World War II Day by Day

Berlin, Germany · September 15, 1940

On this date in 1940 Adolf Hitler wrote a letter to Gen. Fran­cisco Franco, the Cau­dillo (politi­cal-mili­tary leader) of Spain, asking for naval bases for Ger­many in the Spanish Canary Islands off Africa’s west coast and in other places. Franco replied one week later, demanding enor­mous stock­piles of wea­pons, supplies, and part of French North Africa as com­pen­sa­tion. Caving into Franco’s demands would have been dis­astrous for Ger­many’s rela­tion­ship with Vichy, its new French vassal state (since June 1940), as well as giving the British Navy an ex­cuse to occupy the poorly defended Canary Islands. Besides, Hitler believed he could find a way to bring Spain into a relation­ship with the Axis that would force British Prime Minis­ter Winston Chur­chill into nego­ti­a­tions aimed at restoring peace between Great Brit­ain and Nazi Germany. If that didn’t work, Hitler had the Gibraltar card up his sleeve.

Gibraltar was the strategic British enclave on the south­ern tip of the Ibe­rian Penin­sula. Its presence on the Spanish land­mass rankled Franco and Hitler knew it. Two months earlier Hitler had dispatched a team to Spain, con­sisting of Ger­man officers headed by Adm. Wil­helm Canaris, chief of German mili­tary intelli­gence, who in the 1930s had set up a Ger­man spy ring in Spain. The team’s objec­tive was to find a way where­by Spain and Germany might co­oper­ate in expelling the British from their rock for­tress and close the Medi­ter­ra­nean basin to the Royal Navy. Canaris’ team deter­mined that Gibral­tar could possibly fall to an air-supported ground attack by at least 3 Ger­man engineer battalions, 2 infantry, and 12 artillery regiments.

The Fuehrer played the Gibral­tar card the next month, on October 23, 1940, in a face-to-face meeting on the Spanish-French bor­der at Hen­daye. With Madrid’s approval, so went Hitler’s proposal, special Ger­man units would storm the rock on Janu­ary 10, 1941, and deliver it to its “right­ful owners.” Franco was already getting cold feet over Gibral­tar thanks largely to the same Canaris, who painted a depressing pic­ture of what could go wrong in a hos­tile Spanish take­over of the British-held penin­sula; for example, the Royal Navy could easily seize the Canary Islands and its forces attack the Spanish mainland.

Slyly, fully aware of its ab­surdity, Franco told Hitler that Spanish, not Ger­man, troops must carry out the his­toric mis­sion. Franco again appealed to Hitler’s gen­er­os­ity to supply his army with all the mate­riel, food, and border con­ces­sions to grease the Gibral­tar mis­sion. Added to Franco’s peti­tion was Spain’s urgent need to obtain the where­withal required to re­build the coun­try fol­lowing the ruinous Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). It was all too much for Hitler to swallow, so he left Hendaye empty-handed.

Francisco Franco’s Arm’s Length Relationship with Adolf Hitler

Left: Hitler and Gen. Francisco Franco at Hen­daye rail­way sta­tion, Octo­ber 23, 1940, the only meeting between the two dic­ta­tors. Months earlier, on June 10, 1940, the day Italy declared war on France and Great Brit­ain, Franco hinted of his inter­est in joining fellow fascist Benito Musso­lini in the war. Though Franco sympa­thized with the Axis powers through­out the Euro­pean con­flict, he nudged his country into staying mostly neu­tral. Never­the­less, in August 1941 he sent some 45,000 volun­teers (the “Blue Division,” or División Azul) to fight along­side other Axis nations on the Soviet front. Franco also opened his ports to Ger­man U‑boats and in­vaded the inter­na­tionally adminis­tered city of Tangier in Morocco after the fall of France in 1940.

Right: Gen. Franco (1892–1975) ruled over Spain from 1939 until his death on Novem­ber 20, 1975. Hitler’s visit to Franco and Hen­daye took him through Mon­toire, France, where he con­ferred with Vichy Prime Minis­ter Pierre Laval. The Nazi colla­bo­rator arranged for a meeting between him­self, Hitler, and Vichy Head of State Marshal Philippe Pétain at Montoire on Hitler’s return trip on October 24, 1940.

Left: Prior to entering bilateral discus­sions on Octo­ber 23, 1940, Hitler and Franco reviewed German troops at the rail­way station at Hen­daye, the Ger­man-occupied French Pyrenees town that bordered Spain.

Right: Franco and Hitler confer in the Fuehrer’s Sonder­zug (private train) in Hen­daye’s rail­way sta­tion. According to Franco’s daughter, her father was worried about the Ger­mans pos­sibly kid­napping him and forcing him to take Spain into the war on the Axis side. Franco sup­posedly appointed a senior gene­ral and two others to assume con­trol of the coun­try in the event he was detained. Through­out his dis­cus­sions with Hitler, Franco toed the line Adm. Wil­helm Cana­ris, Hitler’s Ab­wehr spy chief who played a double game, had advised him to take; namely, for­bid the pas­sage of Ger­man troops through Spain for the pur­pose of cap­turing the Brit­ish depen­dency of Gibral­tar lest it un­leash devas­tating reper­cussions for Spain and her Atlantic possessions.

German Newsreel Footage of Hitler and Gen. Francisco Franco Conferring in Hendaye, France, October 23, 1940