. The order was implemented on 1 March, although the Franco government reduced its impact by closing its own border beforehand. The year 1947 proved to be decisive. It began with Franco still on the defensive. At the time the resolution of 12 December 1946 had been taken, only Great Britain, among the Powers, still retained its ambassador to Spain, and this representative, Sir Victor Mallett, was duly recalled. On 2 January 1947, Philip Bonsal, the American chargé d’affaires in Madrid, told Martín Artajo: ‘We consider that Spain belongs to our civilization, and ... as a result, a regime that denies the essential freedoms of that civilization cannot expect to enjoy good relations with us.’46 By the end of that month, the economic sanctions recommended by the United Nations in its resolution of 12 December 1946 were put into effect. Moreover, apart from this embargo, the Marshall Plan, proposed by the US secretary of state at Harvard University on 5 June, denied economic aid to Spain even while it offered it to the Soviet Union and its satellites. Nevertheless, the attitude of the United States towards the Franco regime was beginning to take a new direction. On 7 May, a meeting was held in Barcelona in the US Chamber of

144


Commerce. It was attended by a number of American businessmen, notably Max Klein, who presided, Walter F. Smith (vice-president), the US commercial attaché Randall and the former American ambassador to Spain Carlton Hayes. With the explicit support of Hayes, the Chamber voted to request the restoration of a trade agreement between the United States and Spain. On 30 March 1948, the House of Representatives voted by a heavy majority (149 to 52) in favour of including Spain in the Marshall Plan. By this time, it was obvious that the resolution of 12 December 1946 had failed. Certain countries had refused to withdraw their ambassadors. Argentina, following the election of Juan Perón on 4 June 1946, had voted against the resolution. Perón had already extended to Franco, on 30 October, a credit line of 350,000,000 Argentine pesos and sent him vast quantities of wheat. He then responded to the resolution of December with the immediate appointment of an ambassador to Madrid. In January 1947, the two dictators signed a trade agreement, and another Hispano-Argentine agreement, signed on 3 April 1948, would allow Spain a massive importation of consumer goods under a new loan of 1,750,000,000 pesetas. Other countries, little by little, were allowing the restoration of their trading ties and the return of their diplomats. On 17 November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted on the motion to reaffirm the resolution of 1946: only 29 voted in favour, with 16 (including the United States) opposed, with the result that the resolution failed to obtain the necessary majority of two-thirds.47 In November 1948, even Poland sold Franco 500 engines and propellers, goods that Britain itself refused to sell him. Faced with this challenge, the French government had second thoughts. The closing of the Pyrenees frontier had hurt the economy of both countries, and in the knowledge that the embargo worked only to the advantage of other states that traded with Spain, the French government decided, on 7 February 1948, to reopen the frontier.48 Following this, first France, on 8 May, then Great Britain, on 13 May, signed important trading agreements with Madrid. By the summer of 1949, 11 states had normalised their relations with Spain.49 By 1950 the change was complete.50 The election of President Harry Truman on 2 November 1948 had discouraged those who hoped for a quick return to normal relations with Spain, for Truman had spoken out, on 1 April, against the inclusion of Spain in the Marshall Plan. But this did not, in fact, alter the new trend in US policy. In October of that year, 1948, Marshall arrived in Paris to seek the United Nations’ annulment of their condemnation of Spain. At the same moment, a US military commission,

Epilogue 145

headed by Senator Chan Gurney (Republican, South Dakota) was in Madrid.51 On 4 April 1949, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a new watershed. On 21 October, the US Communist Party was decapitated,52 and in September 1949, Admiral Richard L. Connolly, commander in chief US Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleet, paid a courtesy visit to El Ferrol, the scene of so much earlier Spanish-German collaboration. In 1950, while the Caudillo (according to several official French reports) was thinking of banishing to Latin America a million Spaniards who were hostile to his regime, US private investors53 were offering Spain credit lines to the value of $200,000,000. From 25 June, with the opening of the Korean conflict, many of the political causes thus far defended by liberals were assigned to oblivion, and the new direction of Western policy was entirely in Franco’s favour. On 1 August, Franco announced that he was ready to send troops to Korea. Since the Allied forces in Korea belonged officially to the United Nations, and since Spain was not a member, Franco’s offer was both vain in substance and transparent in purpose. But on the same day, the US Senate adopted an amendment (approved a few days later by the House of Representatives) to the foreign aid bill for 1951. The amendment opened the way to allow a US government loan to Spain of $62,500,000. Nothing up to this point had produced as much dismay in the ranks of the Republican exiles as the news of this action by the United States, and their press in exile in France54 published the list showing how each of the 80 senators that voted cast their ballot.55 Worse news for the Republic came on 4 November, when the General Assembly of the United Nations, which was still under the control of the Western powers, adopted by a vote of 38 to 10 a motion which in effect rescinded the resolution of December 1946.56 The United Nations decided that day that the diplomatic recognition of a government did not imply a judgment on the domestic policies of the government in question. Such a decision was hardly necessary, given the fact that even de jure recognition does not imply a judgment on the constitutionality of a government but only on the probability of its permanence. Nevertheless, this resolution of November 1950 amounted to an invitation to the member states to consider themselves no longer constrained by the terms of the 1946 resolution and to reconsider independently their attitude towards the Franco regime. The new American ambassador, Stanton Griffis, presented his credentials on 27 December, and the British and French ambassadors soon followed suit. It can thus be said that the year 1950 put an end to the concrete hopes of the Spanish Republic at the same time that it blurred Western

146


memories of Franco’s Axis connections. As the Cold War grew more intense, liberal interest in Spain dissipated, and the eager optimism of the exiles in 1944 had given way to gloom and disillusionment. On 4 November 1950, Spain was admitted into the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and on 17 November 1952, into UNESCO. As a result, several ministers and officials of the Spanish Republican government-in-exile now left France to take up residence in other countries of exile. On 27 August 1953, Franco concluded a concordat with the Vatican,57 and on 26 September of that year (following the visits to Madrid of Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, US chief of naval operations)58 President Eisenhower and General Franco signed a tenyear mutual aid and defence pact under which Spain ceded air and naval bases in exchange for $226,000,000 worth of military and economic aid. At the moment of signing it, did the thought cross Franco’s mind of that period in the Second World War when he had mocked Churchill for ceding British bases in the West Indies in return for those American destroyers? The final steps were taken in 1955. On 1 November, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles arrived in Madrid to meet Franco.59 It was the first visit to Spain by a US secretary of state since Franco attained power, and the first visit by a foreign minister of the Western Big Three. On 14 December 1955, when the United States itself proposed the admission of Spain into the United Nations, even the Soviet Union voted in favour. No member in fact voted against. All countries in the Soviet bloc had now broken off relations with the Republican government-in-exile under various pretexts, and only Israel, Mexico and Yugoslavia continued to regard the Spanish Republic as the legitimate government of Spain. In 1972, the American military historian Raymond Proctor presented General Franco with a copy of his newly published book Agonía de un neutral, obtaining in the process an audience with the Caudillo and a photograph of the two together. Finding this initiative of Proctor’s an admirable idea, the present author did the same three years later, sending the Caudillo a copy of his newly published Les Français et la guerre d’Espagne. Almost immediately he received a reply, dated 21 October 1975, from Miguel Cruz Hernández, the director general de cultura popular, in which he said: ‘I have found your work very interesting and soundly documented, and I am passing it on to the Head of State, General Franco.’ Two days later, on 23 October 1975, in an unrelated development, the Caudillo suffered a heart attack that proved fatal.

Appendices Appendix A: Meetings of Axis or Pro-Axis Leaders in World War II 13 June 1939

Mussolini/Ciano–Serrano Súñer in Rome

12 July 1939

Franco–Ciano in San Sebastian

16 July 1939

Franco–Ciano in Madrid

18 March 1940

Hitler–Mussolini at Brenner Pass

04 May 1940

Goering–Barrón in Berlin

31 August 1940

Himmler–Finat Conde de Mayalde in Berlin

16–17 September 1940

Hitler/Ribbentrop–Serrano Súñer in Berlin

17 September 1940

Ribbentrop–Serrano Súñer in Berlin

24–25 September 1940

Ribbentrop–Serrano Súñer in Berlin

28 September 1940

Hitler–Ciano in Berlin

02 October 1940

Mussolini–Serrano Súñer in Rome

04 October 1940


20 October 1940

Franco–Himmler in Madrid

22 October 1940

Hitler–Laval at Montoire-sur-le-Loir

23 October 1940

Hitler–Franco at Hendaye

24 October 1940

Hitler–Pétain at Montoire-sur-le-Loir

28 October 1940

Mussolini–Hitler in Florence

09 November 1940

Goering–Laval in Paris

11 November 1940

Ribbentrop–Ciano–Serrano Súñer at the Berghof (Berchtesgaden)

12 November 1940

Hitler–Molotov in Berlin

14 November 1940

Hitler–Serrano Súñer at the Berghof (Berchtesgaden)

16 November 1940

Laval–Serrano Súñer in Paris

18 November 1940

Hitler–Serrano Súñer at the Berghof (Berchtesgaden)

07 December 1940

Franco–Canaris in Madrid

25 December 1940

Hitler/Abetz–Darlan in Beauvais

19 January 1941

Hitler–Mussolini–Ciano at the Berghof (Berchtesgaden)

12 February 1941

Mussolini–Franco in Bordighera

147

148

Appendices

13 February 1941

Pétain–Franco in Montpellier

11 May 1941

Hitler–Darlan at the Berghof (Berchtesgaden)

02 June 1941


01 December 1941

Goering–Pétain at Saint-Florentin-Vergigny (Yonne)

14 June 1942

Ciano–Serrano Súñer in Livorno

12 July 1942

Hitler–Muñoz Grandes at Rastenburg (Wolfsschanze)

12 November 1942

Hitler/Ribbentrop–Laval (Munich)

18 January 1943

Hitler–Arrese at Rastenburg (Wolfsschanze)

7–11 April 1943

Hitler–Mussolini at Schloss Klessheim (Salzburg)

17 April 1943

Hitler–Horthy at Schloss Klessheim (Salzburg)

19 July 1943

Mussolini–Hitler at Treviso

14 September 1943

Hitler–Mussolini at Rastenburg (Wolfsschanze)

29 July 1944

Hitler–Mussolini at Rastenburg (Wolfsschanze)

Appendices

149

Appendix B: Provisionment of Axis Submarines in Spanish Ports, 1939–1945 German Date

Submarine

Supply Ship

Port

30.01.40

U-25

Thalia

Cadiz

18.06.40

U-43

Bessel

Vigo

20.06.40

U-29

Bessel

Vigo

27.06.40

U-30

Max Albrecht

El Ferrol

01.07.40

U-52

Bessel

Vigo

03.03.41

U-124

Corrientes

Las Palmas

04.03.41

U-105

Corrientes

Las Palmas

05.03.41

U-106

Corrientes

Las Palmas

24.06.41

U-123

Corrientes

Las Palmas

30.06.41

U-69

Corrientes

Las Palmas

05.07.41

U-103

Corrientes

Las Palmas

21.07.41

U-109

Thalia

Cadiz

31.07.41

U-331

Thalia

Cadiz

14.10.41

U-564

Thalia

Cadiz

15.10.41

U-204

Thalia

Cadiz

07.11.41

U-77

Bessel

Vigo

27.11.41

U-95

Bessel

Vigo

27.11.41

U-652

Thalia

Cadiz

12.12.41

U-574

Bessel

Vigo

13.12.41

U-575

Bessel

Vigo

15.12.41

U-434

Bessel

Vigo

16.04.42

U-66

Bessel

Vigo

Italian Date

Supply Ship

Port

14.06.40

Cappollini

Ceuta

04.11.40

Bria

Tangier

11.11.40

Bianchi

Tangier

07.06.42

Torelli

Santander

08.08.42

Giada

Valencia

Cf. Ros Agudo, 104 for one or two minor differences.

Notes to Pages viii–1

Notes Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

See Pike, ‘Comment’, 10–11; ‘Aide’, 113–22. Detwiler, ‘Spain’, 43. Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler’, 4. Hoare, Ambassador, 285. Piétri, 235. Stavnik, 1–3; Gaule, 13, who presents almost the same formula as Stavnik. For the Laurel affair in Manila, see Cortada, ‘Spain’, 65–75. Hermet, Politique, 46. Referendum of the meeting of 4 May 1940; Berlin, 8 May 1940. Les Archives secrètes de la Wilhelmstrasse, IX, Livre II, 151. Vilar, 52, rightly exposed the weakness of Doussinague’s claims. Pierre Vilar wrote his article for the Revue d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale precisely as a rebuttal of Jules Stavnik, writing in the same Paris quarterly (Henri Michel, its founding director, to the author, 1972). Hoare, Ambassador, 114. Ibid., 286. Stavnik, 7. Ibid., 16. Piétri, 235. Hermet, Politique, 47. Puzzo, 238. Vilar, 54. Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 327. Halstead, ‘Diligent’, 70; citing Documents secrets, 124–7. Proctor, Agony, 139–41. Vilallonga, a grandee of Spain married to an Englishwoman, has had a remarkable career. Though best known for his seven novels and the 77 films in which he has acted, he worked as a journalist in Spain in 1943–4 before turning against Franco in 1946 and living as an exile in France from 1953 until Franco’s death in 1975. Interviewed by Marc Ferro, ‘Histoire parallèle’, French FR3 Television, 12 March 1994.

Chapter 1. The Civil War and France: Unsettled Accounts (1936–1939) 1. 2. 3. 4.

Thomas, 567. Franco and Serrano Súñer had married sisters, Carmen and Zita Pola. Thomas, 636n. La Dépêche, 27 December 1936. 150

Notes to Pages 1–5 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

151

L’Espagne Nouvelle, 10 May 1938. La Dépêche, 22 December 1938. L’Époque, 13 December 1936. L’Ordre, 10 June 1938. Le Journal, 25 December 1936. L’Oeuvre, 26 October 1936. La Garonne, 26 April 1938. The interview marked the first anniversary of the destruction of Guernica. In reality, the first German and Italian volunteers had arrived in Spain by early August 1936, three months before the arrival of Soviet tanks in Madrid. L’Express du Midi, 3 November 1936. La Dépêche, 3 September 1936. L’Action Française, 13 December 1936. Thomas, 568. Stohrer to the German foreign ministry: Salamanca 27 April 1938, telegram no. 218, Secret. Document no. 5, Documents secrets, 28. The Soviet authorities describe the documents as part of their share of the booty of the Second World War, which they have generously made available to the West to prove the perfidy of Nazi Germany. The question may well be asked why the Soviet authorities made available only the Russian translation instead of allowing the West a copy of the original documents in German. The translator, Mme Eristov, to whom I put this question, replied that she did not know the reason. These remarks were made by Franco to Admiral Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, who repeated them to Stohrer. Stohrer added that Franco had taken precautions, in the event that Germany and Italy were forced by international pressure to put an end to their intervention in Spain, whereby the Spanish air crews could make use of the Axis matériel (Stohrer to the Wilhelmstrasse: San Sebastian, telegram no. 4, Secret, 4 May 1938. Documents secrets, Document no. 6, 29–30). Report of Colonel Kramer (German air attaché) to OKW Berlin, Secret, 5 June 1939: I. Conversations with General Aranda, B. Foreign Policy. Document no. 23, Documents secrets, 65. Franco, Ami de la France? 23. Hierro, 6 April 1938. Hierro, 8 April 1938. El Correo Español, 10 May 1938. El Correo Español, 20 May 1938. El Correo Español, 28 June 1938. El Heraldo de Aragón, 10 July 1938. Kindelán’s career did not suffer from it, for Franco later appointed him captain general of Catalonia, a post of the highest prestige. If he was relegated to the directorship of the Escuela Superior del Ejército in 1943, it was because of his new pro-Allied sympathies (Hoare, Ambassador, 45). Document bearing no reference or indication of any kind except the date 3 August 1938, Archives Nationales (Paris): F7 14722. El Domingo, 1 January 1939. Cf. Le Midi Socialiste, 17 January 1939. La Vie du Parti, no. 24, April 1939.

152

Notes to Pages 5–12

30. Jacquelin, 141. 31. The Spanish consulate in Toulouse, at 9 Boulingrin, had passed from the Republic’s hands on 1 March 1939, when Domingo Pallerola handed over the building to Franco’s representative. 32. Nicolétis also oversaw the construction, at Gualva in the province of Gerona, of a factory producing nitrate explosives. In 1937, at the request of the Spanish Republican government, he undertook several more visits to Spain to inspect factories or to help resolve certain technical problems. 33. Based on ten conversations with Colonel Nicolétis between 1975 and 1977, together with his collection of letters and articles published in two journals: La France républicaine and the Bulletin du Centre polytechnicien d’Études économiques, a monthly under his editorship. 34. L’Oeuvre, 30 May 1938. 35. L’Ordre, 28 May 1938. 36. La Dépêche, 1 April 1938. 37. Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Documents diplomatiques français, 1932–1939, deuxième série (1936–1939), tome IX (21 March–9 June 1938), 915–17, passim. Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1974.

Chapter 2. From Franco’s Victory to the Fall of France (1 April 1939–15 June 1940) 1. An example of its wild inaccuracies is its report that the Spanish police had been placed under the control of a German named Vogel, purportedly married to a Spaniard, while in fact the post had gone to José Finat, Count de Mayalde. 2. Inspecteur principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale, no. 186, 3 June 1939. 3. The Reichmark was worth approximately $0.25 in the currency of the time. 4. Christian Leitz (Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe, 116) gives the total cost of Germany’s intervention in the Civil War as RM 579 million, of which only RM 109 million had been repaid by December 1940. He adds (118) that Spain, previously an exporter of food, had now become dependant on foreign supplies of grain. Its population was faced with the threat of starvation. 5. Harper, 126–7. 6. Inspecteur principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale: no. 181, dated 29 May 1939. For the Bérard–Jordana agreements, see Pike, Français, 350–2, 356. In the eyes of the Spanish government, the untrustworthiness of the French government in carrying out its agreements was obvious from the beginning. Among the incidents that spoke for this alleged bad faith on the part of the French was the case involving the station chief of Air France in Alicante. Alicante had survived for three days after the fall of Madrid, during which Air France transported refugees to Algeria and Morocco. The station chief thus aroused Franco’s anger and was interned


7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

153

in the French lycée in Madrid. He escaped and crossed the frontier at Hendaye on 16 June 1939. Pro-French elements in Spain, whether monarchist or not, were under harassment not only by the Falange but by the Germans. An example is the case of Mayor Mateu of Barcelona. During the Civil War, Mateu had avoided imprisonment or a worse fate at the hands of the Republicans through the personal intercession of Léon Blum, though Mateu was far from sharing Blum’s socialist viewpoint. The mayor authorised the Parti Populaire Français to hold a propaganda meeting in Barcelona in July 1939. Although the PPF was the reactionary party of Doriot, who had supported Franco from the very beginning, Mateu’s friends were warning him that his pro-French outlook was arousing official displeasure in Germany (Inspecteur principal Porterie, Police Spéciale , Toulouse, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale: no. 220, 2 July 1939). Foltz, 144. Charles B. Burdick, private correspondence. Gallo, 124. Sir Samuel replaced Sir Maurice Peterson, who had arrived in Spain on 30 March 1939 as the first British ambassador to Franco. Hoare was a curious choice for a post as important as that of Britain’s ambassador to Spain. He had held high positions, but without distinguishing himself in any of them. He had also been a leading member of the peace group, so it was logical for Churchill to want to get him out of the country. Sir Alexander Cadogan, permanent under-secretary of state at the foreign office, reveals in his diary that he would have preferred to send him to prison. ‘He would have proved to be England’s quisling’ (Ros Agudo, 163). Gallo, 108. The pre-war German colony in Spain is estimated by Smyth (Diplomacy, 37) at up to 80,000. Some 1,000 of these would serve as V-Männer (Vertrauensmänner, or informers), augmented by an equal number of Spanish collaborators, all paid by the KO (Kriegsorganisation) housed in the German embassy. These 2,000 volunteers were handled by 250 agents whose monthly budget amounted to RM 20 million (Viñas, Franco, 478). As for the German embassy, it was the largest in the world, comprising 171 officials, 21 police officers, the 60 members of the staffs of the three military attachés and 14 Wehrmacht personnel (Ros Agudo, 217). Inspecteur principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale, no. 210, dated 19 June 1939. Ministre de l’Intérieur, no. 499, dated 19 April 1940. Ministre de l’Intérieur, to Préfet de Haute-Garonne: no. 2849, dated 15 May 1940. Préfet de Haute-Garonne: Special Report, dated June 1940. Ministre de l’Intérieur: no. 541, dated 30 April 1940. Inspecteur Principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse to Directeur Générale, Sûreté Nationale: no. 173, dated 23 May 1939. Inspecteur principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale: no. 103, dated 28 April 1939. On the question of wolfram, see Foltz, 205–10, 214–15, 217; Crozier, 380–6; Harper, 17, 35, 134; Burdick, Germany’s Military, 171; Leitz, ‘Nazi Germany’s Struggle’. Harper, 21.

