After the triumph in the West, Hitler and his generals had a dilemma, for Britain remained to be defeated and was unwilling to negotiate. Hitler wanted a quick solution to this, for Germany did not want to be forced to the defensive in the near future, and so on 30 June 1940 Generalmajor Jodl presented his memorandum ‘The Continuation of the War against Great Britain’,1 which recommended determination ‘to break the British will to resist’ if ‘political means’ were inadequate.2
Either England had to be invaded or the war extended peripherally, by which Jodl meant extending towards ‘the lucrative inheritance’ of states that Germany would control once the British Empire gave in. Besides Russia and Japan, it was principally from Italy and Spain that Jodl was hoping for military support to bring about this desired end, by mining the Suez Canal or helping in the capture of Gibraltar.
On 1 July 1940 Hitler spoke to Italian ambassador Alfieri, and a week later with Foreign Minister Ciano3 about the possibilities of attacking Gibraltar, which the German Staffs were thinking about ‘very seriously’. ‘Special weapons’ would be used, but the actual occupation would be done by Spanish troops, and the problem lay in obtaining Franco’s agreement; Italy should request air bases in Spain, Spanish Morocco and the Balearics in order to attack Gibraltar.4 It speaks volumes for the confusion on one hand and the readiness to keep all options open on the other that it was not until 12 July that OKW issued the order to prepare the attack operation or, in support of a Spanish coup de main, set up an Intelligence Staff Gibraltar. Four days later ‘Instruction No 16 – Preparation of Landing Operations in England’, also known as Operation Seelöwe, appeared.5 When Hitler announced to his generals at the Berghof on 13 July that he was intending to draw Spain into the war ‘in order to consolidate the front against Britain from the North Cape to Morocco’,6 Canaris was already working on the plans. At the end of June he had made it clear to Franco, the Minister for Air Juan Vigón and Foreign Minister Beigbeder that Germany was not currently interested in having Spain enter the war, but was requesting permission to move German troops across Spanish territory. Franco was cautious – an attack by Spanish troops on Gibraltar would only be possible if Germany supplied aircraft and artillery.7
Canaris arrived in Spain on 23 July 1940 in order to see for himself the prospects for the operation locally. In his entourage were Piekenbrock, Oberst Mikosch, the commanding officer of 5i.Pionierbatallion, Major Langkau from the Staff of Jüterbog Artillery School, paratrooper Hauptmann Rudolf Witzig and Hauptmann Osterecht. These officers represented the essential technical branches for an attack on the Gibraltar,8 and arrived singly by different routes, in civilian dress and with false passports. On 23 July Canaris and Piekenbrock met in Madrid and visited the head of K-Organisation Spain, Fregattenkapitän Wilhelm Leissner. K-Org was the Abwehr apparatus in neutral countries, usually structured around the German embassy, and its network of agents spread out across the country. The K-Org heads not only kept in touch with the important civilian and military offices of the ‘host’ and collated the available information, but also courted the secret services of the various belligerent states. In this way during the course of the war Stockholm, Berne, Istanbul, Lisbon and Madrid became meeting points for the international intelligence communities and enabled conspiratorial contact across the frontlines. Shortly after seeing Leissner, Canaris and Piekenbrock met Vigón, the new chief of the Spanish General Staff Campos, and Lt-Coronel Pardo, the latter presumably an intelligence officer from the Army Ministry.9 Canaris stated frankly that the purpose of his visit was to discuss a possible operation against Gibraltar and to obtain the fullest information about the Rock, and he requested the help of his Spanish hosts for their maps of the British defence system in order to assess the military conditions for the attack.
