Franco refuses to enter the war

At half past seven in the evening on 7 December 1940, General Francisco Franco received the head of German military intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, in Madrid. The Spanish Air Minister, General Juan Vigón, was present at the meeting. Canaris brought greetings from Adolf Hitler and a concrete request: German troops wished to cross the Spanish border on 10 January 1941 in order to capture British Gibraltar in Operation Felix. Franco replied that Spain could not enter the war on that date, and when asked for another date he answered that he could not set one. The next day, 8 December, Canaris reported the refusal to the Wehrmacht High Command, and it is under this date that many chronicles of the war record the event. Hitler’s final decision came a few days later: on 10 December, after a second report from Canaris, he concluded that Operation Felix would not be carried out, and the Wehrmacht High Command issued the corresponding order on 11 December. Spain, which in the autumn of 1940 had been closer to war than ever before, stayed out of it.

Gibraltar in Hitler’s plans

France’s defeat in June 1940 brought the Reich to the Pyrenees, and Franco, who owed his victory in the Civil War largely to Germany and Italy, declared Spain “non-belligerent” and offered Hitler his entry into the war in exchange for Gibraltar, French Morocco, the Oran district and large deliveries of food, fuel and weapons. When it became clear that Britain had no intention of giving in and the invasion of the British Isles had been postponed until the spring, Gibraltar became one of the most promising targets for German staff officers. Its capture would close the western entrance to the Mediterranean to the British and cut Malta and the fleet at Alexandria off from the shortest route from the Atlantic. The fortress was not untouchable: in September, after the failed expedition to Dakar, it had been bombed by the Vichy air force, though the raids did it no serious damage.

In the summer Canaris, who had known Spain since the First World War and spoke Spanish, went with a group of officers to inspect the fortress from the landward side. In the autumn the staff prepared a detailed plan. Overall command was to go to Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau. General Rudolf Schmidt’s motorised XXXIX Army Corps was to secure the routes through the interior of Spain and, if the British landed there, possibly enter Portugal, while General Ludwig Kübler’s XLIX Mountain Corps was to carry out the assault itself. Its core was a specially assembled “assault division” built around the 1st Mountain Division and reinforced with the Großdeutschland Infantry Regiment, engineers and heavy artillery, which in November and December 1940 practised attacking rock faces in the French Jura. German planners reckoned on several weeks between crossing the border and the assault, since the columns had to cross the whole Iberian Peninsula on poor roads, and the Spanish railways could barely cope with supplying the country.

Hitler’s meeting with Franco at Hendaye on 23 October brought no breakthrough. Hitler did not want to promise the Spaniards French colonies, because he was counting on cooperation with Vichy France, and Franco did not want to enter the war without guaranteed gains and large-scale economic aid. What remained was a secret protocol in which Spain undertook to enter the war at a time fixed “by common agreement” – in practice, whenever Spain itself judged it possible.

Directive No. 18 and the talk at the Berghof

In November Hitler returned to the matter with greater determination. The Italian attack on Greece had turned into a disaster: the Greeks had gone over to the counter-offensive and on 22 November took Korçë, and on the night of 11–12 November British torpedo bombers had torpedoed the Italian battleships at Taranto. The Axis’s prestige in the Mediterranean had plummeted, and Hitler feared that the British would regain the initiative in southern Europe.

On 12 November, the day Vyacheslav Molotov arrived in Berlin, Hitler signed Directive No. 18, a review of plans for the coming months. The section on Spain and Portugal stated that “political measures have been initiated” to bring Spain into the war quickly, and that the aim of German intervention on the Iberian Peninsula, code-named Felix, was to drive the English out of the western Mediterranean. Gibraltar was to be captured and the strait closed. The plan envisaged several stages: first, preparations by reconnaissance officers in civilian clothes and special Abwehr units; then a Luftwaffe raid from French airfields on British warships in Gibraltar harbour; and finally the march of troops across the border and the assault on the Rock. It was to be taken by German troops alone, strong enough to manage even without Spanish help. U-boats were to attack the British squadron when it left port after the air raid.

On 18 November Hitler received the Spanish Foreign Minister, Ramón Serrano Suñer, at the Berghof. According to the German record, he explained to him that after the events of recent weeks it was necessary to act quickly and close the Mediterranean, and that December, January and February were the best months for German soldiers to fight in Spain, since later the heat would hamper them, and in the spring the troops would be needed elsewhere. If preparations were completed within six weeks, the best moment for German help would come. Serrano Suñer replied that Spain was starving and short of more than a million tons of grain, that it had only with great difficulty obtained British permission for the passage of the first shipment of 400,000 tons of wheat from Canada, and that a country just emerging from a civil war did not want another war. He also complained that the vague secret protocol of Hendaye guaranteed Spain nothing.