154


20. Inspecteur Principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse, no. 103, dated 28 April 1939. 21. Private information from José Calvino Ozores, who at this time served as the Republic’s purveyor of aviation matériel from France. 22. Bricall Mesip, 65. 23. Ministre de l’Intérieur: no. 541, dated 30 April 1940. 24. Foltz, 156, mentions only the Hispano-Suiza plant in Barcelona producing plane and submarine motors for Germany. 25. Ministre de l’Intérieur, no. 9647, dated 13 September 1939. 26. Burdick, Germany’s Military, 203. 27. Gallo, 124–5. 28. Foltz, 264. 29. Ministre de l’Intérieur: no. 541, dated 30 April 1940. 30. Foltz, 248. 31. Preston, Franco, 331. 32. Alba, Transition, 180. 33. Augusto Assia, ‘Síntomas elocuentes de la situación: el pacto y el discurso’, Ya, 24 August 1939. 34. Augusto Assia, ‘El mundo confía hoy en Roma’, Ya, 25 August 1939. 35. The Nazi invasion of Poland was particularly troubling to the Catholic feelings of the monarchists. Pierre Daguerre, then sub-prefect in Bayonne (Basses-Pyrénées), describes how Marshal Pétain, then ambassador to Spain, raised an embarrassing question at an official banquet, asking how it was that pagan Germany invaded Catholic Poland while Catholic Spain had nothing to say (Daguerre, 18–19). 36. Eugenio Valdés, Berlin, 31 August late, ‘Recuerdos y esperanzas en las horas críticas’, ABC, 1 September 1939. 37. ’La guerra’, unsigned, ABC, 2 September 1939. 38. ‘Alemania no quiere reinar sobre el mundo, sino defender su independencia’, Arriba, 3 September 1939. 39. El Correo Catalán, 6 September 1939. 40. Willard L. Beaulac, US counsellor of embassy in Madrid, wrote in his memoirs that as a result of the Blitzkrieg on Catholic Poland ‘Franco’s position softened’ (Beaulac, Franco, 68). 41. Augusto Assia, ‘Varsovia, encrucijada de Europa’, Ya, 9 September 1939. 42. José María Salaverria, ‘La Guerra y la Paz’, ABC, 12 September 1939. 43. José María Salaverria, ‘Con las armas no valen bromas’, ABC, 13 September 1939. 44. José María Salaverria, ‘Una Guerra cerebral’, ABC, 15 September 1939. 45. ‘Las tropas alemanas y las soviéticas en contacto’, Arriba, 19 September 1939. 46. Pizarro, Berlin, ‘Rusia en Polonia’, Arriba, 19 September 1939. 47. ‘Una maravillosa estampa militar que recuerda escenas guerreras de otros siglos’, Arriba, 20 September 1939. 48. ‘Comentarios de Trotsky a la actitud soviética’, Mexico, Arriba, 20 September 1939. 49. ‘Que Dios illumine a los pueblos y les haga ver que esta lucha no conduce a nada’, Arriba, 20 September 1939. 50. Arriba, 20 September 1939. 51. Arriba, 21 September 1939.


155

52. Manuel Aznar, ‘España y el hundimiento de Polonia’, Arriba, 29 September 1939. 53. ‘Hitler ofrece por última vez la paz’, Ya, 7 October 1939. 54. Certain place names were misspelt, either in the original Spanish document or in Ros Agudo’s transcription, with the result that the following three targets cannot be identified: in the XVIth, Paulilles; in the XVIIIth, La Motte and Le Boueau. 55. Ros Agudo, 50–1. 56. Ros Agudo, 108. 57. Beaulac, Franco, 68. 58. Beaulac, Franco, 69. Beaulac states that the code name ‘Moro’ covered the whole supply operation; Ros Agudo attributes it only to the base in Cadiz, without giving a name to the operations in Vigo and El Ferrol. 59. Grossadmiral a.D. Karl Dönitz, F.d.U., to Gruppenbefehlsstelle West, 1 November 1939, KTB 15.8.1939–31.1.1940 (RM, 87/3, 5, Bundesarchiv– Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). 60. Grossadmiral a.D. Karl Dönitz, F.d.U. bzw. B.d.U., 18 January 1940, KTB 15.8.1939–31.1.1940 (RM 87/3, 82, Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-imBreisgau). 61. Beaulac, Franco, 69; Ros Agudo, 99. 62. Ros Agudo, 100. 63. Ya, 18 December 1939. 64. Hughes, 122. 65. Augusto Assia, London. ‘Churchill, ante el grave momento’, La Vanguardia Española, 11 May 1940. 66. Ramón Garriga, Berlin, ‘Ante une ofensiva transcendental’, La Vanguardia Española, 11 May 1940. 67. Augusto Assia, London, ‘Lucha a vida o muerte’, La Vanguardia Española, 12 May 1940. 68. ‘La democracia francesa ante la invasión’, Arriba, 19 May 1940. 69. ‘Dos sistemas frente a frente’, unsigned, Arriba, 21 May 1940. Hoare’s dislike of the activities of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) (which opened its operations in Madrid in 1940) led to acrimony. His political influence carried the day and the Madrid station soon nearly ceased to exist. As a result, the SIS operated from Gibraltar, from where they ran some 168 agents and subagents throughout Spain. In spite of Hoare’s restrictions, the SIS succeeded in bribing General Antonio Aranda Mata, who had a secret bank account in New York, into taking the lead among a group of Spanish generals who warned Franco, in the spring of 1941, that the Army would not accept his signing the Tripartite Pact or yielding to the German demands on Gibraltar (West, 154, 188, 227, 304; Séguéla, 188, based on British Foreign Office sources). 70. Augusto Assia, ‘El nuevo embajador inglés en Madrid’, La Vanguardia Española, 25 May 1940. Hoare had also served as an intelligence officer in Russia shortly after the Revolution. 71. ‘El rey heróico y prudente’, unsigned. La Vanguardia Española, 29 May 1940. 72. ‘El Reembarco es ya casi imposible’, Arriba, 30 May 1940. 73. Ramón Garriga, Berlin, ‘Momentos trágicos en la costa de Flandes’, La Vanguardia Española, 31 May 1940.

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74. ‘El cuerpo expedicionario británico de Flandes ha sido aniquilado en su casi totalidad’, Arriba, 1 June 1940. 75. Augusto Assia, London, ‘A punto de terminarse la retirada británica’, La Vanguardia Española, 4 June 1940. 76. Gil de Xibaja, ‘El ultimo reducto’, La Vanguardia Española, 4 June 1940. 77. Les Archives secrètes de la Wilhelmstrasse, IX. Les Années de guerre. Livre II (11 May–22 June 1940), 219. These archives were published earlier in Washington and London under the title Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945. 78. ‘Derecho y deber de España’, unsigned, Arriba, 5 June 1940. 79. Seekriegsleitung, B. Nr.1. Skl. Iop 927/40 gKdos.Chefs. To: M. Att. (Military Attaché). Subject: Organisation of German U-Boat Supply on the Spanish west coast. Ref: 1. Skl. Iop 908/40 Ziffer 3, Chefsache vom 3.6.40. Berlin, Top Secret, to be delivered only by an officer (RM7/844, 105–6, Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). 80. The gold of the Banque d’État du Maroc had already left Tangier for Casablanca in two aircraft of Air France (Inspecteur principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale: no. 102, dated 6 April 1939). 81. ’Lo que no es nuestra “neutralidad”’, unsigned, Arriba, 12 June 1940. 82. ’Moralejas: Insolidaridad democrática’, unsigned, La Vanguardia Española, 15 June 1940. 83. Renom de La Baume, 128. 84. Halstead, ‘Diligent’, 20; quoting the US State Department, Foreign Relations: 1940, 842. 85. Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 348. 86. Batista i Roca, 297; Carr, 272.

Chapter 3. Vichy France and Britain’s Battle for Its Life ( June–September 1940) 1. Hermet, Espagne, 205, says that non-belligerence was hitherto unknown in diplomacy. 2. Morales, ‘Causas’, 616. 3. Martínez Nadal, 199. 4. Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler’, 8. 5. Morales, ‘Causas’, 614. 6. ‘Weygand ordenó la detención de Reynaud, que ha huido a América’, Arriba, 19 June 1940. 7. The fact that Reynaud had formed a government that terminated many of the programmes of the Front Populaire was not remembered. 8. ‘Breve historia de una gran traición: La huida de Reynaud, “muy Frente Popular,” después de intentar convertir a Francia en un dominio inglés’, unsigned, La Vanguardia Española, 19 June 1940. 9. Paul Reynaud, although minister of finance in Daladier’s government in 1938, was a moderate conservative who, as prime minister, found himself forced to hand over the government to Pétain on 16 June 1940. He was offered the post of ambassador to Washington, but Laval stepped in on 23 June to prevent this.


10. 11. 12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

157

On 28 June, he was on his way to Port-Vendres by car when he suffered a head injury in a car accident and had to return home to Barcelonnette. On 6 September, he was arrested as a ‘danger to the State’. He was handed over to the Germans who, on 15 November 1942, sent him to Oranienburg and then Sachsenhausen, but in both these SS camps he was held as a hostage in reasonable accommodation. He survived, as Largo Caballero did, but took no leading post in French politics after his liberation. ‘Profunda animadversión contra Inglaterra’, La Vanguardia Española, 19 June 1940. ‘Francia considera la falta del apoyo inglés como causa de su derrota’, Arriba, 25 June 1940. ‘Cese de hostilidades’, unsigned editorial, Arriba, 25 June 1940. It would be hard to find anything ‘derogatory’ in Churchill’s address to the French people on the fall of France: ‘Goodnight, then. Sleep, and gather strength for the morning, for the morning shall come. And when it comes, brightly shall the sun shine on the tombs of the martyrs, and on all who have suffered in the cause.’ ‘Entramos en guerra con Alemania—dice el Gobierno francés—bajo la influencia de Inglaterra: Los ingleses abandonaron a nuestro Ejército del Norte y al Ejército belga’, Arriba, 6 July 1940. Georges Mandel, né Louis Jérobéam Rothschild, supported Reynaud in his firm stand in favour of continuing the war from North Africa. On 17 June 1940, he was arrested, but very quickly released. He embarked on the Massilia bound for Algiers, and was detained with the others when the ship was arrested. This time, the Vichy authorities held him in prison until, on 11 November 1942, he was handed over to the Germans and sent to concentration camps in Germany. He nevertheless returned to France in June 1944, when Vichy placed him in the Santé. On 7 July 1944, the Milice, with the backing of the Gestapo, took him on a ride to the forest at Fontainebleau where they murdered him. Paul-Boncour (né Joseph Paul Boncour) had served as Blum’s foreign minister. He survived the war. ‘Los que huyen del juicio final: la pitonisa francesa’, Arriba, 20 June 1940. ’Saludo a los soldados alemanes de la frontera’, Arriba, 28 June 1940. See Pike, Français, 437. Francisco Lucientes, Bordeaux, ‘En medio del naufragio, sereno y firme: Pétain’, La Vanguardia Española, 20 June 1940. See Pike, Français, photograph facing 47. Ramón Garriga, Berlin, ‘Gallardo desfile alemán ante un publico conmovido’, La Vanguardia Española, 20 June 1940. ‘Unidad y Revolución’, unsigned, Arriba, 26 June 1940. ‘Día de Francia’, unsigned editorial, Arriba, 13 July 1940. ‘Franco, la espada más limpia del mundo’, La Vanguardia Española, 21 June 1940. ‘Il Messaggero (Roma) affirma que Pétain ha dimitido y que le sustituye Laval’, Arriba, 21 June 1940. ‘La decisión de no combatir es total’, Arriba, 25 June 1940. An announcement appeared in the same issue of the arrival of the new periodical Semana under the direction of Manuel Aznar.

158


27. ’Una guerra no puede ser ganada solamente con oro’, Arriba, 26 June 1940. 28. ‘Inglaterra reconocerá como Gobierno francés un Comité formado allí para proseguir la Guerra’, La Vanguardia Española, 25 June 1940. 29. ‘Moralejas: Gobiernos espectrales’, unsigned, La Vanguardia Española, 25 June 1940. 30. ‘Inglaterra contre Pétain’, unsigned, Arriba, 29 June 1940. 31. ‘Londres puede ser alcanzado por la artillería desde el continente’, Arriba, 22 May 1940. 32. Giménez Arnau, special correspondent in Rome of the EFE agency, ‘La actualidad, camino de Londres’, La Vanguardia Española, 20 June 1940. 33. Giménez Arnau, ‘Ante la guerra corta contra Inglaterra’, La Vanguardia Española, 21 June 1940. 34. Arriba, 28 June 1940. Cf. Pike, Opening, 8. 35. When Alfonso XIII died in Rome on 28 February 1941, six weeks after his abdication, a group of Spanish monarchists who wished to attend the funeral in Rome chartered the steamship Mallorca to take them there from Valencia. They were prevented from sailing on the pretext that they were in danger of attack by British submarines. 36. Grossadmiral a.D. Dönitz, B.d.U., 24 June 1940, KTB 1 February 1940–1 January 1942 (RM87/4, 57, Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). Ros Agudo, 102–3, states that U-29 was refuelled on 20 June, and U-43 two days earlier, both in Vigo by the German tanker Bessel. 37. Hoare, Ambassador, 49. Hoare adds that he and his wife left the ceremony in a way that drew attention. 38. Ibid., 66. It was Beigbeder who informed Hoare about this. 39. Hermet, Politique, 41–2, who cites US Department of State, The Spanish Government, 1946, 6–7. It was in September 1940 that Hitler conferred upon Franco the highest award that the Reich could bestow upon a foreigner: the Grand Cross in gold of the Order of the German Eagle (Louis & Petrie, 397). 40. Smyth, Diplomacy, 74–5. 41. Hoare, Ambassador, 55. Hoare adds that, in 1940, no British papers were any longer on sale anywhere in Spain. 42. Worthy of mention is the fact, or claim, that Kim Philby, chief of the Iberian subsection for British intelligence, had clandestine access to the Duke of Alba’s correspondence (Philby, 60–1). 43. ‘Alemania y la prensa española’, unsigned, Arriba, 15 August 1940. 44. Ros Agudo, 153. 45. Martínez Nadal, 63–4. 46. Ros Agudo, 153. 47. Ibid., 251, 261. The Royal Navy intelligence chief on the committee was Commander Ewen Montagu, who devised the stratagem code-named ‘Mincemeat’, but popularly known as ‘The Man Who Never Was’ (see chapter 7). The idea of the Double Cross may have been borrowed from the Charlie Chaplin film of 1940, The Great Dictator, which used the same emblem. 48. SIS was successful in bribing Alcázar de Velasco’s male secretary who, for £2,000, agreed to allow his superior’s safe to be opened. The contents were photographed and sent to London. They showed that Alcázar de Velasco was so short of reliable agents in London that he was concocting fictitious


49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

57.

58. 59. 60.

159

reports for the Abwehr. He was therefore allowed to continue his activities undisturbed (West, 304). Ibid., 154–5. The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, 19 June 1940. Arasa, Exiliados, 139. ‘Razón de un Editorial’, Arriba, 5 September 1940. Arriba, 8 September 1940. ‘El gigantesco ataque es una represalia por los bombardeos nocturnos británicos’, Arriba, 8 September 1940. ‘Dos discursos’, unsigned, Arriba, 8 September 1940. ‘Churchill, o la desesperanza’, unsigned, Arriba, 12 September 1940. Churchill was not in office in the Chamberlain government. On the day he entered office he expressed his thoughts as follows: ‘My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail’ (Churchill, vol. I, 667). ‘Jorge VI y el Cuerpo diplomático abandonarán Londres esta semana’, subheadline, Arriba, 14 September 1940. Churchill made it clear that neither the government nor the royal family would be evacuated to Canada or anywhere else, and gave instructions that no such discussion was to be permitted. ‘The Germans’, he said, ‘were not to have the pleasure of any such evacuation. I believe we shall make them rue the day they try to invade our island’ (Gilbert, 654). As for the Diplomatic Corps, the first embassy in London ordered to evacuate was that of the American ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. ‘La aviación alemana puede decidir la guerra sin necesidad de invasión’, Arriba, 15 September 1940. ‘Ante la hora final’, unsigned, Arriba, 15 September 1940. Arriba, 18 September 1940.

Chapter 4. Hitler’s Quandary: South-West or East? (September 1940–June 1941) 1. Beigbeder learned the news of his dismissal when he read it in the morning newspapers of 17 October (Hoare, Ambassador, 72; Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler’, 7). 2. Cf. Pike, Les Français, 362n. 3. Gibson, 94. 4. Ros Agudo, 183. 5. The description of Himmler’s visit to Mayalde’s estate in Sueiro & Nosty, vol. 1, 182–6, is demolished by Payne, Franco Regime, 647. Himmler’s whole visit to Spain is described in remarkable detail in Ros Agudo, 185–91. Highlights included his visit to Burgos and its cathedral; his arrival in Madrid where thousands lined the route to greet him with the fascist salute; his stay at the Hotel Ritz; his visit to the Palacio de Santa Cruz, where Baron de las Torres served as interpreter; his meeting at El Pardo with Franco, Serrano Súñer and again Torres as interpreter; his appearance at a bullfight

160

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

Notes to Pages 39–42 in the Plaza de Las Ventas; his appearance with Mayalde on the balcony overlooking the Puerta del Sol; his visit on 21 October (Trafalgar Day) to the Escorial and the tomb of José Antonio Primo de Rivera; his visits to the Alcázar in Toledo and to the Museo del Prado; and, on 23 October, to Barcelona and Montserrat. He flew back to Germany on 24 October. Ros Agudo adds, significantly, that no records of these discussions in the foreign ministry or in El Pardo are to be found in the ministry’s archives. Arriba, 20 October 1940; cited by Díaz-Plaja, 65. Hoare, 94. Garriga, España, 1970 ed., 208. Hughes, 75. Ros Agudo, 177, who leaves the matter unclear. Winzer was already in Madrid before Himmler visited Spain. He was presumably installed at the headquarters of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) at Calle Eduardo Dato 17 in Madrid. Transferring him to an office inside the German embassy, prima facie, seems pointless. Díaz-Plaja, 67. There is nothing ‘west of Río de Oro’ except the Atlantic. Hitler presumably meant ‘south’. Detwiler, ‘Spain’, 43. Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler’, 8. Ibid. ‘Why did Franco’s Spain not enter the war on Hitler’s side in 1939? Because, in September 1939, Hitler was not interested in Spain’s entry into the war’ (Ibarruri, España, 36). Even though Pasionaria is referring to the beginning of the war, and not to the armistice of 1940, her claim is without any foundation. Stavnik, 2. Stavnik’s article contains other errors: 1940 for 1941 on line 1, for example, and the reference to Columbus on page 12. Serrano Súñer, Entre Hendaya y Gibraltar, 1947. Newsweek, 23 July 1973. Crozier. His account (330) of the role of Paul Schmidt, which I repeated in ‘Aspects nouveaux’, 517, is corrected in the present work. ‘The matter concerned a renewal of the Anti-Comintern Pact which had reached its date of expiry. Franco had signed nothing’ (interview granted to Charles Favrel: Paris-Presse, 28 October 1945). Serrano Súñer, ‘Encuentro’, 112; Memorias, 284. Ibid., 288. ‘Franco believed blindly in German victory’, writes Serrano again (330). Serrano tells us (330–1) that he received this information in a letter he received from Franco. Hoare does not refer to this discussion in his memoirs. On the contrary, he insists that his embassy had stated, without any ambiguity, that the British government was averse to all peace negotiations (Hoare, Ambassador, 105). The statement by Charles R. Halstead (‘Spanish Foreign Policy, 1936–1978’ in Cortada (ed.), Spain, 90n.), according to which ‘the British, fearing defeat, had made contact with the Germans through the intermediary of the Spanish Legation in Berne’, is based on a false interpretation of his sources. The original source of this report is Sir David Kelly, then the British minister in Berne, who describes this event in


25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39.

161

his work The Ruling Few, 272. Sir David twice insists on the fact that ‘there was never any question of discussion and even less of negotiation’. The two German officials that the foreign office had authorised him to meet in Berne were Prince Max von Hohenlohe-Langenberg and, through the latter’s mediation, a certain Henlein. Prince Max was in fact a Liechtensteiner by nationality and married to a Spanish woman; according to Kelly, he was certainly not pro-Nazi: his tastes and his sympathies were pro-British. As for Henlein, Sir David writes: ‘The message that he claimed he was bringing me from Hitler was always the same, although the urgency in which he presented it increased every time he delivered it. Hitler wanted nothing of Great Britain or the British Empire ... . All he wanted was for us to make peace and leave him a totally free hand in Europe.’ Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 342. Carr, 272. According to Proctor, Agony, 76, it was Field Marshal Keitel who noticed this. Schmidt claimed it was one hour late, and Steinert, 422 (drawing from Toland) writes that Franco was ‘deliberately late by two hours’. This, claim Franco’s apologists, was to throw Hitler off balance. ‘Thrown off balance’ is better applied to Franco when later his rickety train pulled out of Hendaye. Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 290. Ibid., 300. Klaus-Jürgen Müller, Hamburg, private correspondence. Serrano refers to him in error as Karl Schmidt (who was a Nazi philosopher), and sometimes as Schmitt. Karl was, however, Paul Schmidt’s second name. Garriga, España, 1970 ed., 186. Schmidt, 500–2. Hillgruber, 272–8, presents ‘Notes du ministre Schmidt’. These are fragmentary and are interrupted at the crucial moment. This, writes Klaus-Jürgen Müller, is as Hillgruber saw it (private correspondence). A professor of ancient and modern languages at the University of Salamanca, with degrees from Madrid, Athens and Berlin, Tovar was generally considered brilliant. Anticlerical and revolutionary, Germanophile and Francophobe, and drawn to anarchism as a youth, he had emerged as a leader of the left wing of the Falange now becoming known as the Falange Auténtica, the self-styled jerarcas [hierarchs]. Tovar had served, from 19 January 1937, as director of Radio Nacional de España in Salamanca before being appointed, in December 1940, to the post of under-secretary of state for press and propaganda. He was to be dismissed in May 1941 in the course of the antiSerrano campaign. After the Allied victory in 1945, he became rector of the University of Salamanca, a post once held by Unamuno. Serrano had admitted this to Ribbentrop on 17 September, either at the time of his first meeting with Hitler or just afterwards. As a result, at the time of his second meeting with Serrano in Berlin, Hitler insisted that only his personal interpreter be present (Garriga, España, 1970 ed., 186). There is no reason to doubt that Tovar was absent from the meeting in Hendaye, because Tovar himself wrote the preface to the Memorias of Serrano. Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 298. Ibid. Klaus-Jürgen Müller, private correspondence.

162 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48.

49. 50.

51.