Vigón reacted evasively; he considered a surprise attack out of the question since only one road led there, it would take time to position the artillery, and the Spanish railway gauge differed from the French. Shortly afterwards there was a meeting with Franco, who did not dismiss the German plans out of hand but spoke of his manifold reservations. He feared the British naval strength and thought they might retaliate against the Canary Islands. He pointed to Spain’s economic difficulties, which Canaris had often described himself,10 and was especially concerned at the shortage of oil caused by the American refusal to meet his needs.11 The meeting, though warm, ended without any concrete result, but three houses in Algeciras were placed at the disposal of the Germans, one as a residence while the other two looked across the Bay of Gibraltar and were useful as observation posts.12
During the next two days Canaris’s commando squad had a closer look at Gibraltar, and did not like what they saw. The steep slopes and unpredictable winds ruled out gliders and paratroop drops. The access over the isthmus that connected Gibraltar to the mainland was apparently mined and the defenders had a good field of fire from all positions. All troop and material transports had to change trains at the French–Spanish border and the Spanish did not have the resources to support the troops in transit with signals technology, supplies and security. An attack would succeed only at the cost of high casualties.13
On 27 July Canaris held a concluding conference in which the results were discussed. The outlook was not appealing; a surprise attack was out of the question, the Spanish degree of commitment was uncertain and even if an attack were undertaken, the Spanish would need to make immense preparations to support a German Expeditionary Corps. Despite these sobering difficulties, Canaris and his team were not deterred, and on their return to Germany work started immediately on a plan of attack.14
On 31 July 1940, Brauchitsch, Halder, Jodl, Keitel and Raeder met at the Berghof to discuss the invasion of England with Hitler, but found the Führer preoccupied with his plans to destroy ‘the life force of the Soviet Union’ in the spring of 1941. The increase in size of the Army from 120 to 180 divisions in the middle of August was a signal to those in the know that he did not expect to defeat Britain in 1940 and was calculating for the entry of the United States into the war with the change in the German–Soviet relationship. Operation Seelöwe was not discarded but the Luftwaffe had first to win air supremacy over England, and the subsequent invasion by sea had serious troop transportation problems and problematic weather. That Franco knew this had prompted Canaris to make his fact-finding mission to Spain.
An offensive in the East and the destruction of the Soviet Union would ‘show Britain the mainland sword’ and, if Russia could be overwhelmed quickly, strengthen Japan sufficiently to deter the United States from entering the war against such an Axis. The conquest of Gibraltar, the support of the Italian adventure in Libya, even the preparations against England, were now little more than diversionary moves to disguise the real direction of the main activity, as Halder wrote in his diary on 31 July 1940.15
On 2 August Canaris reported on his findings in Spain to Keitel and General Warlimont, chief of the Land Defence Department, Abteilung L, at OKW.16 Building on this knowledge, the Army and Navy Groups of Abteilung L weighed the operational possibilities of an expedition to North Africa consisting of one or two panzer divisions, provided that Operation Seelöwe fell by the wayside permanently and the troops became available. Warlimont was of the opinion that if Gibraltar were captured, the British could probably be driven out of the Mediterranean theatre in the winter.17 Canaris warned against such speculations: Franco would not act against Gibraltar on his own and Spain’s catastrophic economic situation would make it difficult for Hitler to lure Spain into the war.18 Nevertheless Hitler wanted the ‘great solution’ in four steps:
1. A binding agreement with General Franco that Spain under a fully camouflaged German participation would resist a British attack or landings in the Campo de Gibraltar on the mainland.
2. A surprise attack by massed German Luftwaffe groups operating from Bordeaux against the British Fleet in Gibraltar harbour, and at the same time the transfer of Stukas and coastal artillery batteries to Spain.
