Spain in World War II Essay

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France had shown its best hand to Franco by returning "Gold, weapons, vehicles, valuables, ships, art," and other valuables that had been shipped by the rebels across the Spanish border into France during the Civil War (Bowen, p. 23).

A tense moment for Spain's so-called neutrality came on June 27, 1940, as German troops arrived at the border of Spain; a deal was struck that "small groups of Nazi soldiers" could travel (while in uniform) through northern Spain (Bowen, p. 29) but the Germans apparently never made a huge push into Spain.

The one force that Franco was definitely not neutral towards was the Soviet Union. In fact, when Germany sent massive troops into Russia in June1941, Franco quickly identified himself and his nation with the German cause, according to World History at KMLA (WHKMLA, 2007). A year previous to that, on June 14th, 1940 Spanish troops actually occupied the city of Tangier in Morocco, and Franco tried to cut a deal with Hitler regarding Spanish troops joining with Hitler in Africa if Spain would be rewarded after the hostilities with "all of French Morocco, parts of Algeria and an expansion into Spanish Guinea" (WHKMLA). Hitler declined to be a party to that deal, although the two leaders met on October 23rd in 1940 to discuss a joint campaign against Gibraltar, an action that the British (as mentioned earlier) had suspected would take place. Had Hitler agreed to give Spain some of the spoils from the Nazi invasion of North Africa, Franco would have found himself far more deeply embroiled in the actual fighting, and any talk of neutrality would be lip service.

But Spain wasn't finished helping Hitler because Franco sent an estimated 100,000 Spanish workers to Germany to help keep industrial production strong while the Nazis pushed into Russia (WHKMLA).

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When Hitler's defeat was absolutely sealed in May of 1945 the press in Spain (which was "tightly controlled" by Franco) gave "extravagant eulogies" to Franco, who was seen as the "genius" who had brought peace to Spain in the midst of the terrible carnage that occurred throughout much of Europe (Payne, 2008). According to the book, Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II, was is reviewed in the Journal of Military History, Franco was viewed by his own people as a man who had been "...chosen by the benevolence of God" - according to the front page of the Spanish main newspaper ABC (Payne, 2008). For thirty years following the end of WWII, Franco's admiring public believed that Franco had craftily deceived Hitler and kept Spain out of the war, Payne explains in his book.

And moreover, there were three "cherished myths" that Spaniards held on to through those post WWII years, according to Payne's book; one, that Franco had won the Civil War in Spain "by dint of military genius"; two, that Franco had "masterminded" the economic boom in Spain in the 1960s; the three, the Spain's neutrality in WWII "was his brilliant achievement" (Payne, 2008). However, there was "no truth" in any of those myths, the author writes; in fact, the only reason Spain didn't actually send troops and become fully engaged on the pro-Axis side of the war, Payne insists, was because Spain was "thwarted" economically by its ragged post-Civil War economy, and two, that Hitler didn't want to take on "another ally even more impecunious than Mussolini" (Payne, 2008).

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