52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

Notes to Pages 45–47 Detwiler, ‘Spain’, 45. Ibid., 49. Hoare, Ambassador, 286. Renom de La Baume, 126. Rich, 169–71. Cf. Southworth, ‘Franco’, 963. Rich, 174. While the operation’s objective was the investment of Gibraltar, Felix included the strategic control of Spain and Isabella that of Portugal (Shirer, 817). Kammerer, ‘Les Rapports’, 2, ‘La négotiation’, 5–17, passim. Cf. Burdick, Germany’s Military, 90–2. Franco was refusing what Sweden had allowed: the transit of Wehrmacht troops across its territory. But Franco knew that if he agreed he would lose the Canaries overnight, in accordance with the British plan known as Operation Pilgrim (Bartolomé Bennassar to Marc Ferro, Histoire parallèle, French TV Channel 3, 2 March 1996). Shirer, 814. Kammerer, ‘Rapports de l’Espagne avec l’Axe pendant la guerre’, 1, ‘Déclarations des anciens attachés militaires allemands à Madrid et à Tanger’, La France intérieure, no. 45, 15 June 1946. The information contained in these reports was supplied by General Günther Krappe, the former German military attaché in Madrid, and Colonel Hans Remer, former German military attaché in Tangier, who signed their deposition on 11 May 1946 while prisoners of war of the Soviet forces. La France intérieure cast doubt on the credibility of such a source and pointed out that neither Krappe nor Remer were appointed to their posts before 1942, but the journal admits that they were nevertheless well placed to obtain information and their testimony is confirmed by other reports. Canaris had plotted against Hitler in 1936 but had succeeded in winning exoneration; he was finally executed for treason after the Bomb Plot in July 1944. Rich, 174. Shirer, 819, citing US Department of State, The Spanish Government and the Axis, 28–33. Cf. Hoare, Ambassadeur, 464, who cites the same letter from Hitler: ‘If Germany and Italy were to lose this war, then Spain would be denied any real national independence in the future.’ This section of the letter is not to be found in the original British edition. The Spanish leaders would have noticed this omission. ‘Franco and Serrano Súñer’, wrote Hoare in a letter to Churchill, ‘believe that the victory of Great Britain would mean the end of all European dictatorships, including their own’ (Hoare, Ambassador, 108–9). Interview granted to Charles Favrel: Paris-Presse, 27 October 1945. Tusell, ‘Franco y Mussolini’, in: España, 107. Tusell gives no source reference. Documentos secretos, 71. The Goebbels Diaries, 1 November 1940, 159. Ibid., 160. Ibid., 3 November 1940, 162. Ibid., 5 November 1940, 164. Ibid., 2 April 1941, 292.

Notes to Pages 47–52 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77.

78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

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Ibid., 9 May 1941, 355–6. Ibid., 20 May 1941, 373. Documents on German Foreign Policy, vol. XII, no. 660, 1067. Detwiler, ‘Spain’, 37. Gallo, 122. Smyth, Diplomacy, 180. Cudahy, 512–13. Cf. Daily Telegaph, London, 9 April 1941. Paris-Presse, 26 October 1945. The interview, which lasted more than three hours, took place on 25 October in the Hotel Aviz in Lisbon, where Serrano was staying. The version of Max Gallo (188) is not precise. Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler’, 5, 7. Detwiler, ‘Spain’, 47. Smyth, Diplomacy, 166. Séguéla, 202. An incident in Seville in March 1940, little reported in the Spanish press if reported at all, shows that one leading cleric in Spain was prepared to stand up to the Falange. The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Don Pedro Cardinal Segura y Sáenz, archbishop of Seville, was widely known as a man not easily cowed, and was the only Spanish prelate never to give the fascist salute (Séguéla, 197). To a request dated 28 March 1940 from José Tomás Verde, civil governor of the Province, to the effect that the name of José Antonio Primo de Rivera be engraved on a wall of the cathedral, the cardinal replied that it would be a desecration of the cathedral to allow such engraving. The cardinal added a warning, that if the engraving were carried out despite his ban on it, he would ‘fulminate the most serious penalties under canon law’ against whomever was directly or indirectly involved in the action (Díaz-Plaja, 43–5). In so doing, he received the support of the Pope (Séguéla, 197). Stanley Payne (Franco Regime, 366) selects Fidel García Martínez, bishop of Calahora, as the voice of the clearest opposition to the regime, as shown in his 1942 and 1944 pastorals. Smyth, Diplomacy, 181. Thomas J. Hamilton, 227–9. Hamilton does not identify the Madrid newspaper. Rufat, 123–4. Colonel Krahmer, air attaché, German embassy Madrid, Annex to telegram from Stohrer to Ribbentrop, 10 May 1941, no. 2111, Secret; Documentos secretos, 75. Reference lost. See Hitler’s War Directives, 82–5. Leitz, Nazi Germany, 125. See Hitler’s War Directives, 130. Séguéla, 293. La Vanguardia Española, 2 October 1940; reproduced in Séguéla, 56. Manuel Ros Agudo, 191–2, reports on the immediate consequences of the French collapse for the Spanish Republicans in France. In the weeks following the Armistice of 1940, he writes, between 50,000 and 60,000 Spaniards in France were handed over by the German authorities to the Spanish consulates, to be repatriated to Spain. Ros Agudo provides no direct reference in support of these figures, but these may be drawn from the adjacent report by Cristóbal del Castillo (Spanish embassy Paris, to minister of

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84. 85. 86.

87.

88. 89. 90.

Notes to Pages 52–53 foreign affairs, 19 June 1940, AMAE, leg. R. -1.268/29). In that case, the speed in which Spaniards in France could be rounded up in the very week of the French capitulation suggests that the Spaniards were drawn from the internment camps. It should be noted, however, that the highly authoritative work of Javier Rubio is not included in Ros Agudo’s bibliography. Ros Agudo adds, 194–5, that a group of Republican leaders were preparing to leave Marseilles for Mexico on 10 December 1940 when they were arrested. Among them were Manuel Portela Valladares, Josep Tarradellas and Ventura Gassol. But the executions earlier in Spain of Lluís Companys and Julián Zugazagoitia had sufficiently perturbed Vichy to make it prefer to hold these prisoners rather than return them to Franco. Séguéla, 65. Arriba, 3 August 1940; reproduced by Séguéla, 69. The Spanish embassy left Paris for Vichy only on 21 May 1941. The reason for the delay was Serrano Súñer’s concern that the French government, after moving in turn to Tours, Bordeaux and Royat, might choose to move from Vichy. In settling in Vichy the Spanish embassy had its own building from October 1941 at 46 avenue Lyautey, near the Hôtel du Parc (the residence of Marshal Pétain) and the Mexican embassy. The staff at the Spanish embassy included Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Barroso Sánchez-Guerra; replaced in 1943 by González de Mendoza (military attaché); LieutenantColonel Ansaldo (air attaché); General Eugenio Espinosa de los Monteros (naval attaché); Juan Estelrich (cultural attaché); Antonio Zuloaga, replaced by the falangist Jesús Suevos (press attaché); and Escoriaza (Agricultural attaché). Peña, a Spanish intelligence chief close to Franco, posed as an attaché at the embassy while collaborating with German military intelligence (Séguéla, 50; Goñi, 73–5). El Hogar Español was the name already chosen by Juan Negrín for his centre in London at 22 Inverness Terrace, W.2, very close to the headquarters established in 1940 by General de Gaulle; it was not long before this centre fell into the hands of the Spanish communists, especially when Negrín left it in September 1942. Curiously, its membership included many Gibraltarians (Arasa, Exil, 58). El Hogar in Paris, with the epigraph Por la patria, el pan y la justicia, was ideologically Christian Falangist, and its first issue appeared on 8 February 1941, published by the Centro Cultural Español on Avenue Marceau. On 7 June 1941, it announced that the French and German authorities had granted permission for its simultaneous distribution in both zones. On 26 December 1942, it announced that restrictions in the use of paper that had been imposed on the entirety of the French press made it impossible to print the next edition, but with that single exception it continued to publish on a weekly basis up to 8 July 1944, when it appeared for the last time. It published articles by some distinguished pro-Franco writers, such as Fernando Izquierdo Luque and Ernesto Giménez Caballero. Giménez, who volunteered to serve in the Blue Division but was rejected, wrote an eloquent account of his visit to the site of the Katyn Forest massacre. El Hogar Español, 8 February 1941. Ibid., 22 March 1941. Ibid., 8 March 1941.


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91. Ibid., 8 February 1941. 92. Ibid., 1 March 1941. 93. Ibid., 17 May 1941. The theme of Franco’s total, boundless love was one that Retuerto evoked in another of his enterprises: the effort (which he claimed to be successful) to persuade Spanish Republicans to return to Spain, where ‘the magnanimity of the Caudillo could not be greater’ (El Hogar Español, 26 April 1941). ‘When I told the refugees that the new Spain of the Caudillo, of the Falange, ... would treat them with intelligence and generosity, their eyes filled with tears, despite the efforts they made to fight them back ... .’ (El Hogar Español, 10 May 1941). Retuerto’s purpose was to discourage, and if possible prevent, the Spanish refugees, and especially the skilled workers, artists and intellectuals among them, from leaving France for the Americas. This campaign of seduction had never ceased since the end of the Civil War. On 19 September 1939, the Spanish embassy in Paris published a pamphlet that ran in part: ‘Nobody believes any more in the myth about repression in Spain. Everybody knows through direct information how justice under Franco is carried out. The goodwill and scrupulous care that have guided the authorities in determining the often complex causes that were at the origin of various forms of social behaviour, all this is only too well known’ (Rubio, 897–8). 94. Ibid., 31 May 1941. 95. Ibid., 16 August 1941. 96. Ibid., 1 November 1941. 97. Ibid., 17 May 1941. 98. Ibid., 10 May 1941. 99. Ibid., 21 June 1941. 100. Ibid., 24 May 1941. 101. Ibid., 12 April 1941. In 1941, Marcial Retuerto proudly compiled these articles into a booklet, published by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Paris, under the title Como viven los españoles en Paris. The booklet was noteworthy mainly for its grossly exaggerated estimates of the Spanish population in France (cf. Pike, Jours, 16), but it had the benefit of a preface by the eminent Dr Gregorio Marañon that assured it a wide distribution.

Chapter 5. From Barbarossa to Pearl Harbor (22 June–7 December 1941) 1. Arriba, 24 June 1941. 2. ‘Los comunistas ingleses no muestran mucha confianza en la U.R.S.S.’, Arriba, 24 June 1941. 3. ‘El exterminio de Rusia es exigencia de la Historia y del porvenir de Europa’, Arriba, 25 June 1941. 4. Arriba, 27 June 1941. 5. El Hogar Español, 28 June 1941. 6. El Hogar Español, 12 July 1941. 7. In fact, the British bases in the Caribbean had not been transferred but simply leased to the United States for 99 years. It is interesting to note that Franco knew that the American destroyers were old. British propaganda, presented to the British public by Gaumont British News, stated at the time that

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8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

Notes to Pages 58–61 all the ships were in perfect condition, while, in point of fact, 41 of the destroyers were still not operational at the end of 1940. At the very moment that Franco was saying this, Stalin was doing all in his power to enlist the help of the Anglo-Americans, bringing Maxim Litvinov out of his forced retirement to appeal in English on the radio. On 13 July 1941, five days before the Caudillo gave his speech, Churchill presented the Anglo-Soviet alliance to the House of Commons. This address of 18 July 1941 was reproduced in the Vichy press (Basaldúa, 199–200), but this version was significantly different from that published in the Spanish press. Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 348. In his own version, Sir Samuel Hoare (Ambassador, 113) does not mention walking out with Weddell. The account by Serrano finds no support either in the version provided by Hayes, 53–4. Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 349. El Hogar Español, 9 August 1941. El Hogar Español, 25 October 1941. El Hogar Español, 28 June 1941. El Hogar Español, 5 July 1941. Inspecteur principal Fourcadet, Police Spéciale, Toulouse to Sous-Préfet, Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne): dated 6 February 1940. Foltz, 161. Crozier, 343. Ministre de l’Intérieur (Vichy): no. 515, dated 18 February 1942. Even Franco’s apologist Brian Crozier admits (73) that the volunteers for the Blue Division were insufficient and that the rest were picked out of a hat from army ranks. Cf. Pike, Españoles, 481–2. According to Sir Samuel Hoare (140), the exodus of 20,000 Spanish workers, including many technicians whose numbers in Spain were already depleted, was also important to Germany and even more harmful to the Spanish economy. Roig, 55. The French intelligence services sought to implicate both Serrano Súñer and Muñoz Grandes in personal scandal. While the accusations against Serrano were well founded (his amorous liaisons were public knowledge), the same services wrongly attributed the transfer of Muñoz Grandes to the disgrace of Muñoz Laborde, Count de la Viñaza, who had just been sentenced to 15 years in prison and a fine equivalent to 500,000 francs (Inspecteur principal Porterie, Police Spéciale, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale: no. 477, dated 26 March 1940). Muñoz Laborde was not, as the French intelligence services believed, the brother of the general. Hughes, 79. Nelken, 234. Proctor, 141. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 28. Kleinfeld and Tambs add (29) that the Spaniards were depressed by these incidents, but the welcome they received at Karlsruhe restored their morale. Séguéla, 229. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 37. According to Sir Samuel Hoare (Ambassador, 140), the exodus of 20,000 Spanish workers, including many skilled workers who were already rare in


30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

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Spain, was equally important to Germany, and even more harmful to the Spanish economy. El Hogar Español, 25 October 1941. Only a few weeks later, on 13 January 1942, von Leeb asked to be relieved, citing reasons of health. He was replaced, two days later, by Generaloberst Georg von Küchler, who was promoted to field marshal (30 June 1942) before being dismissed (31 January 1944). The Spaniards fighting in the Legion then moved under the command of Walther Model; then Georg Lindemann (March 1944); Johannes Friessner ( July 1944); and finally, following the Bomb Plot, Ferdinand Schoerner (21 July 1944). El Hogar Español, 20 December 1941. El Hogar Español, 20 December 1941. During their convalescence, some or all of these stayed at the division’s hogar de convalecientes in Berlin, where they were invited, in March 1942, to attend the showing of a new Spanish film, Raza, produced by Franco himself. The Museo del Risorgimento in Turin includes a display (‘Soprascarpe tedesche per sentinela’) showing boots issued to the Italians (and no doubt to the Spaniards) on the Russian front; they are enormous in size, designed to hold an army boot inside. El Hogar Español, 8 November 1941. El Hogar Español, 30 November 1941. El Hogar Español, 27 December 1941. Juan de Diego, interview, Perpignan, 13 December 1992. Scurr, 19–20. Deutscher Verbindungsstab der Spanischen Division, 8310/4 (Bundesarchiv– Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). Deutscher Verbindungsstab der Spanischen Division (Bundesarchiv– Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). Leitz, Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe, 127. Beaulac, Franco, 69. Dönitz, KTB 1.2.1940–1.1.1942, 2 August 1941 (RM 87/4, 179, Bundesarchiv– Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). Ros Agudo, 240. Ibid., 103. Ibid., 110. Beaulac, Franco, 69; Ruhl, Franco, 348; Ros Agudo, 103–9 passim, 240. Ros Agudo, 221. ‘Si Washington desea la paz, se llegará a un acuerdo nipo-yanqui’, El Correo Catalán, 18 November 1941. Miscellaneous primary sources. El País (Madrid), 21 November 1983.

Chapter 6. The War in the Mediterranean ( January–November 1942) 1. Hoare, 127. 2. ‘Japón declara la guerra a Inglaterra y Estados Unidos’, El Correo Catalán, 9 December 1941.

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3. ‘Escuadrillas japonesas vuelan sobre la costa yanqui’, El Correo Catalán, 10 December 1941. 4. ‘La guerra mundial’, Arriba, 9 December 1941. 5. Escola, ‘Por su legítima defensa’, El Correo Catalán, 10 December 1941. 6. Emilio Antonio, redactor-corresponsal en Vichy, ‘La entrevista Pétain–Goering’, El Correo Catalán, 10 December 1941. 7. ‘Mixificación al descubierto’, Arriba, 12 December 1941. 8. José Díaz de Villegas, El Correo Catalán, 18 December 1941. 9. The original director was Ximénez de Sandoval. He was dismissed in March 1942 in favour of Ángel Alcázar de Velasco, Serrano Súñer’s man (see Ros Agudo, 309–14). 10. The Spanish ambassador Juan Francisco de las Cárdenas was not mentioned as taking part. 11. Thomas O’Toole, Washington Post, 10 September 1978. By way of example, a To¯ report from London to Madrid on 12 July 1942 gave a detailed description of a nine-ship convoy leaving Southampton, and of the British warships escorting it. On 6 April 1943, the To ¯ ringleader in Madrid (who was never identified), together with Serrano Súñer (after his dismissal as foreign minister), were grievously assaulted in a park in Madrid. To¯ informed Tokyo that the attackers were two young ruffians who, when arrested, told the police they had been hired by the American embassy to kill the two leaders. 12. Hughes, 100. Hughes adds that Lequerica, whose normal pose was monarchist conservative, when appointed foreign minister found Arrese and the Falange intolerable. 13. Vilanova, 503–4. 14. Ibid., 504. 15. The worst of these was the assault of 24 June 1940 (cf. Hoare, Ambassador, 114–7). After one such attack, Ambassador Hoare sent the following message to the Spanish foreign minister: ‘Don’t send me any more guards, just send me fewer students!’ (Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 206). 16. Proctor, Agonía, 141. 17. Plenn, 254. 18. Hughes, 144–6. 19. Halstead, ‘Diligent’, 15. Paderewski, then 78, had fled to Paris via Switzerland in August 1939 and had arrived in Barcelona on 23 September. In the summer of 1940, the German ambassador, von Stohrer, received orders from Ribbentrop to persuade the Spanish government to prevent him from leaving Spain. According to Thomas Hamilton (216), only the intervention of President Roosevelt, who sent Franco a personal appeal, saved Paderewski from being handed over to the Germans. Despite the difficulties he encountered, the composer succeeded in reaching Lisbon on 8 October 1940 and subsequently arrived in the United States where, in the few months of the life left to him, he contributed significantly to the Allied cause. He died in New York on 29 June 1941. 20. Halstead, ‘Diligent’, 21; citing Decimal Files, US Department of State. 21. El Hogar Español, 13 December 1941. 22. Stohrer to Ribbentrop: Madrid, telegramme, no. 91, 19 February 1942, Secret. Documentos secretos, 89. A little later, Stohrer repeated this warning


23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

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from Hitler: ‘If Germany were to be defeated in this war, no force in the world could save Spain’ (Stohrer to the German foreign minister: Madrid, 3 July 1942, telegram 3600, Secret. Document no. 37, Documents secrets, 111). El Hogar Español, 21 February 1942. This celebrated remark was not published in Germany (Hoare, Ambassador, 140). Hermet, Espagne, 193. Piétri, an Anglophobe politician, had replaced the professional diplomat Renom de La Baume. Séguéla, 243. If Piétri in his writings reveals little about the man who sent him as Vichy’s ambassador to Madrid, Fernand de Brinon, who served as Vichy secretary of state, was more explicit. On 17 June 1942, de Brinon declared: ‘I am often in the company of the [French] Head of State. Never once am I invited into his office without his telling me: “The hard and magnificent struggle that Germany is waging is a necessary struggle, and with all my heart I hope for Germany’s success.”’ (France Combattante, aôut 1942). Nelken, 224. El Hogar Español, 13 June 1942. New York Times Magazine, 2 September 1956. Speer’s diaries, written in the 20 years he spent in Spandau prison in Berlin, were published in August 1975. Albert Speer, Die Welt (Bonn), 1 August 1975. Hitler’s Table-Talk, 514–5. Ibid., 520. Stohrer to Ribbentrop, telegram 3594, 3 July 1942, Secret. Documentos secretos, 105. Hitler’s Table-Talk, 569. Hitler’s War Directives, 184. Admission into the New Falange, Keitel told Hitler to the Führer’s disgust, could be obtained only with the approval of the local priest (Hitler’s TableTalk, 567–8). Ruhl, Franco, 366. Arriba, 10 December 1941. Ibid., 100. General Alfred Jodl informed Hitler at dinner on 7 July 1942 of an incident which had occurred at the Spanish frontier when some walking wounded of the Blue Division were returning home. They were refused seats in the southbound express and, when they tried to get into the guard’s van, a company of infantry, summoned by the local military governor, arrived and ejected them (Hitler’s Table-Talk, 567–8). This was a long way from the adulation which had accompanied their departure from Madrid a year earlier. Roig, 94. Ruhl, Franco, 112. Hitler’s Table-Talk, 569–70. Ruhl, Franco, 113. Operation Gisela, the last in the series, introduced in September 1942, merely confirmed the strategy of Ilona. For the directive, see Hitler’s War Directives, 186. Hitler’s Table-Talk, 608. Ros Agudo, 224.

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49. In its coverage of an attack on a Malta convoy, a British Pathé Gazette newsreel at that moment resorted to the wildest propaganda, even showing the action in the air over the convoy and exclaiming: ‘Always a miss, never a hit!’ Most people in Britain knew better. Manuel Ros Agudo, 226, reports the result when the observation posts twice detected the passage of a large British convoy bound for Malta. On 11–12 June 1942 the ‘Harpoon’ convoy came under heavy Axis air attack. Of six merchantmen, only two reached Malta. The Royal Navy lost two destroyer escorts, while a cruiser, three other destroyers and a minelayer were damaged. On 9 August, the losses for the ‘Pedestal’ convoy were even worse than those for ‘Harpoon’. Despite the fog, ‘Pedestal’ was detected by the bolometers and mauled, despite an escort that included three aircraft carriers. Nine of the 14 merchantmen were sunk, and the Royal Navy lost one of its three carriers (HMS Eagle) together with a cruiser and a destroyer. 50. Ros Agudo, 226. 51. Hermet, Espagne, 192, provides the following figures, but does not distinguish between Old Falange and New Falange adherents: from 36,000 in 1939 to 240,000 in 1937, 362,000 in 1938, 650,000 in 1939, 725,000 in 1940, 890,000 in 1941 and 932,000 in 1942. 52. Especially Serrano’s liaison with the Countess (see above). 53. The leaders were Captain José Luna Meléndez (under-secretary of the Falange) and Juan Domínguez Muñoz (national inspector of the Falange students’ union). 54. Emmet Hughes was himself in Spain and provides important testimony, but his comment (Hughes, 95) on the fate of Serrano (‘Ribbentrop never forgave von Stohrer for his failure to save Serrano’) is a serious misreading of events. 55. Hitler’s Table-Talk, 691. 56. When the time came for the División Azul to be withdrawn, not a mention of it appeared in the Falange’s Paris press. 57. Ruhl, Franco, 364. 58. Ibid., 200, 366. 59. Ibid., 176. 60. Morales Lezcano, Historia de la no-beligerancia, 216. 61. When his liaison with the Countess first became known. 62. Garriga, Relaciones, 129, 261, 292. 63. Burdick, Germany’s Military, 128. 64. Espinosa was replaced by José Finat Escrivá de Romani, count of Mayalde, up till then director general of the Seguridad Nacional. Finat was also appointed head of the Falange in Germany and in the German-occupied territories. 65. Halstead, ‘Spanish Foreign’, 70; citing Documents secrets, 124–7. The Allied incursion at Dieppe in August of that year had been a disaster, but it had certainly not been designed as a Second Front. El Correo Catalán spoke for the Spanish press on 20 August 1942 in giving it the headline ‘Fulminante derrota aliada al intentar el “segundo frente”’. 66. Ros Agudo, 227. 67. RM7/113, II. Spanien, 257–8 (Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). 68. RM7/113, II. Spanien, 252–3. Spanien (Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburgim-Breisgau).