On his return to Madrid the minister reported to Franco, who called a secret meeting of the service ministers. The generals objected that the two-month preparation period was too short and asked what Spain would receive in return for its sacrifice. Nevertheless, on 28 November Serrano Suñer informed the Reich ambassador in Madrid, Eberhard von Stohrer, that the Caudillo had agreed to begin preparations. A day later he read him notes setting out Franco’s conditions: preparations should be speeded up, but no date could be fixed at present; Spain asked for German military and economic experts and for an officer enjoying the Führer’s special confidence, with whom all matters could be discussed openly. Berlin read this as consent. On 4 December Joachim von Ribbentrop instructed Stohrer to tell the Spaniards that the Führer had “welcomed the Generalissimo’s decision” and was sending Admiral Canaris to Madrid, to arrive on Sunday 7 December.

The date: 10 January

On 5 December Hitler conferred with the Wehrmacht commanders. According to the war diary of the OKW operations staff, he then decided to demand Franco’s consent for German troops to enter Spain on 10 January 1941. The assault on Gibraltar was to follow in early February. Canaris was to obtain the Caudillo’s consent, and immediately after him the chief of the OKW operations staff, General Alfred Jodl, was to travel to Madrid in civilian clothes and with the passport of a ministry official to settle the military details. He was to be the officer of “special confidence” Franco had asked for.

The choice of Canaris was no accident. During the First World War the head of the Abwehr had worked in Spain as a naval agent, in the 1920s he had acted as an intermediary in secret cooperation between the two navies, and in 1936 he had helped bring about German aid for the rebel generals. He knew Franco and most of the Spanish commanders personally, and they regarded him as a friend of Spain.

The conversation of 7 December

The course of the conversation is known from two consistent sources: Canaris’s report to the OKW, summarised in the war diary of the operations staff, and a note written by General Vigón, a translation of which Ambassador Stohrer sent to Berlin on 12 December. Canaris conveyed the Führer’s wish that the attack on Gibraltar be carried out soon and that the troops enter Spain on 10 January. He explained that Hitler considered this date the most favourable, because the units earmarked for the operation would be needed for other tasks immediately afterwards and could not wait indefinitely. He added that German economic aid would begin the moment the troops crossed the border.

Franco replied that it was impossible for Spain to enter the war on that date, and set out his reasons. First, the British fleet had retained such freedom of action that success at Gibraltar, which he considered certain and swift, would soon be overshadowed by the loss of Spanish Guinea and then of one of the Canary Islands; Britain and the United States would also gain a pretext for occupying the Portuguese Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde Islands. Second, military preparations – fortifying the islands and coasts and strengthening the artillery on the strait – were still under way. He stressed, however, that this was not the main reason for his refusal.

The most important was hunger. Spain, he said, was short of about a million tons of grain, and the country had no means of distributing what it had: there was a shortage of wagons and locomotives, and lorries stood idle without petrol. If entering the war interrupted shipping, the situation in many provinces would become unbearable. The government was buying grain in South America and Canada, repairing rolling stock and converting lorries to run on producer gas, but shrinking foreign trade made any rapid improvement impossible. That was why, Franco said, Spain could not enter the war in the near future and could not endure a long war without unimaginable sacrifices; the Canary Islands had supplies for only six months. He insisted that he also had Germany’s interest in mind, since an exhausted Spain would become a burden to the Axis.

Canaris asked whether, since 10 January was out of the question, Franco could name another, later date. The Caudillo replied that removing the obstacles did not depend on Spain alone, so he could not fix any date. He showed the admiral photographs of new 240 mm mortars intended to make up for the lack of heavy artillery, proposed that a German economic expert should come, and agreed that reconnaissance and preparations should continue with the same discretion as before. He bade his guest farewell with cordial greetings to the Führer.

On 8 December Canaris reported to the OKW that he had put to Franco “with the greatest emphasis” the necessity of entering the war quickly, but the Spaniard had refused. On the orders of the Chief of the OKW, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, he was instructed by telegram that evening to ask once more for the earliest possible date for the attack. The reply he sent on 10 December left no illusions: Franco repeated that he would not set a date, since it depended on Spain’s economic development and on the course of the war with England, and made it clear that Spain could enter the war only when England was close to collapse.

Hitler calls off Felix

On receiving this telegram Hitler decided that Operation Felix would not be carried out, “since the necessary political conditions no longer exist”. The reconnaissance already begun was to be completed, but other preparations were to be halted, and the artillery batteries promised to the Spaniards for the defence of the islands and coasts were not to be sent. The OKW issued the order on 11 December. The day before, Hitler had signed Directive No. 19, Operation Attila, a plan for the lightning occupation of unoccupied France in case French North Africa under General Maxime Weygand broke with Vichy. Uncertainty about Spain and France at the same time made the western direction no longer promising for Hitler.