3. Destruction of the harbour and harassment of British Fleet by Stukas and coastal artillery.
4. Capture of the Rock by attack from the landward side and possibly also from the sea under Spanish supreme command, although the command of the operation as a whole should remain in German hands through the force of personality of the German commander.19
Canaris was under strict instructions to undertake no further reconnaissance missions to the Iberian Peninsula20 to ensure that the British remained unaware of the German interest in Gibraltar, and he drove to Paris and Abwehrstellen in Occupied France to collect information before meeting Vigón in Madrid.21 The Spanish air minister had just come from a meeting with the former Legion Condor commander, Luftwaffe-General Wolfram von Richthofen, and was concerned at the progress of the German plan. Franco was very interested in accelerating the operation because of his worsening fuel and food situation, although this would not improve appreciably if he captured Gibraltar. Vigón then voiced Franco’s demands; Spain would only become involved if it were supplied with goods and weapons. These amounted to two hundred heavy guns, over one hundred flak guns, three squadrons of naval reconnaissance aircraft and many other items.22 Apparently no detailed discussions were held on the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fuel, wheat, oil and coal that the Caudillo urgently needed.23
On 24 August, Hitler approved the operational plan Felix. Franco had agreed to participate, provided that his massive material demands were satisfied,24 and Canaris notified Halder of the quantity and types of weapons, the amounts of fuel and food the Spanish leader thought he could make do with.25 Canaris remained pessimistic about the whole endeavour and tried to bring Halder round to his way of thinking. Franco had the generals and the clergy against him, his only supporter being Serrano Suñer, his brother-in-law and the future successor to Foreign Minister Beigbeder, and even he preferred the Italians to the Germans. One assumes that Franco would not have ‘got involved’ until Britain was already on its knees. Ultimately, as Canaris advised, it would need a personal visit of the Führer to ‘work it’; Hitler was keen, as he told Brauchitsch and Halder on 14 September, ‘to promise the Spanish all they want, even if we can’t deliver in full’.26
On 16 September Ribbentrop met Suñer in Berlin; Suñer was friendly towards the Berlin–Rome Axis, but he was also a Spanish Nationalist, a lawyer and a pious Catholic, and could not stand Ribbentrop. He began by refusing the German request for a naval base on the Canary Islands, and avoided all other suggestions by detailing again all Franco’s material demands. Franco wanted Gibraltar, French Morocco and Oran, but Hitler was only ready to let him have French Morocco if he allowed a German naval base there and mining rights. Franco refused, and so the Ribbentrop–Suñer meeting ended without accord except for Franco’s offer to meet Hitler personally at the Spanish border with France.27
On 23 September Hitler agreed to meet Franco’s demands, but his conversation with Mussolini on 4 October 1940 at the Brenner Pass, in which he described these demands, changed the situation. Hitler wanted bases in Morocco from where he could strike at British colonies in West Africa; Mussolini wanted Nice, Corsica, Tunis and Djibouti. As it now appeared certain that Hitler would abandon Operation Seelöwe, Mussolini was hoping, as was his Foreign Minister Ciano, to bring France in on the side of an anti-British coalition. Regarding the situation in Spain, there was agreement28 on the basis of Canaris’s advice that very little military assistance was to be expected from Spain29 and therefore Mussolini should now take over the job of manoeuvring Franco into the Berlin–Rome Axis, as Halder later confirmed.
The Duce went on the defensive, considering that great caution was advisable, for Spain was unreliable and Franco was demanding too much; it would be best to hold back.30 The relationship between Hitler and Mussolini was harmonious at this point, but when Mussolini was surprised by a report that a German military commission was in Bucharest preparing the defence of the Romanian oilfields, he reacted by ordering the invasion of Greece at the end of the month in order to present Hitler with his own fait accompli.
During the first fortnight of October 1940 there was increasing disquiet at Franco’s delaying tactics and the General Staff was considering an attack on Gibraltar without Spanish help. In an earlier meeting between Hitler and Suñer, Hitler had offered Spain the opportunity to extinguish the civil war debt, and in response, according to Halder, Suñer had given Hitler a sermon: ‘Suñer replied, “Such a combination of materialism and idealism is incomprehensible for the Spanish.” The Führer seemed like “a small Jew”.’31 Franco had requested a document granting his demands for Gibraltar, Morocco and Oran, but Hitler had declined to sign it, worried that if France learned of these demands, it would not defend its colonies but hand them over to Britain.
On 12 October Operation Seelöwe was shelved and the preparations for Operation Felix accelerated.32 Halder even thought it possible that the Rock might be taken without a fight, but if that was not the case it would be costly. ‘Gibraltar is just a prestige thing. I do not rule it out that the British will abandon it when they see that we are preparing an attack, for it is less harmful to prestige to abandon something voluntarily than lose it. If they hold it, however, then we must have the whole peninsula down to the southern end in our hand, otherwise it will become an Alcazar’33 (Alcazar was the minor fortress that Franco had sworn to relieve as a debt of honour and which cost him the early capture of Madrid in 1936).