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69. Detwiler, ‘Spain’, 51. Detwiler gives the figure of 1,200 US airmen who benefited from this permission; he gives no figure for the British. As for the French who crossed the Pyrenees, Jean-Baptiste Duroselle (254) writes that while ‘many’ were arrested at the frontier by the Gestapo and ended up in concentration camps, nearly 30,000 succeeded in reaching North Africa to take up arms again—evidence that they were not methodically hounded. 70. Commissaire Divisionnaire de Police Spéciale (Toulouse), to Inspecteur Général des Services de Renseignements Généraux (Vichy): no. 11 710, dated 19 November 1941. 71. Ignacio Olagüe to the author, Paris, 13 November 1969. Olagüe, who became an historian, found himself threatened in 1971 by the Franco government for his disclosures.

Chapter 7. Fortunes Reversed: Operation Torch and Italian Capitulation (November 1942–September 1943) 1. Denis Smyth (‘Screening’, 336) refers to a further possible menace to the – espionage rings which, as we security of Torch emanating from Spain: the To have seen, were operating inside Britain and the United States and whose product was being made available not only to the Japanese but also to the Germans. 2. Halstead, 70; citing the US Department of State, Foreign Relations: 1942, 303–6. 3. Piétri, 66. 4. Leitz, ‘Nazi Germany and the Threat’, 133. 5. German naval attaché in Madrid, to OKW-W.F.St and Vice Admiral Krancke, 1. Skl. 28574/42 g. Kds. Berlin, 20.11.1942, Weekly report (9–15.11.1942): International law, Politics, Propaganda (RM7/113, 257–8 II. Spanien, Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). 6. Ismael Herráiz, Rome, ‘Consecuencias de un armisticio generoso’, Arriba, 10 November 1942. 7. ‘Ya sonará la hora de nuestro golpe’, El Correo Catalán, 10 November 1942. 8. ‘Una situación de hecho’, unsigned, Arriba, 11 November 1942. 9. ‘Berlin considera puramente formal la protesta de Pétain’, Arriba, 12 November 1942. 10. ‘El “Queen Elizabeth” era el mayor buque del mundo’, Arriba, 13 November 1942. 11. ‘“Ha de llegar el momento en que pronunciemos transcendentales palabras” (Franco)’, Arriba, 14 November 1942. 12. Marcial Retuerto, ‘Inconsciencia francesa’, El Correo Catalán, 17 November 1942. 13. ‘Inglaterra recibirá una respuesta como no puede imaginar’, El Correo Catalán, 19 November 1942. 14. ‘El pueblo italiano y la guerra’, El Correo Catalán, 19 November 1942. 15. ‘De Gaulle, dispuesto a reconocer a Giraud’, Vichy, El Correo Catalán, 28 November 1942. 16. Giraud returned to Algiers, where he had been appointed, in late December 1942, to succeed Darlan as civil and military chief. De Gaulle returned to London, but transferred his headquarters to Algiers on 30 May 1943.

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17. El Hogar Español, 12 December 1942. 18. I. Skl. 41643/42 geh., Berlin, 23 December 1942, Weekly Report (14–20 December 1942), International Law, Politics, Propaganda (RM7/113, 293, Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). 19. El Hogar Español, 19 December 1942. 20. On 10 November 1942, Arriba reported on the departure of Generaloberst Lindemann, with a photograph showing him taking his leave of his subordinate, Muñoz Grandes. 21. El Hogar Español, 28 November 1942. 22. ‘Tall, aristocratic, charming and persuasive’, is how von Stohrer appeared to John Emmet Hughes (Hughes, 95). Forced to return with Stohrer to Germany was the first secretary, Dr Erich Heberlein, who had married a Spaniard. 23. Crozier, 423–4. The first of these units, detachments of the 326 Infantry Division, arrived in Perpignan on 5 December 1942. 24. The operation, code-named Ilona, first devised on 15 July 1942, had to be renamed in September when an SS lieutenant lost his briefcase. 25. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 192–239. 26. Burdick, Germany’s Military, 173. 27. Marchat, 1998, 2000; Payne, Franco’s, 332; Séguéla, 293. 28. Bowen, 121. 29. Moltke to Ribbentrop, telegram, no. 472, 24 January 1943, Secret, Documentos secretos, 123–4. 30. El Hogar Español, 16 January 1943. 31. Arrese was accompanied by Gabriel Arias Salgado de Cubas (under-secretary general for press and propaganda), Manuel Martínez de Tena (representing Auxilio Social), Agustín Aznar Gerner (representing the Consejo Nacional de Sanidad), Víctor de la Serna (director of Informaciones) and Xavier Echarri y Gamundi (director of Arriba). Ruhl, Franco, 206. 32. See Pike, Españoles, 288B for a photograph of their visit to the Haus des deutschen Sportsvereins. At Arrese’s side are NSV Director-general Hilgenfeldt and Dr Karl Ritter von Halt, president of the organising committee of the 1936 Winter Olympics. 33. The visit of Arrese and his team was covered extensively in the Spanish press, including El Hogar Español’s edition of 23 January 1943. ABC ran reports in four issues (27, 28, 29 January and 5 February 1943) that included a front cover. 34. ABC, 5 February 1943. 35. ‘En el Caucaso fracasan los intentos bolcheviques’, El Correo Catalán, 2 February 1943. 36. El Hogar Español, 27 March 1943. Franco’s address to the inaugural session of Cortes on 17 March 1943 included, for the first time, a reference to liberalism that was not totally derogatory, saying that ‘though it was not for Spain, it was not a universal evil and might well serve the needs of other countries’. In the same speech he described the formerly ruling Monarchist classes as ‘decadent’ (Kleinfeld & Tambs, 131–2, 321). 37. El Hogar Español, 15 May 1943. 38. El Hogar Español, 15 May 1943. 39. El Hogar Español, 15 May 1943. 40. El Hogar Español, 29 May 1943.


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41. El Hogar Español, 10 July 1943. 42. El Hogar Español, 15 May 1943. 43. El Hogar Español, 10 April 1943. The Falange journal praised Franco for his statesmanlike generosity, and reported pro-Franco demonstrations in Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseille. Not surprisingly, it did not mention any such demonstration in Toulouse. 44. El Hogar Español, 18 September 1943. 45. Leitz, ‘Nazi Germany and the Threat’, 133. 46. Ruhl, Franco, 201. 47. Leitz, ‘Nazi Germany and the Threat’, 71. By the end of the war the price was back to its 1939 value (ibid.). 48. Portuguese exports to Germany actually exceeded those of Spain. Willard Beaulac writes: ‘The Allies’ device for depriving the Germans of Spanish (and Portuguese) wolfram ... was to outbid them. The result was a boom that was unlike anything Spain had experienced since the discovery of gold in the Americas. Hundreds of poor farmers discovered wolfram in their fields, and new mines were opened overnight while the price of the mineral rose from $200 to $20,000 a ton ... . The government imposed a tax on exports that reached $10,000 a ton ... . The Germans needed wolfram so badly they would pay almost anything for it, and the Allies were always prepared to offer a little more than the Germans were paying’ (Beaulac, Franco, 186, 191). But once the Axis had lost the Mediterranean theatre, in September 1943, the Allies worked to deprive Germany of wolfram without paying exorbitant prices for it. 49. Hillgarth had served during the Spanish Civil War as British vice-consul in Palma, and as a result was fluent in Spanish. At the British embassy in Madrid on Calle Fernando el Santo, he doubled as the embassy’s security officer, and as head of the naval intelligence office in Madrid he was authorised to report directly to the prime minister. 50. Ruhl, Franco, 223, 374; Ros Agudo, 252. These two slightly conflicting accounts leave unresolved the exact order in which the documents were photographed by the Spanish authorities and by the Germans in Spain, and the form in which they were handed over to Hillgarth. When examined by British experts, the documents in question were found to have been opened, however carefully they had been resealed. 51. Deakin, 384–5. 52. Diary of Count Jordana, 17–23 July 1943, cited by Javier Tusell in Espacio, tiempo y forma, 180. 53. Halstead, ‘Spanish Foreign’, 71. 54. Trythall, 188; citing the US Department of State, Spanish, 1945. 55. Beaulac, Franco, 176. 56. Ibid., 177. 57. Cf. ibid., 175–7. Up until 1944, the Hungarian Jews were the only large national Jewish group to have been spared from the Holocaust. Everything then changed and, in May 1944, the persecution of the Hungarian Jews reached its peak. Ángel Sanz Briz, the Spanish diplomatic representative in Budapest, used a 1924 Spanish law promising Jews of Spanish descent the restoration of their citizenship, issuing them passports in the form of documents certifying that they were under the protection of Spain until such

174

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

Notes to Pages 95–99 time as they were free to proceed to Spain. Nearly 1000 Jews were saved in this way (Max-Manuel Rodríguez Navarro, WAIS, Stanford, California, 8 April 2006). For the contribution of Giorgio Perlasca, the Italian in the Spanish embassy in Budapest who was later awarded Israeli honorary citizenship and the Hungarian Parliament’s highest honour for saving some 5,200 Jews in Budapest in the period 1944–5, see Pike, Foreword, Closing, xiii–xiv. Laqueur, 54, who cites: Nuremberg Document NG-5050, 24 July 1943. Hayes, 161. Shirer, 529. Hayes, 242. Ambassador Hayes noticed this again, when he called on Franco on 12 December 1944 to take his final leave. Arriba, 27 July 1943. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 327. Ibid., 328. Ibid., 187.

Chapter 8. The Tightening of the Allied Vice: Its Effect on Spain (September 1943–June 1944) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

Halstead, in Cortada, ed., Spain, 71n. ‘Falange y su ortodoxia’, Arriba, 9 September 1943. Arriba, 9 September 1943. Arriba, 11 September 1943. Arriba’s news was out of date. Hitler had assigned Rommel to the north of Italy in May 1943 in order to prepare defences in the event of an Italian collapse. By August 1943, the defences were prepared, and Rommel was then given command of Army Group B in northern France and the responsibility for making the Atlantic Wall impregnable. Garriga, España, 1970 ed., 120. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 334. Arasa, Exiliados, 58–9. Duroselle, 260. Hughes, 79. The French Embassy was situated on Calle Salustiano Olozaga. At the Casa de Velázquez, its director Maurice Legendre led the cultural opposition to Vichy. Leitz, ‘Nazi Germany’s struggle’, 83. Hughes, 115–6. The account published as autobiography by Aline, Countess of Romanones, could be dismissed as fiction were it not for the endorsement presented on her dust jacket by William Casey, former OSS agent and later CIA director. Born Aline Griffith in Pearl River, N.Y. in 1924, the American woman, who in 1948 married the Spanish Count of Romanones, published two books: The Spy Wore Red (Random House, 1987) and The Spy Wore Silk (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991). In 1943, at the age of 20, with college-level French and German, Griffith became a model in Manhattan. Through her contacts, the dark lissom beauty obtained an invitation to work for the OSS. In 1944, she arrived in Madrid, under the code-name ‘Tiger’, to work variously as a low-level code


13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

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clerk in the OSS station (under its director William J. Donovan) and as a message-decoder at the American Oil Mission. When not there she would be seen very much at her ease in the international society of Madrid, and frequently at a table in the fashionable Horcher’s, a replica of a restaurant in Berlin. Her orders from the OSS, she tells us, were to flush out Himmler’s special agent in Madrid. The list of the possibilities was finally reduced to an unnamed German countess. It would seem that the subject of her search was in fact Paul Winzer, as anyone could find out by asking at the British or American embassies. Von Moltke had died in April 1943. Dieckhoff had previously served as ambassador to Washington. Gallo, 160. Hoare, Ambassador, 314. Trythall, 188. An event that did not pass unnoticed was the commemoration in Madrid, on 28 March 1944, of the dead of the Condor Legion. General Krahmer, the German air attaché, gave an address at the German monument in the Almudena cemetery, honouring ‘those who died as heroes in battle and those who fell victim to the enemy’s terror attacks from the air’. Ros Agudo, 230. Leitz, Nazi German and Neutral Europe, 120. The Spanish weekly newsreel number 66B released on 12 March 1944 presented a perfect neutrality of coverage. First in view was the England–Scotland football match played at Wembley Stadium in front of the King, the Queen and General Sir Bernard Montgomery. Then came film footage on the RAF raids on Mannheim and Ludwigshaufen, followed by a German air-raid on England, then footage on African American paratroopers performing their first parachute training jump, and finally a folk festival in northern Germany. Cf. Ros Agudo, 230. Leitz, Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe, 137. Hinsley et al., vol. 2, 719–20; Ros Agudo, 230 et seq. By the time that Italy capitulated, 14 British ships, totalling 75,000 tons, had been sunk or put out of action. As Manuel Ros Agudo points out, none of this would have been possible if the Spanish authorities had not turned a blind eye to the German activities (Ros Agudo, 243). Juventud, 18 April 1944; cited by Hughes, 126. Arasa, Años, 270. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 329, 335. Ruhl, Franco, 240. Ibid., 101. Bartolomé Bennassar, to Marc Ferro, ‘Histoire Parallèle’, French TV Channel 3, 30 April 1994. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 334. Ruhl, Franco, 378. Roig, 105. Ibid., 106; Ruhl, Franco, 240. Ruhl, Franco, 240. Hughes, 255.

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36. Spanische Legion, S. 168 (Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). 37. Leitz, Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe, 127; based on secondary sources. 38. The first contingent of Legionnaires reached Irun on 31 March and the last on 17 April. 39. Roig, 109; Ruhl, Franco, 241. 40. Roig, 109; based on Esteban Infantes, 300. The fanciful claim was made that the casualties they had inflicted on the Red Army amounted to 49,300 (Proctor, Agonía, 251, 259, 264–5, 271). 41. Ruhl, Franco, 241. 42. Spanische Legion, S. 168 (Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau). 43. Ruhl, Franco, 241, writes that they were not incorporated into the SS until December 1944. 44. Roig, 109. 45. Special Staff F provided the Spanish volunteers with identification documents, working papers and transportation to Germany (Bowen, 209). 46. Madrid, 11 May 1965; Roig, 109; Ruhl, Franco, 241. 47. Marchat, 2002. 48. Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler’, 2. 49. Smyth, Diplomacy, 247.

Chapter 9. From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge ( June–December 1944) 1. Manuel Aznar, ‘Los misterios del dia “D”’, Arriba, 7 June 1944. 2. ‘Churchill quiso acompañar a los soldados expedicionarios’, Arriba, 8 June 1944. 3. Manuel Aznar, ‘La batalla de Normandía, desde un observatorio’, Arriba, 8 June 1944. 4. ‘La opinión británica insatisfecha por la inactividad rusa’, Arriba, 9 June 1944. 5. Gunger Weber, Arriba, 8 June 1944. 6. Manuel Aznar, ‘Un paisaje de sangre’, Arriba, 11 June 1944. 7. Jose María Castroviejo, ‘La voluntad en su prueba más dura’, La Voz de España, 15 June 1944. 8. Manuel Aznar, Arriba, 18 June 1944. 9. ‘Día y noche, sin interrupción, siguen cayendo “meteores de dinamita” sobre Inglaterra: Por razones de seguridad Jorge VI abandona Londres’, La Voz de España, 18 June 1944. In reality, the evacuation of London had reached its peak at the very start of the war in 1939 and during the Blitz of 1940, not in 1941. Evacuation in 1944 was virtually nil, and certainly did not include the royal family. 10. La Voz de España of 18 August 1944 invented a silly story about a supposed bet made by Generals Bradley, Montgomery and Patton as to whose army would be the first to enter Paris. The first two generals commanded army groups, not armies. Montgomery’s British 21st Army Group was not even headed toward Paris. Patton’s US Third Army took its orders from Bradley, commanding US 12th Army Group. It was Bradley’s decision to allow General Leclerc, commanding the French 2nd Armoured Division in Patton’s army, to be the first division to enter the French capital.


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11. ‘The present difficulties ... oblige us to suspend publication, but this will shortly be resumed. Subscriptions will be adjusted pro rata for the period of the suspension ... .’ 12. ‘Se cree posible un acuerdo ruso-alemán’, La Voz de España, 18 August 1944. 13. On 20 June 1944, in the closing weeks of Jordana’s stewardship, a group of 38 French, Spanish and Polish youths were stopped at the frontier by Spanish guards. They were then picked up by the Gestapo and either shot or sent to a death camp (Duroselle, 260). 14. The Spanish consul general in Paris, Alfonso Fiscowich y Gullón, who had replaced Bernardo Rolland in May 1943, was appointed in June 1943 to the post of minister plenipotentiary. 15. Serrano Súñer, Memorias, 369. 16. Truelle died of a heart attack in May 1945. Bernard Hardion, the counsellor who had just arrived in Spain, found himself thrust into the post of ambassador (Piétri, 271). 17. Hughes, 123. 18. Ibid., 126. 19. Smyth, Diplomacy, 246. 20. Arasa, Exiliados, 257. 21. Federico Izquierdo Luque wrote in Ya on 1 October 1944 that the mission of the Blue Division was not to demonstrate friendship with Germany but instead to act, alone and exclusively, as a symbol of Spain’s opposition to the international phenomenon of Communism. 22. Garriga, España, 1970 ed., 243–4. 23. De Gaule, 279–86. 24. Ibid., 289. 25. As in Spain, where the name of Charles Chaplin was outlawed by a decree of 2 April 1940, and where his Great Dictator was forbidden for 36 years, so too in Argentina was the film still forbidden in April 1945. At the same time, the authorities in Buenos Aires announced that any demonstration in favour of the imminent Allied victory would be banned so as not to ‘incite disorder’. In the end, this ban was not enforced. 26. Augusto Assia, London, Ya, 19 August 1944. 27. See David Wingeate Pike, ‘Les Armées allemandes dans le Midi de la France’, in Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, no. 152, 164, 174, 181. 28. La Voz de España, 22 August 1944. Most German units on the Atlantic coast in Basses-Pyrénées were evacuated by 23 August, but Bayonne was a major exception. The evacuation of its garrison on 27 August gave it little or no chance of finding a route to safety (cf. Pike, ‘Retraite,’ 68–70). Ortega in Irun also made a point of saying goodbye to another departing friend, Colonel E.M. Doerr, the military attaché at the German embassy. From late August 1944 the entire frontier on the French side was in the hands of the FFI. Despite this, Uki Goñi reports that the German air attaché in Madrid, Luftwaffe General Eckart Krahmer, personally oversaw the crossing from France into Spain in October 1944 of a convoy carrying 200 artworks, including paintings by Rubens and Van Dyck, that had been stolen by Goering. At the end of the war, Krahmer was able to make his way to Argentina (Goñi, 75). 29. Vichy’s Ambassador Piétri resigned on 24 August 1944, leaving the French embassy in Madrid vacant.

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30. ‘El Caudillo estuvo ayer, de incognito, en Santiago de Compostella’, El Correo Catalan, 23 August 1944. El Correo, which up to now had consistently referred to Americans as yanquis, now began calling them Norteamericanos. 31. Thomas O’Toole, ‘Spain continued Nazi aid despite Pact’, Washington Post, 14 February 1979. 32. ‘Llega a España un importante envío de penicilina. Será distribuido entre los enfermos más necesitados’, El Correo Español, 21 September 1944. 33. Thomas O’Toole, ‘Spain continued Nazi aid despite pact’, Washington Post, 14 February 1979. 34. On this second visit, de la Serna had been accompanied by José Luis Arrese, chief of the Falange, and Xavier de Echarri, director of Arriba. 35. The Spanish journalists based at that time in the German capital included Celia Jiménez, who spoke to Blue Division troops over Radio Berlin. The troops were also exposed to the voice of La Pasionaria, both on Radio Moscow and over loudspeakers at the front. La Pasionaria’s propaganda evoked only obscenities from the men of the Division (Kleinfeld & Tambs, 178). 36. Kleinfeld & Tambs, 325. 37. ‘El Todopoderoso nos dará su bendición’, Informaciones, 13 November 1944. 38. Bartolomé Bennassar, to Marc Ferro, ‘Histoire Parallèle’, French TV Channel 3, 30 April 1994. Bennassar added that Franco was thus becoming more and more of a problem in the mind of the six monarchist generals and others who supported the idea of re-establishing the monarchy. 39. In revealing this on 9 March 1997, El Pais added: ‘This shows once again that the dictator’s government was still betting, in November 1944, on the possibility of a Nazi victory’. 40. Hughes, 114. 41. ‘Este es el mejor regalo de Pascuas que el Führer ha podido hacernos’, Informaciones, 19 December 1944. 42. ‘First US Army derrotado y dislocado’, Informaciones, 19 December 1944. 43. Unus, ‘Resumen de la Jornada’, Informaciones, 21 December 1944. 44. ’Propaganda injuriosa contra España’, Arriba, 21 December 1944.