The refusal caused irritation in Berlin. As early as 8 December Ribbentrop reproached Ambassador Stohrer that Franco’s position stood in “glaring contradiction” to the talks at Hendaye and to the assurances given after Serrano Suñer’s visit, and forbade him for the time being to hold any talks with Spanish politicians. Stohrer defended himself by arguing that the reason for the turnabout was the rapidly worsening food situation. In a lengthy report he wrote that one could speak of famine in Spain “without exaggeration”, that even in Madrid people were fainting in the streets from malnutrition, and that discontent with the government, unemployment and the conflict between the generals and Serrano Suñer posed a threat to the regime. According to the ambassador’s information, which matched Canaris’s impressions, some influential generals had warned Franco against war, and Franco himself was troubled by the quarrel between the army and his brother-in-law.

Why Franco refused

Several reasons lay behind the refusal at once. The first was the economy. Spain depended on grain and fuel imported by sea, and the seas were controlled by the Royal Navy. The British, represented in Madrid by Ambassador Samuel Hoare, deliberately rationed supplies to Spain through a system of navicerts, so that there was enough to survive but not to stockpile for war. The Americans acted similarly: when, after Hendaye, Serrano Suñer spoke of solidarity with the Axis, a ship carrying 30,000 tons of wheat from the United States was held back. Germany, itself an importer of food, could not feed Spain.

The second reason was the changed military situation. When in the summer of 1940 Franco had offered Hitler his participation in the war, he had been counting on a share of the spoils after what he believed to be Britain’s imminent collapse. In December Britain was still fighting, and Italy, the Axis’s other partner, was losing in Albania and at sea. On the very day Canaris reported the refusal in Berlin, the Greeks took Gjirokastër. Entering the war at such a moment meant risking the loss of the Canary Islands and the African possessions, as well as a long war that the ruined country could not bear. The third reason was the lack of spoils: Hitler still refused to promise Spain French Morocco in writing, and without it war was, for Franco, a transaction without payment.

The role of Canaris himself is a separate question. After the war his associates, and many authors after them, claimed that the admiral, an opponent of Hitler’s policy, had privately advised Franco against entering the war and had even suggested arguments to him. The Spaniards were said to have shown their gratitude by looking after his widow. No document confirms this, and the record of the conversation of 7 December, Vigón’s note, tallies with Canaris’s report to the OKW. Some historians, including Paul Preston, regard the story of Canaris “saving” Spain from war as a legend, pointing out that Franco had his own, sufficient reasons for refusing. It cannot be ruled out that the admiral, sceptical of the whole operation, did not press the Caudillo very zealously, but the decision was Franco’s.

Place in the war

The refusal of 7 December did not settle the matter at once. On 31 December Hitler wrote to Mussolini that Franco was making “the greatest mistake of his life” in counting on grain from the democracies as a reward for keeping out of the war, and expressed regret over the preparations for crossing the border on 10 January and attacking Gibraltar in early February. He held on to a “faint hope” that the Caudillo would come to his senses at the last moment. In January and February 1941 the Germans pressed Madrid several more times, and on 6 February Hitler sent Franco a letter reminding him how much he owed Germany. Franco replied evasively. On 12 February 1941 he met Mussolini at Bordighera, but the Duce, weakened by defeats in Greece and Libya, did not press very hard. Soon the OKW deemed Operation Felix obsolete, since the troops assigned to it were needed in the Balkans and in the east. Its variant, Felix-Heinrich, planned for the period after the expected quick victory over the USSR, remained on paper.

For the course of the war the December refusal was of enormous importance. Gibraltar remained in British hands and throughout the war served as a base for the fleet, for aircraft and for convoys bound for Malta, and in November 1942 it became General Eisenhower’s headquarters during Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa. Had the Germans closed the strait in the winter of 1940/1941, the British position in the Mediterranean, in Egypt and on Malta would have been incomparably more difficult.

This did not make Spain a neutral state in the full sense. It remained “non-belligerent” and well disposed towards the Axis: after the German attack on the USSR in June 1941 it sent the Blue Division to the Eastern Front and supplied Germany with tungsten, while Canaris’s Abwehr operated on its territory and watched the strait. Franco returned to strict neutrality only in the autumn of 1943, when the outcome of the war was settled. Post-war propaganda presented the refusal of December 1940 as proof of the foresight of a Caudillo who had outwitted Hitler. The documents rather show a dictator who wanted to enter the war on the Axis side but, at the decisive moment, had nothing to wage it with and did not get what he demanded.