Chapter 10. The Death of Hope ( January–May 1945) 1. Ya, 2 January 1945. 2. ‘La Guerra no terminará sino con la victoria alemana’, unsigned, Arriba, 2 January 1945. The date of 9 November 1918 marked the establishment of what Goebbels called, on 9 March 1932, ‘The Republic of Jews and Marxists’. 3. The prize was named after the Falange’s founder, José Antonio Primo de Rivera. 4. Ya, 31 December 1944. 5. Appointed prime minister by King Vittorio Emmanuelle III on 25 July 1943, Badoglio had signed the armistice on 8 September, after which he and the King at once fled from Rome before the Germans took it over. He subsequently signed the Italian capitulation on 29 September in front of Alexander, Eisenhower and Tedder aboard the HMS Nelson off Malta. Badoglio set up his government in Brindisi before transferring it to Salerno. On 30 October, the Badoglio government declared war on Germany, but on


6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

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9 June 1944, following the liberation of Rome, the distrust felt toward him by the anti-fascist parties forced him to resign. Arriba, 4 January 1945. Informaciones, 13 February 1945. ‘Las relaciones entre Inglaterra y Estados Unidos se han enfriado, dice Reuter’, unsigned, Arriba, 2 January 1945. ‘Varios jefes militares americanos han sido relevados’, Arriba, 12 January 1945. Manuel Aznar, ‘La Batalla de Europa. Guderian, Generalísimo alemán en el Este’, Arriba, 20 January 1945. Heinz Guderian had been dismissed by Hitler in December 1941 for his criticism of strategy on the Eastern front. Brought back in February 1943 as inspector general Wehrmacht, and promoted on 21 July 1944 to chief of the general staff, he was quietly advocating, from January 1945, an immediate armistice with the West, for which he was dismissed for a second time on 28 March 1945. The post of OB-Est (on par with OB-West, OB-Südwest or OB-Südest) never existed, because Hitler never trusted any general with this quintessential command. The new-model XXI Type U-boat entered service in March 1945, with the XXIII Type in the experimental stage. Informaciones, 25 January 1945. ‘Cuatro o cinco millones de refugiados en Berlin y en Francfort: Las tropas rusas tratan sin piedad a la población civil’, unsigned, Arriba, 3 February 1945. Unus, ‘!No! !!No!! !!!No!!!’ Informaciones, 3 February 1945. ‘La paz solo es posible si desaparece el capitalismo y el bolchevismo’, unsigned, Arriba, 7 February 1945. ‘Nunca se dará el caso de una rendición alemana’, Informaciones, 13 February 1945. ’La no beligerancia’, unsigned, Arriba, 4 January 1945. ‘España es un oasis de paz y abundancia’, unsigned, La Voz de España, 14 February 1945. ‘Existe el totalitarismo?’ unsigned, La Voz de España, 8 March 1945. ‘En España no ha habido veredictos vengativos’, Ya, 24 April 1945. While the founding conference of the United Nations did not invite Spain to take part, neither did it invite the Spanish Republic in exile to participate except as observers. The conference and its charter were virtually ignored in the Franco press. Eugenio Montés, ‘Sugerencias de unas declaraciones diplomáticas: Europa y la intimidad de las Naciones’, Arriba, 25 January 1945. The Monroe Doctrine had its origins in the Polignac Memorandum, an account (published in March 1824) of a conversation in the spring of 1823 between the British prime minister, George Canning, and the French ambassador in London, the Prince de Polignac. Polignac assured Canning that French forces would not be used in any attempt by the Spanish Crown to recover its former colonies in America. The cause of British concern was the French intervention in Spain in that year to restore Ferdinand VII. Simón Bolívar’s letter of that same year, 1823, ran: ‘Only England, mistress of the seas, can protect us against the united forces of European reaction.’

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25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

Notes to Pages 117–121 Britain responded with a clear threat of intervention to protect the Spanish American republics. Accordingly, in August 1823, Canning proposed to the US Congress that it bar all foreign intervention in the Americas. Britain itself had nothing to fear in America. Spain was no longer a threat, and Portugal was England’s oldest ally. Nevertheless, Anglo-US relations had not yet recovered from the War of 1812, and there were those in the US Senate who distrusted British intentions. But the threat to the Spanish American republics was real. The Holy Alliance which had restored Ferdinand VII to his throne was now backing any Spanish attempt to restore Spain’s authority in Spanish America. The upshot came on 2 December 1823, when Secretary of State John Quincy Adams proclaimed the doctrine that bore his president’s name. ‘De Gaulle no ha sido invitado’, Arriba, 30 January 1945. Lorenzo Garza, Lisbon correspondent, ‘Pétain firmó con Churchill un tratado’, La Voz de España, 1 March 1945. Eugenio Montés, ‘Consolación Filosófica a Charles Maurras’, Arriba, 30 January 1945. Juan de Hernani, ‘Están fusilando a los mejores franceses’, La Voz de España, 14 February 1945. ‘Bolchevización’, unsigned editorial, Arriba, 12 January 1945. Cf. Pike, Service, 55–7. Ros Agudo, 132–4. Antonio Marquina writes of 12 Spanish vessels shipping supplies to several German-occupied ports on the French Atlantic coast (Antonio Marquina Barrio, ‘La consolidación del franquismo’, Historial universal: Siglo XX, Madrid, 1984–5, 20:120; cited by Payne in Franco’s, 338). Bécamps, 108. Ibid., 162. Ramón Serrano Súñer to Charles Favrel, Paris-Presse, 28 October 1945. ‘Ha aparecido la V-3, anuncia una agencia suiza’, unsigned, Arriba, 12 January 1945. Unus, ‘La famosa cabeza de puente’, Informaciones, 13 March 1945. Much was made of the recapture of this town 50 miles east of Dresden. Dollinger, 71, provides a photo showing Goebbels congratulating the mayor. Félix García Blázquez, ‘Lo claro sobre lo confuso’, La Voz de España, 14 March 1945. Ya, 18 March 1945. Ya, 31 March 1945. Arriba, 13 April 1945. Manuel Aznar, ‘Y la aviación de Alemania?’, Arriba, 21 March 1945. Francisco Lucientes, ‘Ni la caída de Berlín representará el fin de la Guerra en Europa’, Arriba, 23 March 1945. ‘Con valor inquebrantable se defienden los alemanes en el Bajo Rhin’, Informaciones, 23 March 1945. ‘Serenidad del Mando alemán’, Ya, 31 March 1945. ‘Los últimos días’, unsigned, Ya, 3 April 1945. ‘Eisenhower prevé lucha de guerrillas en Alemania’, unsigned, Ya, 5 April 1945. ‘Retraso aliado’, Ya, 5 April 1945.


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48. ‘Las guerrillas alemanas prolongarán la resistencia en las zonas ocupadas’, Ya, 12 April 1945. 49. Oslo was one of five capital cities that were still in German hands. 50. Luis López-Ballesteros, ‘Los últimos diez días’, Ya, 11 April 1945. It was not until 1982 that the world learnt to what point Nazi Germany had developed its research into nerve gas, a development which constituted an enormous danger and one which Allied intelligence did not suspect. Nor did the Allies have anything equivalent to it. 51. Hermet, Espagne, 207. 52. ‘España rompe sus relaciones diplomáticas con el Japón’, unsigned, Arriba, 12 April 1945. 53. ‘La Prensa norteamericana destaca la ruptura de relaciones de España con el Japón’, Arriba, 13 April 1945. 54. Hughes, 251. 55. Ya, 19 April 1945. 56. Ya, 17 April 1945. 57. ‘Campos de concentración’, unsigned, Ya, 21 April 1945. 58. See Pike, ‘Franco’s Consulate in Vienna’, Spaniards, 142–7, 351–2. 59. Unus, ‘Resumen de la jornada’, Informaciones, 13 April 1945. 60. ‘Los españoles sienten su pérdida como si fuese propia’, Ya, 13 April 1945. 61. ‘Su excelencia el Jefe de Estado expresa su sentimiento por la muerte del Presidente Roosevelt’, unsigned, Ya, 14 April 1945. 62. ‘Duelo en el mundo’, unsigned, Ya, 14 April 1945. 63. ‘La acción de la justicia por los crímenes derivados de la rebelión marxista ha quedado terminada’, unsigned, Ya, 14 April 1945. 64. ‘Honda emoción en todo el mundo por la muerte de Roosevelt’, unsigned, Arriba, 14 April 1945. 65. Mariano Daranas, ‘De Lloyd George a Roosevelt’, ABC, 19 April 1945. 66. Unus, ‘Resumen de la jornada’, Informaciones, 13 April 1945. 67. Francisco Lucientes, ‘Los alemanes—escribe Estrella Roja—se conducen con los estadounidenses como si fuesen un poder neutral’, Arriba, 15 April 1945. 68. Dr Echalecu y Canino, ‘Cuando Europa se estremece’, Ya, 15 April 1945. 69. ‘Eisenhower no cree probable la rendición total alemana’, unsigned, Ya, 17 April 1945. 70. Informaciones, 18 April 1945. 71. Ya, 20 April 1945. 72. ABC, 26 April 1945; El Mundo, 29 April 1945; cited by Preston in ‘Franco and Hitler’, 1. 73. The Spanish ambassador to Berlin, Ginés Vidal y Saura, who had replaced Count de Mayalde in November 1942, left the capital on 11 March 1945 and died of a cerebral embolism on 28 April 1945 in Switzerland. 74. Antonio Mira, ‘El fin de la guerra dependerá de la política aliada de ocupación: Se cree que Alemania puede prolongar la lucha desde Noruega y el macizo montañoso del Sur’, Ya, 22 April 1945. 75. ‘Los últimos reductos’, unsigned, Ya, 24 April 1945. 76. ‘Hitler dirige en persona la defensa’, Ya, 24 April 1945. 77. Ya, 24 April 1945. 78. ‘Los alemanes reconquistan Liegnitz, en Silesia; Penetración hasta las cercanías de Baden, al sur de Viena’, El Alcázar, 26 April 1945.

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79. ‘Fracasan nuevamente los intentos rusos de cercar Berlin’, Arriba, 28 April 1945. 80. ‘Mejoran las posiciones alemanas en el sur del frente oriental’, Informaciones, 28 April 1945. 81. ‘La esperanza de la paz’, unsigned editorial, Arriba, 25 April 1945. 82. ‘Victoria de España’, signed L., El Alcázar, 26 April 1945. 83. Salvador Lissarragüe, ‘La firmeza española ante la paz’, Arriba, 28 April 1945. 84. Mariano Daranas, ‘Responso’, ABC, 1 May 1945. 85. ‘Miles de prisioneros británicos llegaron a su país a través de España’, Ya, 24 April 1945. 86. Mariano Daranas, ‘Leopoldo III, el Taciturno’, ABC, 26 April 1945. 87. ‘En España no se han refugiado “criminales de guerra”’, Arriba, 1 May 1945. 88. ‘Los ataques de la Prensa extranjera a España se basan en deformaciones de la verdad’, Arriba, 5 May 1945. 89. Unus, ‘Resumen de la jornada’, Informaciones, 1 May 1945. 90. Unus, ‘Resumen de la jornada’, Informaciones, 2 May 1945. 91. Informaciones, 3 May 1945; cited by Preston in ‘Franco and Hitler’, 2. 92. ‘Muerte en la batalla’, unsigned, El Alcázar, 2 May 1945. 93. Lucio del Alamo, ‘En la Cancellería ha muerto un soldado’, El Alcázar, 3 May 1945. 94. ‘El recuerdo de Hitler vivirá durante miles de años en el pueblo alemán’, Informaciones, 3 May 1945. 95. ‘Jamás salió de labios del Führer una palabra de odio o poco amable hacia Inglaterra y Francia’, Informaciones, 3 May 1945. 96. ‘Alemania, que ha resistido seis años contra el mundo entero, no puede ser aniquilada nunca’, Informaciones, 3 May 1945. 97. Eugenio Montés, ‘Sinfonía patética de Alemania’, Arriba, 5 May 1945. 98. Informaciones, 7 May 1945; cited by Preston in ‘Franco and Hitler’, 2. 99. ‘De Valera visita al ministro alemán en el Eire y le expresa su pésame’, Informaciones, 3 May 1945. 100. ‘Es eliminada la penetración en el barrio de los ministerios’, El Correo Catalán, 2 May 1945. 101. El Correo Catalán, 2 May 1945. 102. Arriba, 5 May 1945. 103. Arriba, 6 May 1945. 104. Arriba, 11 May 1945. Schoerner’s army no longer existed. It had finished up in Czechoslovakia, where he told the remnants of his battered forces to make for the West. He himself flew to the US zone of Austria, where he was handed over to the Russians, who imprisoned him for 10 years. When he returned to Germany he faced charges of having executed Germans (even Wehrmacht colonels) for treason in the last months of the war. 105. Hughes, 127. 106. ABC, 8 May 1945. 107. Arriba, 8 May 1945. 108. Ya, 8 May 1945. 109. ‘Satisfacción en la hora de la paz’, unsigned editorial, La Voz de España, 9 May 1945. 110. Informaciones, 9 May 1945. 111. Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler’, 2. 112. ‘Como se ratificó el armisticio en Berlín’, Arriba, 10 May 1945.


183

113. Arriba, 12 May 1945. 114. ‘Dice el jefe del campo de Belsen’, Ya, 24 April 1945. 115. ‘Otro campo de horrores’, Ya, 15 May 1945. The colonel in question was undoubtedly Lieutenant-Colonel Richard R. Seibel, who commanded the force that liberated the camp on 5 May 1945. Cf. Pike, Spaniards, 238 et seq. 116. ‘Más de 1.000 sacerdotes perecieron en el campo de Dachau’, Ya, 16 May 1945.

Epilogue: Duplicity Rewarded (1945–1953) 1. Hoare, Ambassador, 306; Gallo, 170–1. Doussinague (327–34) and Piétri (237–8) make much of Churchill’s expression of gratitude in May 1944 without mentioning his later remarks. 2. On 21 February 1944, the United States had drawn up a formal accusation of the Franco regime, but Churchill pressed Roosevelt to allow the resumption of oil supplies. Later, on 10 March 1945, Roosevelt wrote to Norman Armour, his new ambassador to Spain: ‘Our victory over Germany will bring with it the extermination of Nazi ideology and of others which are similar ... . The present Spanish regime has identified itself in the past with our enemies’ (Gallo, 165, 174–5). 3. Economic factors and the opposition of Portugal (Britain’s oldest ally) may well have been the primary consideration in the British government’s attitude. Cf. Medina Molera, 41. 4. Arriba, 22 May 1945; cited by Hughes, 97. 5. New York Times, 17 June 1945. 6. Rodríguez Cruz, 232–3. The early policy of the West German government to give financial assistance to the widows of Spaniards who died in the Blue Division while giving nothing to the victims of Guernica or Mauthausen was mentioned by ETA in December 1970 as one of the reasons why it kidnapped the West German diplomat Eugen Beihl. 7. Arriba, 4 September 1945. 8. Arasa, Años, 273. 9. Ibid. 10. Among other lop sided policy decisions, Stanley Kramer’s film ‘Judgment at Nuremberg’ (1961) was grossly falsified: the title was changed to ‘Vencedores y Vencidos’, and the documentary evidence presented by the prosecution was disjointed, to the advantage of the defendants insisting on their innocence (Alfaya, in Abellán, II, 103–4). As for Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator’, it was never shown in Franco’s Spain. Only in May 1976 did it receive its première in Madrid and Barcelona, at which time Chaplin’s appeal at the end of the film for peace and freedom produced standing ovations. 11. Charles Favrel, Paris-Presse, 4 November 1945. 12. Mexico was the first, on 28 August 1945, to grant such recognition. Guatemala, Panama and Venezuela followed suit within ten weeks, but no other country outside the Soviet bloc did likewise. 13. Plenn, 329. 14. Hoare, Ambassador, 285. 15. Sorel, 34. Gallo (193) writes that the Army in 1946 included 150,000 foreign volunteers, apart from native troops and the Foreign Legion (Tercio). For an

184

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Notes to Pages 136–138 accurate assessment of the number of Germans repatriated from Spain after May 1945, and of Nazis remaining or arriving in Spain, see Viñas, Franco, 503–11. Keith Hamilton, 56. Cf. Pike, Français, 363–6. Martín Artajo had replaced Lequerica on 21 July 1945. He was described, like his predecessor, as ‘Catholic’. André Marty, preface to Ibarruri, Pour assurer. For example, by supplying them with Spanish passports (cf. Pike, ‘Immigration’, 293). Extracts from this announcement by Martín Artajo appeared in the Paris press on 15 January 1946, notably in Le Monde and France-Soir. The latter being then only a one-sheet journal, its account of the incident was minimal. Le Monde, which supplied no figures, reported the foreign minister’s announcement as follows: The German colony includes many who are apolitical and who have been settled in the Peninsula for a long time. As far as the others are concerned, a list has already been drawn up which shows who were the Nazi officials. The minister referred to the law of 1885 guaranteeing right of asylum to foreigners not accused of common crimes, adding that this ruling would apply in particular to [the Belgian quisling Léon] Degrelle. Cf. Rodríguez Castillo, 250

21. New York Times, 7 September 1947. Cf. Juventud, no. 23, 6 October 1947. 22. Moyano had previously served as military attaché at the Spanish embassy in Berlin. 23. Renovación, 27 April 1947. 24. Herbert Mitgang, New York Times, 5 May 1989. 25. Goñi, 280–1, 383. 26. He had been sentenced to death in absentia by the Verona courts in January 1944. 27. Simon Wiesenthal in 1984 discovered his address: Villa La Cabana Cerro, Auto Torre Blanca del Sol, Fuengirola (Dokumentationszentrum, Vienna, 31 January 1985). Cf. Ros Agudo, 322. 28. New York Herald Tribune, 12 April 1946. 29. New York Herald Tribune, 13 April 1946. After the resignation of Piétri as Vichy’s ambassador to Madrid, its consul in Barcelona, Pierre Héricourt, who had covered the Civil War as military correspondent for Action Française, served as Vichy’s plenipotentiary. After the Liberation (and Héricourt’s departure) and up to August 1945, the French consulate in Barcelona assumed the task of uncovering all German agents who had entered Spain. Thanks to the work of three informers living in the city, on calle Balmes 242 or 244, most of the Gestapo agents in Spain had been classified. However, Franco apparently had his own informer inside the French consulate: a certain Ramonaxo, employed as an attaché, had formerly served as the head of Action Française in Perpignan and was currently in direct contact with the chief of the Falange and the Segunda Bis in Barcelona (XT.7, no. 15882, dated 20 December 1945; Archives of Haute-Garonne, Toulouse). 30. XT.4, unnumbered, dated 27 February 1946 (Archives of Haute-Garonne, Toulouse).


185

31. XT.4, unnumbered, classified Source Reliable, dated 22 February 1946 (Archives of Haute-Garonne, Toulouse). 32. XT.5, no. 491, dated 9 February 1949 (Archives of Haute-Garonne, Toulouse). 33. Welles, 354. 34. Voting in favour were: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussia, Chile, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iran, Liberia, Luxemburg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, the USSR, Uruguay. Venezuela and Yugoslavia. Those opposed: Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Salvador and Peru. Those abstaining: Afghanistan, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, Honduras, Lebanon, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and the Union of South Africa. Absent: Iraq. 35. Piétri, 274. 36. Ibid., 266. 37. The other four were Paul Marion, secretary of state; Pierre Mathé, Minister of Supply; Charles Rochat, secretary general foreign ministry; and Jacques Guérard, secretary of state prime minister’s office. 38. François Piétri provides his personal account: 2 May 45. Lequerica, the Foreign Minister, called me. Come at once. I did. He wanted my advice ... . He said, ‘I’m overwhelmed by it. They’re going to ask us to hand them over ... . What am I going to do if they claim him as a war criminal? I’m thinking of sending him to Dublin, where he won’t be extradited—the Irish Minister in Madrid has so informed me. Laval only has to go there, with his pilot in his own plane. We will provide the fuel. It can be said that he was merely refuelling in Barcelona. What do you think?’ I replied, ‘Your idea is not bad. But he could look upon Spain as a country of asylum, since it is neutral.’ A few days later I received another call from Lequerica, that Laval had refused to move to Ireland but, in order not to embarrass the Spanish Government, he agreed to be handed over ... to the Americans. All Laval insisted upon is that he would not be handed over to the French. I urged Lequerica to let Laval know he would not be safe in American hands and that he should look for asylum in countries such as Ireland, Egypt or Switzerland. Lequerica concluded, on 9 May 1945, that whatever Laval decided he, Lequerica, would not put his signature to an order forcing Laval out of Spain. What followed, at his trial, was a horror story. (Pietri, 264–5) 39. André Brissaud, Le Journal de la France, no. 191, 12 February 1973; Dank, 300–1. 40. Gabolde and the Bonnard brothers were allowed to remain in Spain. Abel Bonnard died in Madrid in 1968. Gabolde was sentenced to death in absentia by a French court on 13 March 1946; he died in Spain in 1972. Guérard received the same sentence but decided in 1955 to return to France, where he received a new sentence in 1958 of five years’ loss of civil rights, the sentence being instantly quashed; he died in 1977. 41. L’Express , 28 October 1978.

186


42. Among others that the French government tried in vain to extradite from Spain were Peretti della Rocca and Bodiguet. Bodiguet was formerly head of the Perpignan Milice. Peretti, a former ambassador to Madrid, had been appointed head of the Council of Political Justice on 12 August 1941, and was therefore responsible for the Riom Trials. In February 1944, he was made assistant chief of staff to the minister of the interior before fleeing to Spain in August 1944. 43. Séguéla, 310–11. 44. During the session of 16 January, Senator André Marty urged the government to no longer intervene in Spain, but to treat Franco as an enemy, breaking off all relations with him. Marty had the noteworthy support, outside his party, of Gilbert de Chambrun and Charles d’Aragon. 45. Cf. Pike, ‘L’immigration’, 287n. 46. Medina Molera, 41. 47. Those voting in favour of reaffirming the 1946 resolution were: Belgium, Bolivia, Byelorussia, Chile, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Iran, Liberia, Luxemburg, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, the USSR, Venezuela and Yugoslavia. Those opposed: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Greece, Honduras, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Turkey, the Union of South Africa and the United States of America. Those abstaining: Afghanistan, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. 48. The frontier was reopened on 10 February. 49. A major reason for this trend was the advent of new dictatorships in Latin America. When Rómulo Gallegos, the democratically elected president of Venezuela, was overthrown in 1949 by a military junta, the junta at once proceeded, on 4 April of that year, to withdraw its recognition from the Spanish Republic in exile and to recognise the Franco government. Panama followed suit on 1 March 1950. 50. Alba, Historia, 315, provides the following table to illustrate the change in the UN vote on the matter of Spain’s admission:

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950

Against:

For:

Abstentions:

51 34 29 14 15 10

0 6 6 21 26 38

0 13 20 12 16 12

51. Gallo, 226. 52. After a trial lasting 39 weeks, all 11 top leaders of the Party were convicted of conspiring to advocate the forcible overthrow of the US government. Ten received prison sentences of five years, the eleventh a sentence of three years and all were awarded fines of $10,000. 53. Of which the first, the Chase National Bank, had granted a loan of $25,000,000 in February 1949.

Notes to Page 145

187

54. Notably España Combatiente, the influential monthly supporting Juan Negrín, in its issue of September 1950. 55. The US Senate voted as follows: In favour of the loan: 65 Democrats: 34 Dennis Chavez (N.M.)

Lyndon B. Johnson (Tex.)

James E. Murray (Mont.)

Tom Connally (Tex.)

Estes Kefauver (Tenn.)

Francis J. Myers (Pa.)

James O. Eastland (Miss.)

Robert S. Kerr (Okla.)

Herbert R. O’Conor (Md.)

Allen J. Ellender (La.)

Edward L. Leahy (R.I.)

Joseph C. O’Mahoney (Wyo.)

J. Wiliam Fulbright (Ark.)

Scott W. Lucas (Ill.)

Claude Pepper (Fla.)

Walter F. George (Ga.)

Warren G. Magnuson (Wash.)

A.Willis Robertson (Va.)

Guy M. Gillette (Ia.)

Burnet R. Mayhank (S.C.)

Richard B. Russell, Jr (Ga.)

Carl Hayden (Ariz.)

Patrick A. McCarran (Nev.) John J. Sparkman (Ala.)

Clyde R. Hoey (N.C.)

John L. McClellan (Ark.)

John C. Stennis (Miss.)

Spessard L. Holland (Fla.)

Ernest W. McFarland (Ariz.)

Millard E. Tydings (Md.)

Lester C. Hunt (Wyo.)

Kenneth McKellar (Tenn.)

Edwin C. Johnson (Col.)

Brien McMahon (Conn.) Republicans: 31

George D. Aiken (Vt.)

Bourke B. Hickenlooper (Ia.)

Leverett Saltonstall (Mass.)

Ralph Owen Brewster (Me.)

Irving M. Ives (N.Y.)

Margaret Chase Smith (Me.)

John W. Bricker (Ohio)

James P. Kem (Mo.)

H. Alexander Smith (N.J.)

Styles Bridges (N.H.)

William F. Knowland (Calif.)

Robert A. Taft (Ohio)

Hugh A. Butler (Neb.)

William Langer (N.D.)

Edward J. Thye (Minn.)

Homer E. Capehart (Ind.)

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr (Mass.)

Arthur V. Watkins (Utah)

Guy Cordon (Ore.)

George W. Malone (Nev.)

Kenneth S. Wherry (Neb.)

Henry C. Dworshak (Idaho)

Edward Martin (Pa.)

Alexander Wiley (Wis.)

Homer Fergusen (Mich.)

Joseph R. McCarthy (Wis.)

Milton R. Young (N.D.)

J. Chandler Gurney (S.D.)

Eugene D. Millikin (Colo.)

Robert C. Hendrickson (N.J.)

Karl E. Mundt (S.D.)

188

Notes to Pages 145–146 Opposed: 15 Democrats: 11

Clinton P. Anderson (N.M.)

J. Allan Frear, Jr. (Del.)

Hubert H. Humphrey (Minn.)

William Benton (Conn.)

Frank P. Graham (N. C.)

Herbert H. Lebman (N.Y.)

Harry Flood Byrd (Va.)

Theodore F. Green (R.I.)

Elbert D. Thomas (Utah)

Paul H. Douglas (Ill.)

J. Lister Hill (Ala.) Republicans: 4

Charles A. Eaton (N.J.)

Wayne Lyman Morse (Ore.)

Ralph E. Flanders (Vt.)

John J. Williams (Del.)

56. The United States voted with the majority. The ten voting against were: Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Israel, Mexico, Poland, Ukraine, the USSR, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. Twelve nations abstained, including France, India and the United Kingdom. 57. The Vatican had issued a decree, on 13 July 1949, excommunicating progressives as well as communists. 58. Admiral Sherman’s first official visit took place in July 1951, when he was the envoy of President Truman. Cf. Viñas, Pactos. 59. To provide a certain balance to the event, Dulles then left for Brioni on the Adriatic to meet Tito.

Bibliography I. Primary Sources A. Archives and documents 1. Archives and libraries consulted Archives de France/Archives Nationales (Paris) Archives des Midi-Pyrénées/Archives de la Haute-Garonne (Toulouse) Biblioteca de Catalunya (Barcelona) Biblioteca Española (Paris) Biblioteca Hemeroteca (Madrid) Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal (Paris) Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (Nanterre) Bibliothèque Municipale (Toulouse) Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris) Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (Paris) Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne (Paris) British Council (Paris) Bundesarchiv (Berlin) Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv (Freiburg-im-Breisgau) Centre d’Estudis História Contemporánea/Biblioteca Figueras (Barcelona) Federación Española de Deportados e Internados Políticos (Paris) Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Paris) Hemeroteca Nacional (Madrid) Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace (Stanford, California) Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Freiburg-im-Breisgau) National Archives and Records Administration (College Park, Maryland) Public Record Office (Kew, Surrey) Service historique de l’Armée de Terre (Vincennes)

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3. Documents unpublished France: Third Republic Document without other reference: F7 14722, dated 3 August 1938 (Archives Nationales, Paris). Ministre de l’Intérieur Bordereau no. 9647, dated 13 September 1939, Classified Secret. Bordereau no. 499, dated 19 April 1940. Bordereau no. 541, dated 30 April 1940. to Préfet de Haute-Garonne: no. 2849, dated 15 May 1940. Préfet de Haute-Garonne: Special Report, dated June 1940. Inspecteur principal de Police Spéciale, Toulouse, to Directeur Général, Sûreté Nationale: no. 102, dated 6 April 1939.

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Index ABC (Madrid), xiv, 16–17, 35, 40, 89, 124, 127, 130, 154, 172, 181–2 Abwehr (Ger. Army intelligence), see Germany Acoca, Miguel (US journalist), 41 Acoz, Château d’ (Belgium), 32 Action Française (Fr. reactionary movement), 3, 184 Action Française (Paris), 3, 151, 184 Adams, John Quincy (US President), 180 Admiral Graf von Spee (Ger. battleship), 21 Admiralty Record Office (London), see United Kingdom Afghanistan, 185–6 Africa, x–xi, 7, 29, 32–3, 41, 45–6, 80–2, 84–5, 157, 171, 175, 185–6 Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), 20 Aguirre y Lecube, José Antonio (Basque Premier), 98 Ahora (Madrid), 2 Air France, 152, 156 Alba and Berwick, Jácobo Stuart Fitz-James y Falco, Duke of (Sp. Ambassador to Britain), 158 Albi (Tarn), 20 Alborán, island of (Spain), 68 Albornoz y Liminiana, Álvaro de (Sp. Rep. political leader), 98 Alcalá de Henares (prison), 50 Alcázar (Seville), 74, 135, 160 Alcázar, El (Madrid), 126, 129, 181–2 Alcázar de Velasco, Angel (Sp. military intelligence official), 35, 158, 168 Alcazarquivir (Ksar El-Kébir, Sp. Morocco), 5 Alexander, General Sir Harold (Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean), 92, 178 Alfaro, José María (Sp. Undersecretary for Press and Propaganda), 24

Alfonso xiii, King of Spain, 158 Algeciras (Andalusia), 68, 77, 114 Algeria, 46, 84, 152 Algiers, 84, 99, 114, 157, 171 Alicante, 5, 100, 152 Almería, 90 Alps, 3, 125, 140 Álvarez del Vayo, Julio (Sp. Foreign Minister), 98 Amélie-les-Bains (Pyrénées-Orientales), 98 Anarchists, 15 Andalusia, 2 Anglet (Basses-Pyrénéés), 20 Anglo-French Riff mines (Sp. Morocco), 12 Anglo-Portuguese Agreement, xii, 80 Anglo-Soviet Alliance, 57, 134, 166 Angoulême, 9 Ansaldo, Lieutenant-Colonel (Sp. Air Attaché in Vichy), 164 Antequera (Andalusia), 2 Anti-Comintern Pact (1936), 1, 15, 61, 160 Antonescu, Marshal Ion (Rom. Prime Minister), 79 Aragon, 10 Aragon, Charles d’ (Fr. political leader), 186 Aranda Mata, General Antonio, 42, 151 Araquistáin y Quevedo, Luis (Sp. Rep. Ambassador to Paris), 98 Arasa, Daniel (Sp. historian), 35, 159 Ardennes, 112, 114 Argentina, 72, 86, 90, 100, 120, 137, 144, 177, 185–6 Arias Salgado de Cubas, Gabriel (Sp. Asst.-Secretary of National Education), 99, 101–2, 172 Armengaud, General Paul (Fr. Air Force), 9

203

204

Index

Armour, Norman (American Ambassador to Spain), 124, 138, 183 Arrese, José Luis de (Sp. head of the Falange), 57, 78, 87, 89, 91, 96, 168, 172, 178 Arriba (Madrid), xiv, 18–19, 23–5, 27–32, 34, 36–7, 40, 56, 59, 71, 76, 85–6, 94, 96, 98, 107, 112–5, 117–9, 122, 124, 126, 128–30, 135, 143, 172, 178 Arroz (Ger. naval program), see Germany Asensio Torrado, General Carlos (Sp. Army Chief of Staff), 59, 76 Asociación de las Juventudes Europeas, 55 Assia, Augusto (Sp. journalist), 16–17, 22–4 Associated Press, 14, 136 Atlantic Charter (1941), 133 Atlantic Wall, 51, 77, 118, 174 Attlee, Clement (Br. Prime Minister), 105, 134 Audeguil (mayor of Bordeaux), 119 Ausland-Abwehr (Ger. Intelligence), see Germany Australia, 7, 139, 185–6 Austria, 19, 137, 142, 182 Avila, 2 Aznar, Manuel (Sp. journalist), 19, 106–7, 114, 120, 157 Aznar Gerner, Agustín (Sp. official), 172 Azores Agreement, xii, 80 Bachmayer, Georg (SS-Hauptsturmführer), 63 Badajoz (Estremadura), 50, 73–4 Baden (Austria), 126, 181 Badoglio, Marshal Pietro (It. Prime Minister), 95, 113, 178 Balearic Islands, 14, 128 Balkans, 62, 91 Banque d’Etat du Maroc, 156 Barbarossa, see Operation Barbarossa Barcelona, 7, 9, 14, 23, 25, 28, 35, 40, 59, 76, 126, 138, 141, 143, 153–4, 160, 168, 183–5

Barcelonnette (Basses-Alpes), 157 Barcia, Augusto (Sp. Rep. political leader), 98 Barga, Luis de la (Sp. journalist), 107 Bariloche (Argentina), 137 Barrón, Lieutenant-Colonel José (Sp. agent in the Servicio de Información, Madrid), 137 Barrón y Ortiz, Major General Fernando (Sp. Minister of Aviation), xi Barroso Sánchez-Guerra, LieutenantColonel Antonio (chief of operations in the general staff of the Spanish Army), 46, 164 Barth (editor in chief Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung), 57 Bartlett, Vernon (Br. journalist), 112 Basle, 27–8 Battle of the Atlantic, 90 Battle of Berlin, 129 Battle of Britain, 22, 34, 38 Battle of the Bulge, 111–12 Battle of El Alamein, xii Battle of Kiev, 61 Battle of Kutno, 30 Battle of Leningrad, 96 Battle of Normandy, 108, 110 Battle of the River Plate, 21 Battle of Stalingrad, 89 Battle of Verdun, 110, 143 Baudouin, Paul (Fr. Vichy Foreign Minister), 29 Bautzen (Upper Saxony), 129 Bavaria, 96, 101, 125, 140 Bayonne, 4, 20, 154, 177 Beaulac, Willard (US diplomat and historian), 20, 154–5, 173 Begoña (Vizcaya), 78 Beigbeder, Colonel Juan (Sp. Foreign Minister), x, 5, 21, 33–4, 39, 46, 158–9 Beihl, Eugen (West Ger. diplomat), 183 Belgium, 22–3, 32, 48, 127, 137, 185–6 Bennassar, Bartolomé (Fr. historian), 162, 175, 178 Bérard-Jordana Agreements, 12, 152 Berchtesgaden, 47 Bergerac (Dordogne), 9

Index 205 Berlin (city), x, 16–18, 22, 24–5, 32, 36, 39, 41, 43, 48–9, 57, 59–60, 63, 69, 74, 76, 79–80, 85, 89, 92, 95, 110–12, 120–1, 125–6, 128–31, 135, 161, 167, 169, 175, 178, 181 Spanish Embassy, 43, 63, 79, 95, 184 Tempelhof (airport), 111 see also Germany Berlinerfront Nachrichtenblatt, 126 Berne, 29, 140, 160–1 Bernhardt, Johannes F. (director Sofindus), 12, 111 Besançon, 46 Bessel (Ger. tanker), 67, 158 Bevin, Ernest (Br. Foreign Secretary), 134, 139 Biarritz, 4 Bidart (Basses-Pyrénéés), 20 Bidasoa (river), 5 Bidault, Georges (Fr. Foreign Minister), 139, 143 Bilbao, 15, 78 Blaskowitz, Generaloberst Johannes (Ger. commander Army Group G), 110 Blankney, HMS (Br. destroyer), 67 Blue Division, viii, ix, xiii, 59–63, 65, 66, 75–7, 79, 88, 96, 100–3, 109, 122, 164, 166, 169–70, 177–8, 183 Blue Legion, 101–3, 60, 79, 101–3, 113, 134 Blum, Léon (Fr. Prime Minister), 4, 8, 29, 153, 157 Bodden, see Germany Bodiguet (chief of the Perpignan militia), 186 Boethius, Severinus (Roman-Christian philosopher), 118 Bolívar, Simón, 179 Bolivia, 186 Bologna, 137 Bolshevism, 74, 89–90, 94, 100, 109, 115, 134 Bonnard, Abel (Fr. Vichy Minister of National Education), 140–1, 185 Bonnet, Georges (Fr. Foreign Minister), 5, 15 Bonney, Therese (US photographer), 50

Bonsal, Philip (US chargé d’affaires in Madrid), 143 Borbón, General Enrique de (Sp. commander 2° Division in Madrid), 82 Bordeaux, 4, 9, 20, 29–30, 46, 60, 118–19, 164, 173 Bordeaux Armistice, x Bordighera, 48 Borrás, Tomás (Sp. journalist), 89 Bourget, Le (Seine-Saint-Denis), 142 Boussens (Haute-Garonne), 20 Bradford, A. L. (United Press), 108 Bradley, General Omar Nelson (commander US 12th Army Group), 122, 176 Brauchitsch, Marshal Walter von (Ger. Army commander in chief), 41 Braun, Pío (Sp. Rep. journalist), 72 Brazil, 72, 137, 139, 185–6 Brenner Pass, 46 Brest-Litovsk (Poland), 18 Brewer, Sam Pope (US journalist), 137 Briesen, General Kurt von (Ger. army commander), 30 Brindisi, 178 Brinon, Fernand de (Fr. Vichy secretary of state), 169 Brioni (Yugoslavia), 188 British Embassy in Madrid, 19, 39, 73, 95, 173 British Expeditionary Force, 23 British Ministry of Economic Warfare, 26 British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), 155, 158 Brugada, Juan (Sp. press sub-delegate), 35 Buchenwald (SS concentration camp), 122 Budapest, 95, 173–4 Buenos Aires, 90, 107, 110, 177 Bulletin du Centre polytechnicien d’Etudes économiques (Paris), 152 Bullitt, William C. (American Ambassador to France), 3 Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (Freiburgim-Breisgau), xiv, xv, 155–6, 158, 167, 170–2, 176

206

Index

Burdick, Charles B. (US historian), 88, 153 Buré, Emile (Fr. journalist), 9 Burgos, xiv, 1, 12, 91, 96, 159 Byelorussia, 185–6 Byrnes, James F. (US Secretary of State), 139 Cáceres, 2 Cadiz, 21, 25, 67, 119, 155 Cadogan, Sir Alexander (Br. Permanent Undersecretary Foreign Office), 83, 153 Calais, 32 Calvino Ozores, José (Sp. Rep. purveyor), 154 Calvo, Luis (Sp. journalist and spy), 35 Canada, 85, 159, 185–6 Canaris, Admiral Wilhelm (Ger. chief of intelligence), 46–7, 75, 83, 151, 162 Canary Islands, 25, 36, 162 Canning, George (Br. statesman), 179–80 Cape Gata, 68 Cape Trafalgar, 68 Cape Tres Forcas, 68 Cárdenas, Juan Francisco de las (Sp. Ambassador to the United States), 168 Caribbean, 165 Carratraca (Andalusia), 142 Casablanca, 87, 99, 156 Casares Quiroga, Santiago (Sp. Prime Minister), 98 Casey, William J. (OSS agent), 174 Castaño, José del (Sp. consul general in the Philippines), 72 Castelsarrasin (Tarn-et-Garonne), 20 Castillo, Cristóbal del (Sp. Embassy, Paris), 163 Castillo, Ramón S. (President of Argentina), 90 Castroviejo, José María (Sp. journalist), 107 Catalonia, 142, 151 Catholicism, viii, 74, 98, 109 Caucasus, 89 Cauterets (Hautes-Pyrénées), 104 Cerdagne (valley), 9

Cerruti, Vittorio (It. Ambassador to France), 3 Ceuta, 68, 77 Chacón, Lieutenant-Colonel, 124 Chamberlain, Arthur Neville (Br. Prime Minister), 16, 19, 22–3, 159 Chambéry, 134 Chambrun, Gilbert de (Fr. political leader), 186 Chaplin, Charles (Br.-US comedian), 177, 183 Chappuis, General von, 61, 77 chaqueteo, el, ix–x, xii, 32 Charlemagne Division, 104 Chase National Bank, 186 Châtelet (Belgium), 32 Chaves Nogales, Manuel (Sp. journalist), 1 Chile, 12, 72, 120, 185–6 China, 139, 185–6 Christianity, 58, 128 Chronique de la Sécurité industrielle (Paris), 53 Churchill, Winston Spencer (Br. Prime Minister), xiii, 109, 113, 117, 146, 153, 157, 183; replaces Chamberlain, 22; appeals to France, 29–30; praises Sp. Reps., 35; orders air attack on Berlin, 36; and Battle of Britain, 37; and Stalin, 56; and Anglo-Sov. alliance, 166; and Canaris, 83; and kind words to Franco, 105, 134; and Normandy invasion, 107; and post-war relations with Franco, 134 Ciano, Gian Galeazzo, Conte di Cortellazzo e Buccari (It. Foreign Minister), 15, 39, 41, 45, 48 Colombia, 185–6 Comisión de Juventud, 54 Communism, 4, 12, 53, 56, 61, 177 Compañía Hispano-Marroquí de Transportes (HISMA), 11–12, 14 Companys i Jover, Lluis (President Generalitat of Catalonia), 164 Condor Legion, 13, 48, 101, 175 Congress of Industrial Organizations, 138 Consejo Nacional (Madrid), 87, 93

Index 207 Constanza (Romania), 117 Convent of Los Cartujos, see Saragossa Correa Veglison, Antonio (civil governor of Barcelona), 141 Corregidor, 72 Correo Catalán, El (Barcelona), 17, 70, 71, 129, 170, 178 Correo Español, El (Bilbao), 4 Corsica, 5, 93 Coruña, La, xi Costa del Sol, 137 Costa Rica, 185–6 Cox, Geoffrey (Br. journalist), 72 Crozier, Brian (Br. historian), 42, 88, 160, 166 Cruz Hernández, Miguel (Sp. Minister of Culture), 146 Cuba, 85–6, 185–6 Cuban War, 22 Cudahy, John (American Ambassador to Belgium), 48 Czechoslovakia, 182, 185–6, 188 Dachau (SS concentration camp), 123, 131–2 Daguerre, Pierre (Fr. sub-prefect Bayonne), 154 Daily Express (London), 23, 36 Dakar, 81 Daladier, Edouard (Fr. statesman), 19, 54, 156 Dantzig, 19 Daranas, Mariano (Sp. journalist), 124, 127 Darlan, Admiral François (Fr. naval commander in chief and Prime Minister), 84, 171 Darquier de Pellepoix, Louis (Fr. Vichy high commissioner for Jewish affairs), 142 Dawson, Professor Christopher (Br. historian), 124 Dax, 20 Degrelle, Léon alias León José de Ramírez Reina (Belg. fascist), 127, 137–8, 142, 184 Denmark, 185–6 Dépêche, La (Toulouse), 1–2, 8 Detwiler, Donald (US historian), ix, 171

Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Berlin), 57 De Valera, Eamon (Ir. Prime Minister), 129 Diario, El (Buenos Aires), 90 Diario, El (Burgos), 1 Dieckhoff, Hans-Heinrich (Ger. Ambassador to Madrid), 93, 98–100, 110, 175 Diego, Juan de (Sp. Rep. prisoner), 63 Dieppe incursion, 170 División Azul, see Blue Division Doerr, Colonel E. M. (Ger. military attaché), 177 Domingo, El (San Sebastian), 5 Domínguez Muñoz, Juan (Falange official), 170 Dominican Republic, 185–6 Dönitz, Grossadmiral Karl (Ger. commander in chief U-Boats), viii, xiii, 20–1, 33, 67 Donovan, William J. (director OSS), 175 Doriot, Jacques (Fr. political leader), 153 Doussinague, José María (Sp. historian), xi, 93, 150 Dresden, 101, 180 Dublin (city), 185; see also Ireland Dueso, El (Santoña), prison, 50 Dulles, John Foster (US Secretary of State), 146, 188 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste (Fr. historian), 171 Dunkirk, 24, 118 Eben Emael (Belgium), 46 Ebro (river), 9 Echarri y Gamundi, Xavier de (director Arriba), 172 Ecuador, 185–6 Eden, Anthony (Br. Foreign Secretary), 103, 105 EFE (Sp. press agency), 12, 158 Egypt, 37, 185–6 Eigruber, Gauleiter August, 137 Eíjo y Garay, Leopoldo (bishop of Madrid), 60, 99 Eisenhower, General of the Army Dwight D. (Supreme Commander SHAEF), 121–2, 125, 128, 146, 178

208

Index

El Alamein (Egypt), xii El Salvador, 185–6 Elizalde (Vizcaya), 14 Enrique de Borbón, General, 82 Erika (train at Hendaye conference), 44 Eristov, Madeleine (Fr. translator), 151 Escoriaza (agricultural attaché, Sp. Embassy Vichy), 164 Escuela Superior del Ejército (Saragossa), 151 España Combatiente (Barcelona), 187 Espinosa de los Monteros, General Eugenio (Sp. Ambassador to Germany), 43, 80, 164 Esquerra Sánchez, Lieutenant-Colonel Miguel (commander Sp. battalion Waffen SS), 104 Esteban Infantes, General Emilio (commander División Azul), 76–7, 101, 176 Estelrich, Joan (Sp. editor), 52, 164 Estepona (Málaga), 2 Estonia, 102–3 Ethiopia, 185–6 Evening News (London), 131 Falaise, 108, 110 Falange, 1, 3, 16, 18, 32, 34, 37, 39–40, 49, 52–4, 57, 59–63, 68, 72–5, 78, 80, 85, 87, 89, 90–1, 96–8, 100, 109, 113–14, 116, 122, 134–5, 139, 153, 161, 163, 165, 168–70, 173, 178, 184 Falange Auténtica, 60, 75, 161 Falkensee, 15 Farrell, Edelmiro (President of Argentina), 110 Favrel, Charles (Fr. journalist), 48, 160, 162 Fédération des Officiers de Réserve Républicains, 7 Feldkirch (Bavaria), 140–1 Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, 179 Fernández Cuesta, Raimundo (Sp. Ambassador to Italy), 97, 113 Ferro, Marc (Fr. historian), 150, 162, 178

Ferrol, El (Galicia), 20, 25, 67, 145, 155 Figueroa y Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, conde de Quintanilla y conde de Romanones, Luis, 174 Finat, José see Mayalde Finland, 56, 79, 90 Fiona Shell (Br. merchantman), 67 First World War (1914–1918), 7, 69, 99, 107 Fiscowich y Gullón, Alfonso (Sp. consul general in Paris, then minister plenipotentiary), 177 Flanders, 24, 188 Flandin, Pierre-Etienne (Fr. political leader), 117 Fleming, Sir Alexander (Br. scientist), 111 Florence, 4, 55 Foch, Marshal Ferdinand, 7, 30 Foltz Jr., Charles (US journalist), 14, 59, 153–4 Forte, Ralph E. (US journalist), 109 France, Third Republic, x, 1, 3–13, 15, 17, 19–22, 23–5, 27–33, 127, 150, 152, 154, 156 État Français (Vichy), ix, x, xv, 33, 35, 37, 39, 42, 46, 51–4, 56, 58–62, 68, 70, 72–3, 84–5, 88, 91, 99, 103, 108, 117, 127, 131, 157, 162, 164–6, 169, 174, 177 Provisional Government of the French Republic, 109–10, 118–9, 121, 129, 134, 137, 139–42, 184–5 Fourth Republic, 142–6, 186, 188 France intérieure, La (Fr. official publication), 162 France Républicaine, La (Paris), 152 France-Soir (Paris), 184 Franco, Doña Carmen Polo de (wife of Franco), xii Freemasonry, 4 Freiburg-im-Breisgau, xiv, xv French Consulate in Barcelona, 184 French intelligence services, 11–15, 138, 166 French Milice, 138 French Ministry of the Interior, 14

Index 209 French Morocco, 46, 84 French National Committee, 31 French North African colonies, 46 Fresnes, 142 Fricke, Admiral Kurt (Seekriegsleitung), 25 Friedenburg, Generaladmiral Hans Georg von (commander in chief German Navy), 130 Friessner, General Johannes (Wehrmacht), 167 Fromm, General Ernst (Wehrmacht), 76 Fulgor (It. tanker), 67 Fumel (Lot-et-Garonne), 20 Gabolde, Maurice (Fr. Vichy Minister of Justice), 140–1, 185 Galarza, Ángel (Rep. political leader), 98 Galicia, 91 Gallarati Scotti, Duque Tommaso (It. Ambassador to Spain), 114 Gallegos, Rómulo (President of Venezuela), 186 Gallo, Max (Fr. historian), 163, 183 Gambara, General Gastone, 13 García Blázquez, Félix (Sp. journalist), 120 García, Galindo (Sp. journalist), 56 García Grandas, Cristino (Sp. guerrillero), 143 García Martínez, Fidel, Bishop of Calahora, 163 García Oliver, Juan (Sp. Rep. political leader), 98 Garriga, Ramón (Sp. journalist), 22, 24, 43, 104 Gassol Rovira, Ventura (Sp. Rep. political leader), 164 Gaulle, General Charles de, 86, 99, 164, 171 Gaumont British News, 165 George VI, King of Great Britain, 37 German Consulate General in Tangier, 104 German Embassy in Burgos, xiv German Embassy in Dublin, 129 German Embassy in Madrid, 12, 20, 39, 40, 45, 76, 81, 92, 110, 130, 153, 160, 177

German Naval Records, xiii German-Soviet Pact, 18 German-Soviet War, 56 Germany, viii, x, xi, xii, xiv, xv, 1, 3, 5, 11–13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 27, 29, 30, 36–7, 40–2, 44–8, 51–4, 56–7, 59, 61, 69, 71, 74, 85, 87, 89–90, 93–5, 97–100, 104–6, 108–18, 120–1, 124–7, 129–31, 137, 139, 151–4, 157, 160, 162, 166–7, 169–70, 172–3, 175–8, 181–3 Abwehr (military intelligence), 46, 68, 81, 83, 100, 151, 159 Arroz (naval program), 33 Ausland-Abwehr (foreign intelligence), 81 Bodden (code-name for observationpost intelligence), 81, 100 Embassy in Madrid, 39–40 Gestapo, 13, 39–40, 63, 94, 116, 138, 140, 157, 171, 177, 184 Kriegsmarine, see Seekriegsleitung Kriegsorganisation, 92, 153 Luftwaffe, x, xi, xiii, 38, 106–7, 111–2, 114, 120, 177 Propaganda Ministry, 61 Schutzhaftstaffel (SS), 123, 131, 157, 176 Seekriegsleitung (Supreme Naval Command), xiii, 20, 24, 82 Sicherheitsdienst, 40 Volkssturm, 121, 126 Waffen SS, 104, 137 Wehrmacht (Oberkommando Wehrmacht: OKW), xiii, 30, 32, 51–2, 60–3, 92, 95, 98, 102–3, 107, 110, 112, 114, 118, 124, 126, 129, 131, 153, 162, 179, 182 Wilhelmstrasse (Foreign Ministry), xiv, 14, 95, 108, 151 Gerona, 152 Gibraltar, 3, 13, 15, 27, 33, 41, 45–7, 51–2, 67–8, 84, 114, 155, 162 Giménez Arnau, Enrique (Sp. journalist), 35, 40 Giménez Caballero, Professor Ernesto (co-founder Falange), 3, 164

210

Index

Ginés Vidal y Saura (Sp. Ambassador to Berlin), 181 Giral, Francisco (son of José Giral), 7 Giral y Pereira, José (Sp. Rep. Prime Minister and Minister of War), 7 Giraud, General Henri, 87, 171 Girón, José Antonio (Sp. Minister of Labour), 53 Glasgow, 37 Goebbels, Reichsminister Dr. Joseph, 68–9, 86–7, 126, 178, 180 Goering, Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm, xi, 37, 70, 131, 177 Gómez Jordana, General conde Francisco (Sp. Foreign Minister), x, xii, 3, 12, 27, 80, 84, 93–4, 98, 101, 108, 177 Goñi, Uki (Arg. historian), 177 González de Mendoza (Sp. military attaché Vichy), 164 Görlitz (Silesia), 120 Grafenwöhr (SS training base), 61 Granada, University of, 7 Gran Cruz de la Orden Imperial del Yugo y las Flechas, 39 Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle, 137, 158 Grandi, Dino (It. Foreign Minister), 137 Great Britain, see United Kingdom Greece, 6, 46, 92–3, 95, 185–6 Griffis, Stanton (American Ambassador to Spain), 145 Grigorovo (Russia), 61, 63 Gringoire (Paris), 59, 61 Gross, Dr (Hitler’s interpreter at Hendaye), 43–4 Guadalajara (song), 3, 13 Gualva (Gerona), 152 Guani, Dr Alberto (Uruguayan Foreign Minister), 21 Guatemala, 183, 185, 188 Guderian, Generaloberst Heinz (chief of general staff, OKW), 114, 179 Guérard, Jacques (Fr. Vichy political leader), 141, 185 Guernica, 133, 151, 183 Gurney, J. Chandler (US Senator), 145, 187 Gusen (Austria), 63

Guturbay y Alzola, Carmen Marquesa de Yurreta y Gamboa, 136 Habel, Herbert alias Kurz Repa (private secretary to Eigruber), 137 Haiti, 185–6 Halder, General Franz (Ger. Chief of Army General Staff), 41 Halifax, Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, Lord, 13 Halstead, Charles R. (US historian), xii, 84, 93, 97, 160, 168, 170 Halt, Dr Karl Ritter von (Nazi official), 172 Hamburg, University of, 43 Hamilton, Keith (Br historian), 136 Hamilton, Thomas (US historian), 50, 168 Hansen, General (commander XXIV Korps of 18th Army), 77 Hapsburg Empire, 68–9 Hardion, Bernard (Fr. counsellor then Ambassador to Spain), 177 Harvard University, 143 Hayes, Carlton (American Ambassador to Spain), 93–5, 144, 166, 174 Heberlein, Dr. Erich (Ger. diplomat), 172 Hedilla, Manuel (head of Falange), 1 Hedphill, Dr E. E. (Ger. Minister in Dublin), 129 Helsinki, 63 Hendaye, 30, 32, 40–9, 60, 74–5, 110, 153, 161 Hendaye Protocol, 42 Henderson, Sir Neville (Br. Ambassador to Germany), 17 Henlein (Ger. emissary to Berne), 161 Heraldo de Aragón (Saragossa), 151 Héricourt, Pierre (Fr. journalist, consul in Barcelona, then Vichy plenipotentiary), 184 Hermet, Guy (Fr. historian), xii, 33, 156, 158, 170 Hernani, Juan de (Sp. journalist), 118 Herráiz, Ismael (Sp. journalist), 171 Hess, Reichsleiter Rudolf, 83, 131 Hesse, Princess Mafalda de, 123 Hexel, General Edwin, 104

Index 211 Heyde, Lieutenant-Colonel (Wehrmacht), 104 Heyde. Lieutenant-Commander (Kriegsmarine), 67 Hierro (Bilbao), 3–4 Hilgenfeldt (Nazi official), 172 Hillgarth, Lieutenant-Commander Alan, RN (Br. Naval Attaché in Madrid), 92, 173 Hillgruber, Andreas (Ger. historian), 161 Himmler, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich, 13, 39–40, 42, 68, 94, 159–60, 175 Hispano-Argentine Agreement (1948), 144 Hispano-German Pact (1939), 15 Hispano-Marroquí de Transportes (HISMA, Ger. trading company), 11 Hispano-Suiza plant (Barcelona), 154 Hitler, Führer Adolf, viii, ix, xi, xii, xiii, xv, 2, 10, 14, 16–19, 22, 24, 27, 37, 53, 74, 87–8, 91, 96–7, 125, 131, 158, 160–2, 169, 174, 179; and Sp. Civil War, 8–9; and Fr. Collapse, 31–3; at Hendaye, 40–5; and Gibraltar, 46–9, 51; and Barbarossa, 56–7, 60–2; and Blue Division, 66, 76, 80, 101, 103–4; and Pilar Primo de Rivera, 68–9; critical of Franco, 75–80, 89; and Vichy, 85; and fear of attack from south, 92; and fall of Mussolini, 95; facing defeat, 111, 119; and defiance, 122; death, 128–9 Hitlerjugend, 122 Hoare, Sir Samuel John Gurney (Br. Ambassador to Spain), later 1st Viscount Templewood, 13, 27, 40, 42, 58, 77, 83, 98, 101, 105, 127, 151, 153, 155, 158–60, 162, 166, 168–9, 183; arrives in Madrid, 23; and Beigbeder, 33–4; and Hendaye, 45; and Jordana, 80; and wolfram, 91; and memoirs, 136; see also Templewood Hof (Bavaria), 101

Hofer, Franz (Gauleiter Tyrol and Vorarlberg), 141 Hogar Español, El (Paris), 52, 54–5, 57, 61–2, 73, 108, 164–5, 172–3 Hohenlohe-Langenberg, Prince Max von, 161 Homma, General Masaharu ( Jap. commander Philippines), 72 Honduras, 185–6 Huelva, 91–2 Hughes, Emmet (US journalist), 99, 101–2, 109, 111, 168, 170, 172, 174 Hungarian Jews, 173 Hungary, 111 Ibarruri, Dolores ‘Pasionaria’ (secretarygeneral Sp. Communist Party), 41, 160, 178 Iceland, 185 Imperial Chemical Industries (Br. enterprise), 6 India, 23, 185–6, 188 Informaciones (Madrid), 12, 111–2, 114–5, 119–20, 123–6, 128–30, 172 International Brigades, 1, 103 International Telephone & Telegraph Company, 13 Iran, 185–6 Iraq, 185–6 Ireland, 137, 141, 185 Irun, 39, 51, 101, 110, 176–7 Isorni, Jacques (Fr. lawyer), 143 Israel, 146, 174, 188 Italy, 1, 3, 13, 15–17, 47, 67, 71, 74, 92, 95, 97–8, 113, 116, 123, 137, 139, 151, 162, 174–5 Izquierdo Luque, Federico (Sp. journalist), 113, 164, 177 Japan, viii, x, 1, 13, 17, 35, 49, 68, 70–3, 100, 120, 122, 135 Japanese Embassy in Washington, 71 Japanese Imperial Army, 72 Japanese Legation in Madrid, 70 Jiménez, Celia (Sp. journalist), 98, 178 Jiménez de Asúa, Luis (Sp. Rep. leader), 98

212

Index

Jodl, Generaloberst Alfred (Chief of Operations OKW), 92–3, 169 Jordana, see Gómez Jordana Juventud (Madrid), 100, 113 Kaltenbrunner, SS-Obergruppenführer Dr Ernst (head of RSHA), 35 Karl, Mauricio, alias Carlavilla (Sp. pamphleteer), 2 Karlsruhe, 166 Keitel, Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm, 75, 114, 130–1, 135, 161, 169 Kelly, Sir David (Br. Minister in Berne and author), 160–1 Kennedy, Joseph Patrick (American Ambassador to Britain), 159 Kent Siano, Victoria (Anglo-Sp. author), 98 Kérillis, Henri de (Fr. journalist), 2 Kesselring, Generalfeldmarschall der Luftwaffe Albert, 98, 135 Kiev, 61 Kindelán, General Alfredo (Sp. Air Force commander in chief), 4, 10, 16, 20, 82–3, 151 Klein, Max (US businessman), 144 Kleinfeld, Gerald R. (US historian), 88, 166, 172, 178 Königsberg, 65, 76, 103–4 Korea, 145 Krahmer, Colonel Eckhart (Ger. air attaché in Madrid), 35, 39, 50, 175, 177 Kramer, SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef (commandant Bergen-Belsen), xi, 131 Kramer, Stanley (US film director), 183 Krancke, Vice Admiral, 81 Krappe, General Gunther (Ger. military attaché in Madrid), 162 Krasny Bor (Russia), 77 Krüger, General (Ger. military attaché Hendaye), 110 Krull, Max (Ger. military correspondent), 121 Küchler, Generaloberst Georg von, 167 Kutno (Poland), 30

La Chambre, Guy (Fr. Minister of Aviation), 9 Laguna del Portil (Andalusia), 92 Lake Success (New York), 139 Lange, Oscar (Pol. delegate to U.N.), 139 Langsdorff, Captain Hans Wilhelm, 21 Lannemezan (Hautes-Pyrénéés), 20 Largo Caballero, Francisco (Sp. Rep. Prime Minister), 98, 157 La Rocque, Lieutenant Colonel François de (Fr. political leader), 30 Las Palmas, 25 Lasarte (Guipúzcoa), 9 Latin America, 43, 145, 186 Lauban (Silesia), 120 Laurel, José, President of the Philippines, 99 Laval, Pierre (Fr. Vichy Prime Minister), 31, 41, 85, 139–42, 156, 185 Lavardac (Lot-et-Garonne), 20 Lavelanet (Ariège), 20 Lazar, Hans (Ger. director of Transocean), xiv League of Nations, 13, 15 Lebanon, 185–6 Lebrun, Albert (President of France), 7–8, 31 Leclerc, General Philippe (Fr. Army), 176 Leeb, Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von, 61, 95–6, 167 Legendre, Maurice (Fr. director Casa de Velázquez), 174 Legión Azul, see Blue Legion Legión Española de Voluntarios, 100 Leissner, Colonel Gustav Wilhelm (director KriegsorganisationSpanien), 92 Leitz, Christian (Ger. historian), 152 Lémery, Henry (Fr. Senator), 2 Leningrad, 62, 77, 96, 103 Leningrad-Murmansk railway, 56 León, 13, 138 Leopold III, King of the Belgians, 32, 127 Lequerica, José Félix de (Sp. Ambassador to Paris and Vichy, then Foreign Minister), x, 4–5, 15–16, 34, 72, 108–9, 120, 140–2, 168, 184–5

Index 213 Lérida, 9, 138 Ley de la Prensa, xiv Lézignan (Aude), 20 Liberia, 185–6 Libertad Vigilada (Sp. judicial organization), 116 Liechtenstein, 140 Lindemann, Generaloberst Georg, 61, 101, 167, 172 Linea de la Concepción, La (Cádiz), 2 Linz, 137, 142 Lisbon (city), xii, 28, 67, 80, 128, 163, 168, see also Portugal Lissarragüe, Salvador (Sp. journalist), 126 Litvinov, Maxim M. (Sov. Foreign Minister, then Ambassador to the United States), 166 Llobregat (airfield in Barcelona), 141 Logroño, 9, 13 Lommatzsch (Styria), 129 London (city), 8, 18, 22, 24, 28–9, 31–7, 42, 56, 71, 77, 83, 107, 109, 115–7, 127, 130–1, 138, 143, 158–9, 164, 168, 171, 176, 179, see also United Kingdom López-Ballesteros, Luis (Sp. journalist), 181 Lorient (Morbihan), 118 Lourdes, 85, 104 Lucientes, Francisco (Sp. journalist), 120 Ludwigshaufen, 175 Luga (Russia), 103 Luna Menéndez, Captain José (Falange official), 170 Luxemburg, 185–6 Lyon, 173 MacKenzie, DeWitt (US journalist), 136 Madariaga, Salvador de (Sp. historian and diplomat), 116 Madeira, 67 Madrid (city), x, xi, 2–3, 5, 7, 12–14, 20, 23, 33–4, 39–40, 46, 48, 50, 52, 55, 58–60, 67–9, 71, 73, 76, 79, 81–4, 86, 88, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 104, 108–11, 115–16, 122, 136–39, 142–3, 145–6, 151–5, 159–63, 168–9, 173–5, 177, 183–6

American Embassy, 26, 50, 73, 85, 122, 124, 168 British Embassy, 39, 73, 83, 95, 173 French Embassy, 9, 99, 109, 174, 177 German Embassy, xiv, 12, 20, 39, 40, 45, 76, 81, 92, 110, 130, 153 Japanese Legation, 70, 71 see also Spain Malaga, 68, 138, 142 Mallett, Bernard (First Secretary Br. Embassy Madrid), 83 Mallett, Sir Victor (Br. Ambassador to Spain), 143 Mallorca (Sp. vessel), 158 Malta, 178 Malta convoys, 170 Mandel, Georges (Fr. political leader), 29, 157 Manila, 72, 150 Mannerheim, Marshal Baron Carl Gustav von, 79 Mannheim, 175 Marañon, Dr Gregorio (Sp. Rep. leader), 165 Marion, Paul (Fr. Secretary of State), 185 Maritain, Jacques (Fr. philosopher), 135 Marquina Barrio, Antonio (Sp. historian), 180 Marseilles, 9, 164, 173 Marshall Plan, 143, 144 Martin, Captain William (Royal Marines), 92 Martín Artajo, Alberto (Sp. Foreign Minister), 136, 142–3, 184 Martínez Barrio, Diego (Sp. Rep. leader), 98 Martínez Nadal, Rafael (Sp. historian), 27 Martínez de Tena, Manuel (Sp. representative Auxilio Social), 172 Marty, André (Fr. Senator), 136, 186 Massilia (Fr. passanger vessel), 157 Mateu (Mayor of Barcelona), 153 Mathé, Pierre (Fr. Minister of Supply), 185 Matz, Admiral (Sp. Navy Minister), 7 Maurras, Charles (Fr. political leader), 3, 118

214

Index

Mauthausen (SS concentration camp), 63, 122–3, 131–2, 183 Max Albrecht (U-boat supplier), 67 Mayalde, José Finat Escrivá de Romani, conde de (director general, Seguridad Nacional), 39, 152, 170 Melilla, 33, 68 Mers el-Kébir, 52, 86 Messaggero, Il (Rome), 31, 157 Messerschmidt, Eberhard (Ger. entrepreneur), 14 Messerschmitt factory (Seville; Reus), 14 Messerschmitt, Willy (Ger. industrialist), 14 Metz, 101 Merry del Val (director Sp. foreign press), 50 Mexico, 7, 85, 136, 146, 164, 183, 185–6, 188 Meyer-Döhner, Captain Kurt (Ger. naval attaché in Madrid), 20, 21 Michaelis, Konteradmiral, 118 Mindanao (Philippines), 72 Miquelarena, Jacinto (Sp. journalist), 35, 107 Mira, Antonio (Sp. journalist), 125 Mitgang, Herbert (US journalist), 184 Model, Generaloberst Walther, 167 Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), 20 Mola Vidal, General Emilio, 3, 77 Mölders, Werner (Luftwaffe ace), 38 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, viii, 16, 52, 61, 110, 131 Moltke, Hans Adolf von (Ger. Ambassador to Spain), 89, 175 Monde, Le (Paris), 184 Monroe Doctrine, 179 Montagu, Lieutenant-Commander Ewen (Royal Navy), 92, 158 ‘Montana’ demands, 12 Monte Gorbea (Sp. vessel), 82 Montés, Eugenio (Sp. journalist), 117–18, 129 Montevideo, 21 Montgomery, Field Marshal Sir Bernard, 124, 175–6 Montilla, 2 Montjuich (Barcelona), 141–2

Montoire, 46–7 Montpellier, 20 Montserrat, monastery, 40, 138 Morales Lezcano, Víctor (Sp. historian), 79 Moreno, Admiral Salvador (Sp. Navy Minister), 20–1 Morizet, André (Fr. Senator), 9 Morocco, see French Morocco; Spanish Morocco Moscardó Ituarte, Lieutenant General José, 43, 62 Moscow (city), 18, 70, 178, see also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Moyano, Colonel Ignacio (Director Servicio de Información, Madrid), 137, 184 Mulhouse, 111 Müller, Klaus-Jürgen (Ger. historian), 43, 45, 161 Munich, 61, 63, 85, 137 Muñoz Grandes, General Agustín (commander División Azul), 60, 75–79, 93, 96, 101, 166, 170, 172 Muñoz Laborde, conde de la Viñaza, 166 Mussolini, Benito, 49, 53, 116, 128, 141 and Sp. Civil War, 2; hatred of France, 5; and Serrano, 15; and entry into war, 25, 27, 33, 47; and Tangier, 27; and Gibraltar, 27; and Fr. North Africa, 41; at Brenner Pass, 46; meets Franco, 48; and Allied attack from south, 91, 95; dismissal, 97; and It. Social Rep., 113, 122, 137; death, 128 Napoleon I, 56, 71 Narbonne, 6 navicert system, 26, 51, 67 Negrín López, Juan (Sp. former Prime Minister), 28–9, 98, 164, 187 Netherlands, 185–6 New Falange, 60, 78, 122, 169–70, see also Falange New Orleans, 71 New York, 37, 138, 155, 168

Index 215 New Zealand, 185–6 News Chronicle (London), 112, 127 Newsweek (New York), 41 Nicaragua, 185–6 Nicolétis, Colonel John (Fr. engineer), 7, 8, 10, 152 Non-intervention Committee (London), 8, 15 Nordatlantik (Ger. tanker), 20 Normandy, 106–7 North Africa, x, xi, 32, 45–6, 82, 84–5, 99, 157, 171 North Atlantic Treaty, 145 Norway, 6, 22, 125, 137, 185–6 Novgorod, 61 Nüremberg Tribunal, 133 Nye, Lt. General Sir Archibald (Br. Deputy Chief Imperial General Staff), 92 Ocaña (Toledo), prison, 50, 136 L’Oeuvre (Paris), 9, 30 Office of Special Services (OSS), 174–5 Ohrdruf (SS concentration camp), 122 Olagüe, Ignacio (Sp. author), 83, 171 Old Falange, 60, 75, 78, 135, 170, see also Falange Oloron (Basses-Pyrénéés), 20 Operation Barbarossa, 47–8, 51, 60, 62 Operation Bodden, 100 Operation Brimstone, 92 Operation Felix, 51 Operation Felix-Isabella, 46–7 Operation Gisela, 51, 88, 169 Operation Husky, 92 Operation Ilona, 51, 77, 169, 172 Operation Isabella, 51, 77 Operation Moro, 33 Operation Pilgrim, 162 Operation Seelöwe, 48 Operation Torch, 78, 80–1, 84–5, 91, 171 Oranienburg (SS concentration camp), 157 Oran, 41, 46 L’Ordre (Paris), 2, 9 Orgaz, General Luis (Sp. High Commissioner Morocco), 32, 82 Ortega, Colonel Julio (garrison commander Irún), 110, 177

Oslo, 122, 181 Otero, Professor Alejandro (Sp. Rep. Under-Secretary of State for Arms), 7 Oviedo, 53 Pact of Steel, 45 Paderewski, Ignacy Jan (Pol. composer and Prime Minister), 19, 73, 168 Pakistan, 186 Palacios Costa, Alberto (Arg. Ambassador to Spain), 86 Palencia, 3 Pallerola, Domingo (Sp. Rep. diplomat), 152 Palma, 173 Pamplona, 119 Panama, 138, 183, 185–6 Paraguay, 185 Paris (city), 3–5, 8–9, 15, 18–19, 30, 46, 48, 52, 54, 57, 60–3, 108, 117, 123, 131, 142, 144, 150, 168, 170, 173, 176, 184 arrival of Ger. forces, 25 Hotel Lutétia, 132 liberation, 110, 176 riots of 1934, 7 Salle Wagram, 74 Sp. Chamber of Commerce, 165 Sp. Consulate General, 177 Sp. Embassy, 54, 163–5 see also France Paris-Presse, 48 Parti Populaire Français, 140, 153 Parti Radical, 9 Pasajes (Guipúzcoa), 9, 43 ‘Pasionaria’, see Ibarruri, Dolores Patton, General George S., 122, 176 Paul-Boncour, né Joseph Paul Boncour (Fr. Foreign Minister), 157 Paulus, Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich, 89 Payne, Stanley (US historian), 159, 163, 180 Pearl Harbor, 70, 71, 85 Peloponnesus, 93 Peña (Sp. intelligence chief), 164 Peretti della Rocca, Louis (Fr. Vichy Ambassador to Spain; director Council of Political Justice), 186

216

Index

Pérez González, Blas (Sp. Minister of Home Affairs), 122 Pérez Torreblanca (director Libertad Vigilada), 116 Périgueux, 103 Perlasca, Giorgio (It. diplomat), 174 Perón, Juan, President of Argentina, 144 Perpignan, 20, 88–9, 167, 172, 184, 186 Peru, 185–6 Petacci, Claretta (mistress of Mussolini), 141 Pétain, Marshal Philippe, ix, x, 28–9, 31, 39, 41, 46–7, 51–2, 70, 85–6, 108, 117, 140–3, 154, 156–7, 164 Peterson, Sir Maurice (Br. Ambassador to Spain), 153 Philby, Kim (Br. intelligence agent), 158 Philippines, viii–x, 72, 86, 99, 122, 185–6 Piétri, François (Fr. Vichy Ambassador to Spain), x, xi, 74, 84, 99, 109, 139, 169, 177, 183–185 Pigeonneau, Jacques (Fr. consul in Madrid), 5 Pilate, Pontius, 77 Pittman, Senator Key (US Democrat, Nevada), 32 Pizarro, 18 Pointe-de-Grave (Gironde), 118–9 Pokrovskoye (Russia), 77 Pola, Zita (Franco’s sister-in-law), 150 Poland, viii, 16–19, 30, 73, 90, 95, 109, 114, 139, 144, 154, 185–6, 188 Polignac Memorandum, 179 Polish Uhlan cavalry, 18 Portela Valladares, Manuel (Sp. Prime Minister), 164 Portugal, xii, 1, 6, 29, 50–1, 80, 91, 128, 162, 180, 183 Potsdam Conference, 134 Preston, Paul (Br. historian), 41, 49, 105 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio (founder of Falange), 160, 163, 178 Primo de Rivera, Miguel (Sp. dictator), 68

Primo de Rivera, Pilar (sister of José Antonio Primo de Rivera), 68 Proctor, Raymond (US historian), xiii, 62, 146, 161, 176 Prussia, 65 Pueblo, El (Madrid), 135 Puerto Rico, 86 Pushkin, Alexander S., 77 Puzzo, Dante A. (US historian), xii Pyrenees, 3–9, 51, 77, 89, 92, 104, 143–4, 154, 171, 177 Queen Elizabeth, 85 Queipo de Llano y Serra, General Gonzalo, 2 Queralt Castell, José María (Blue Division), 63 Quir-Montfollet, Lieutenant-Colonel (Fr. Army), 9 Radio Berlin, 178 Radio Moscow, 178 Radio Nacional (Salamanca), 161 Raeder, Grossadmiral Erich (Inspectorgeneral Kriegsmarine), xiii, 84, 135 Rahn, Dr Rudolf (Ger. representative to the It. Social Republic), 141 Ramírez Reina, León José de, see Degrelle Ramonaxo (Franco informer), 184 Randall (US commercial attaché), 144 Recajo (Logroño), 9 Reglamentos de Trabajo, 53 Reichsarbeitsblatt (Berlin), 53 Remer, Colonel Hans (Ger. military attaché Tangier), 162 Renom de La Baume, comte Robert (Fr. representative in Madrid), 26, 46, 169 Repa, Kurz, see Habel Retuerto, Marcial (Sp. journalist), 53–4, 86, 165 Reus (Tarragona), 14 Reynaud, Paul (Fr. Prime Minister), 25, 27–8, 30, 127, 156–7 Rhein-Metall-Borsig (Düsseldorf), 87 Rhine, 3, 32, 119–20

Index 217 Ribbentrop, Joachim von (Ger. Foreign Minister), 12, 16, 32, 34, 40, 43–5, 49, 50, 52, 61, 75, 161, 168, 170 Rich, Norman (US historian), 46 Richthofen, Colonel Wolfgang von (commander Condor Legion), 13 Riff mines (Sp. Morocco), 12 Rio de Janeiro, 72 Río de Oro, 41, 46, 160 Riom trials, 186 Ríos, Fernando de los (Sp. Rep. Ambassador to Washington), 138 Rochat, Charles (Fr. Secretary General Foreign Ministry), 140, 185 Rochelle, La, 118–19 Röhm, Ernst (head Sturmabteilung), 60 Rolland, Bernardo (Sp. consul general Paris), 177 Romanones, Luis Figueroa y Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, conde de Quintanilla y conde de, 174 Romanyach, S. (Sp. Rep. exile), 54 Rome (city), 2, 15, 24, 31–2, 49, 55, 67, 75, 85, 97, 158, 178–9 Spanish Embassy, 97 see also Italy Rommel, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin, 98, 174 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (US President), 71, 73, 87, 105, 123–4, 168, 181, 183 Ros Agudo, Manuel (Sp. historian), 20, 118, 155, 158–60, 163–4, 170, 175 Rothschild, Louis Jérobéam (Fr. banker), 157 Royan (Charente-Maritime), 118, 119 Royat (Puy-de-Dôme), 164 Rubio, Javier (Sp. diplomat and historian), 164 Rufat, Ramón (Sp. Rep. prisoner and author), 50 Rundstedt, Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von, 112 Russia, see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Sabadell (Barcelona), 14 Sachs, General Karl, 110 Sachsenhausen (SS concentration camp), 157 Saint-Astier (Dordogne), 103 Saint-Florentin-Vergigny (Auxerre), 70 Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (BassesPyrénées), 5 Saint-Médard (Gironde), 9 Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique), 118 Salamanca, 2, 3, 12, 161 Salaverria, José María (Sp. journalist), 17 Salazar, Antonio Oliveira de (Port. dictator), xii, 73, 80 Salerno, 178 Salzburg, 131 San Francisco, 71 San Francisco Conference, 116, 133, 138 Sangróniz, José Antonio de (Sp. Foreign Minister; Ambassador to Italy), x, 113 San Sebastian, 9, 137–8 Santiago de Compostella, 110 Sanz Briz, Ángel (Sp. diplomatic representative in Budapest), 173 Saragossa, 4, 9, 138 Convent of Los Cartujos, 138 Escuela Superior del Ejército, 151 Sardinia, 91–3 Saudi Arabia, 185–6 Schmidt, Karl (Nazi philosopher), 161 Schmidt, Dr. Paul Karl Otto (Hitler’s interpreter), xiv, 40, 43–5, 160–1 Schmidt-Decker (Ger. correspondent), 48 Schoerner, Generaloberst Ferdinand, 167, 182 Schroeder, Georg (editor-in-chief Transocean Agency), 112 Scotland, 83, 175 Segerstady, Hermann von (Ger. nuclear scientist), 136 Segovia, 75 Segunda Bis (Sp. counter-intelligence), 184 Segura y Sáenz, Pedro Cardinal (Archbishop of Seville), 163

218

Index

Seibel, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard R. (US Army), 183 Seo de Urgel (Lérida), 9 Seraph (Royal Navy submarine), 92 Serna, Victor de la (Sp. publisher), 12, 111, 172, 178 Serrano Suñer, Ramón (Sp. Foreign Minister; secretary general of Falange), x, xii, xiv, 16, 26, 33–5, 49, 58, 75–6, 84, 93, 97, 108, 119, 150, 159–64. 166, 168, 170; heads Falange, 1; in Sp. Morocco, 5; in Rome, 15; in Berlin, 37; at Hendaye, 39–45; in Berchtesgaden, 47; in Bordighera, 48; and Barbarossa, 56–7; warns Roosevelt, 59; and Blue Division, 59–61; and Pearl Harbor, 70; in Badajoz, 73; and Begoña, 78; dismissal, 79–80 Seville, 14, 74, 90, 120, 163 Sherman, Admiral Forrest P. (US Chief of Naval Operations), 146 Sicily, 91–3, 95 Sigmaringen (Bade-Wurtemberg), 140 Silesia, 120, 126 Simonsen, Conrad (Sp. priest and Franco envoy), 95–7 Sitges (Barcelona), 138 Skorzeny, SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto, 137 Smith, Walter F. (US businessman), 144 Smyth, Denis (Br. historian), 153 Sofindus (Ger. firm in Spain), 111 South Africa, see Union of South Africa Soviet Union, see USSR Spanish airfields, 9, 77 Spanish Air Ministry, 110 Spanish Army, 47 Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Paris, 165 Spanish Civil War, 173 Spanish Communist Party, 41 Spanish Consulate General in Paris, 177 Spanish Consulate in Bordeaux, 29 Spanish Consulate in Toulouse, 152 Spanish Consulate in Vancouver, 71 Spanish Consulate in Zurich, 137 Spanish Embassy in Berlin, 43, 63, 79, 95, 184

Spanish Embassy in Budapest, 95, 174 Spanish Embassy in London, 34, 71 Spanish Embassy in Paris, 54, 163–5 Spanish Embassy in Rome, 97 Spanish Embassy in Vichy, 52, 72, 164 Spanish Embassy in Washington, 120 Spanish Foreign Legion (Tercio), 100, 137, 183 Spanish gold, 135 Spanish Legation in Berne, 160 Spanish Morocco, 5, 12, 79, 82, 84–5 Spanish Republic in exile, 135, 179, 186 Spanish Republicans, 35, 52, 61, 63, 91, 118, 123, 131, 133, 139, 141, 163, 165 Special Operations Executive (SOE), 78 Special Staff F (Ger. combat training group for Sp. volunteers), 104, 176 Speer, Reichsminister Albert, 74, 169 SS, see Germany Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovitch Djougatchvili, known as, viii, 53, 61, 134, 135, 166 Stalingrad, 12, 89 Stampa, La (Rome), 16 Stanley, HMS (Br. destroyer), 67 Stark, HMS (Br. sloop), 67 Starkie, Walter (Br. Cultural Attaché), 83 Stavnik, Jules (Fr. historian), x–xi, 41, 88, 160 Stohrer, Eberhard von (Ger. Ambassador to Spain), 3, 12, 33–4, 39, 43, 73, 75, 88, 168, 172 Strasbourg, 63 Stucki, Walter (Swiss Ambassador to Vichy), 140 Suárez, Modesto (Sp. journalist), 85 Subils (Sp. Rep. prisoner), 63 Suevos, Jesús (Sp. press attaché), 164 Suhard, Emmanuel Cardinal, Archbishop of Paris, 60 Suma, Yakichiro (Jap. Ambassador to Spain), 71 Sündermann, Dr. (Ger. press chief), 94 Sweden, 162, 185–6 Switzerland, 135, 140, 168, 181, 185 Syria, 185

Index 219 Tabouis, Geneviève (Fr. journalist), 2, 29–30 Tägert, Captain Karl (Wehrmacht), 104 Tambs, Lewis A. (US historian), 88, 166 Tangier, 25, 27, 33, 68, 104, 156, 162 Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées), 20, 137 Tarifa (Cádiz), 68 Tarradellas, Josep i Joan (Prime Minister of Catalonia), 164 Tedder, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur, RAF, 130, 178 Tempelhof (Berlin airport), 111 Templewood, Lord, 127, see also Hoare Tercio, see Spanish Foreign Legion Tetuan, 68 Thadden, Eberhard von (Ger. Foreign Ministry), 95 Thalia (Ger. tanker), 21, 67 Thomsen, Hans (director Nazi Party in Spain), 39 Tillon, Charles (Fr. député), 5 Times, The (London), 107, 115–16 – ( Jap. spy network), 71, 168 To Todt Organization, 118 Toledo, 135–6, 160 Tomás Verde, José (Sp. Civil Governor Andalusia), 163 Torres, Baron Luis de las (chief of protocol Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs), 44–5, 159 Torrès, Henry (Fr. journalist), 29 Toulouse, 1, 4, 8–9, 20, 110, 152, 173 Tovar, Professor Antonio (Sp. UnderSecretary of State for Press and Propaganda), 44, 74, 161 Transocean (Ger. news agency), xiv, 12, 107, 112 Tres Forcas (Sp. Morocco), 68 Tripartite Pact, 42, 155 Trotsky, Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, known as, 18 Truelle, Jacques (Fr. diplomat), 99, 109, 177 Truman, Harry S (US President), 134, 144, 188 Tudela (Pamplona), 9, 14 Turin, 167 Turkey, 17, 185–6 Tyrol, 141

U-boats, viii, xiii, 20–1, 25, 67, 114, 179 Ukraine, 185–6, 188 Unamuno, Miguel de (Sp. philosopher), 161 Union of South Africa, 185–6 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, viii, x, xiii, 3, 16, 18–19, 56, 108, 114, 126, 129, 130, 135, 151, 155, 167, 182, 185–6, 188 United Kingdom, xiv, 22, 26, 32, 35, 56–7, 77, 111, 139, 143–4, 158, 161–2, 168, 185–6, 188 United Nations, 179 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 146 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 146 United Nations General Assembly, 138–9, 144–5 United Nations Organization (UNO/UN), 138 United Nations Security Council, 138–9 United Nations War Crimes Tribunal, 133 United Press, 96 United States of America, 68, 73, 99, 143, 156, 185, 186 US Communist Party, 145 US Consulate in Valencia, 73 US Embassy in Madrid, 26 US House of Representatives, 144–5 US National Archives, 104 US National Security Agency, 71, 104 US Senate, 145, 180, 187 Unus (Sp. journalist), 114, 119, 123, 128, 130 Uruguay, 21, 185–6, 188 Utrecht, Treaty of, 68 Utrera (Sevilla), 2 V-1 (Ger. reprisal weapon), 107 V-3 (Ger. reprisal weapon), 119, 122, 180 Valencia, 73, 138, 158 Valladolid, 12, 78 Vancouver, 71 Vanguardia Española, La (Barcelona), 23–5, 28, 31, 163

220

Index

Varela Iglesias, General José Enrique (Sp. Army Minister), 78 Vatican, 49, 69, 99, 135, 146, 188 Velilla, Federico (director Presente), 52, 54 Venezuela, 183, 185–6 Veracruz (Mexico), 136 Verona, 184 Versailles, 19, 104 Vichy, see France Vienna, 55, 63, 94, 124, 126, Vigo, 20–1, 25, 67, 74, 155, 158 Vigón Sueirodiaz, General Juan (Sp. Minister of Aviation), 32, 42, 81–2, 100 Vilallonga, José Luis de (Sp. author and actor), xiv, xv, 150 Vilar, Pierre (Fr. historian), xii, 150 Villeneuve-lès-Béziers (Hérault), 20 Vita (Sp. Rep. vessel), 136 Vitoria, 9 Vittorio Emmanuelle III, King of Italy, 123, 178 Vogel (reportedly Ger. chief of Sp. police), 152 Volchov (Russia), 62 Völkischer Beobachter (Berlin), 76 Volkssturm, see Germany Volosovo (Russia), 101 Vorarlberg (Austria), 141 Voz de España, La (San Sebastian), 107–8, 110, 115–16, 118, 120, 130, 176 Vyrica (Russia), 77 Walshe, Joseph (Ir. Foreign Minister), 129 Warsaw, 19 Washington, DC (city), 32, 71,120, 138, 175, see also United States Weber, Gunger (Ger. war correspondent), 107 Weddell, Alexander (American Ambassador to Spain), 49–50, 58, 73, 84, 166 Weddell, Virginia, 50 Wehrmacht, see Germany Weiler, Braun (counsellor in Ger. Ministry of Propaganda), 61

Weimar, 55, 68 Welles, Benjamin Sumner (US Under Secretary of State), 138–9 West Indies, 146 Weygand, General Maxime (Fr. commander in chief), 27–8 Wheeler, Burton K. (US Senator), 114, 135 Wheeler, Douglas (US historian), xii, 80 Wiesenthal, Simon (Austrian prisoner, Nazi-hunter and author), 184 Wilflingen (Bavaria), 140 Wilhelmi, Colonel Hans (assistant military attaché Ger. Embassy Madrid), 76 Willkie, Wendell (US political leader), 37 Winzer, Paul (Gestapo agent Ger. Embassy Madrid), 39–40, 160, 175 wolfram, ix, 91, 99–100, 153, 173 Wolfsschanze (Hitler’s headquarters East Prussia), 76, 89, 101 Ximénez de Sandoval, Felipe (Sp. military intelligence official), 168 Ya (Madrid), xiv, 16–17, 19–21, 40, 110, 113, 116, 120–5, 127, 130–2, 177, 181, 183 Yagüe Blanco, General Juan de, 1, 20 Yalta Agreement, 117, 133 Yamamoto, Grand Admiral Isoroku ( Jap. commander in chief), 135 Yugoslavia, 104, 146, 185–6, 188 Zea, Lieutenant-Colonel (Blue Division), 137 Zhukov, Marshal Georgi, 130 Zimmermann, Johann (Ger. journalist), 137 Zugazagoitia Mendieta, Julián (Sp. Rep. Minister of the Interior), 164 Zuloaga, Antonio (Sp. director Presente), 52, 164 Zurich, 137

Franco and the Axis Stigma

Franco and the Axis Stigma

Stigma

Stigma

Axis

Axis

Axis

Axis

Axis

Axis

Axis

Axis

Axis

Axis

The Time Axis

The Time Axis

The Time Axis

The Time Axis

The Time Axis

The Basques, the Franco years and beyond

The Time Axis

The Time Axis

European Aeronautics: The Southwestern Axis

Understanding and challenging HIV AIDS Stigma

Franco Alfano: Transcending Turandot

Stigma and Social Exclusion in Healthcare

The Secret Axis Army in the Americas

Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture

Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics

The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871

Franco and the Axis Stigma