Travelling in the Führer’s train towards the Spanish frontier and his meeting with Franco on 23 October, Hitler was already forewarned by Canaris that he would be disappointed by Franco, who was basically a hard-bitten diplomat.34 The dictatorial pair were thus well matched. Franco was intent on tightening the screw to the fullest as the price for Spain’s entry into the war, while Hitler knew that many of his leading military men placed little value on Franco because of the underlying situation in Spain.35 State Secretary von Weizsäcker wrote three days previously: ‘My vote is that Spain should be left out of the game . . . Gibraltar is not worth that much to us . . . Today Spain is starving and has a fuel shortage . . . even the entry of Spain (together with other vassal states) has no practical value.’36
The meeting with Franco took place in Hitler’s saloon coach at the border station of Hendaye, and lasted almost nine hours. Franco wanted much, and Hitler had almost nothing to offer37 and in the end the talks were fruitless.38 As Hitler left the meeting he murmured: ‘We cannot do anything with this guy.’ Halder noted later, after hearing from Hitler’s Army adjutant Engel that in the Reich Chancellery Hitler had raged wildly about the ‘Jesuit swine’ and ‘the false pride of the Spaniard’.39 At the German border on his return he was told of the impending Italian attack on Greece, at which he erupted in rage.40 From then on, Hitler planned to solve the Gibraltar problem with Spain, cutting Italy out.
On 2 November Canaris had several conversations with Halder, to whom he had offered the role of negotiator in the dealings with Spain.41 Halder asked him to summon his representative at Algeciras, Major Fritz Kautschke, to Berlin; Kautschke had been recruited into the Abwehr by Canaris after being required to relinquish his post with the artillery for ‘non-Aryan racial descent’. Together with Coronel Pardo, General Campos and other Spanish General Staff officers, he had made a detailed analysis of the Gibraltar area and the British defence measures, and he now presented a long report accompanied by photos, maps and sketches. He was enthusiastic, even if the situation in Spain was assessed as very bad indeed. He wrote: ‘Total collapse of the internal [apparatus of] administration: for food and fuel totally dependent on Britain, which receives ore in exchange. Difficult position for Franco who has nothing behind him and therefore cannot risk anything. His position is being weakened rather than strengthened by Suñer, who can be considered the most hated man in Spain.’42
Of the new foreign minister it was said that his ‘arrogance and excessive sensitivity were not justified by his achievements’ and combined with ‘Franco’s stubbornness’ he was becoming a problem. Canaris was to hold himself in readiness for the preparation of further negotiations43 and to ensure that the Abwehr shielded the military survey of Gibraltar from British intelligence.
The preparations for the actual attack proceeded to plan. As soon as the first German troops had crossed the Spanish border, the Luftwaffe would strike at the ships in Gibraltar harbour. 22.Infanteriedivision was completely fitted out, and leave restrictions had been imposed, additional troops were at readiness in order to invade Portugal if necessary and it was being calculated how quickly artillery units could be stationed on the North African coast of the Strait. Lahousen now set in motion the preparations of Abwehr II;44 the operation was codenamed ‘Felsennest’ (‘Nest on the Rock’), later changed to ‘Basta’ (Spanish: ‘Enough’). Lehrregiment Brandenburg would have 150 men ready for a commando mission shortly to start up in southern France.45
In the first half of November, a series of secret operations began around Gibraltar. Canaris sent Kapitän Hans-Erich Voss to Algeciras to determine where best to place the heavy coastal batteries to support the German attack and Abwehr Hauptmann Hermann Menzel cooperated with K-Org chief Leissner in supplying reports for the naval intelligence on Gibraltar’s weak points. From 12 November, Canaris was in Spain,46 but when he returned to Zossen a fortnight later and informed Halder of his conversations with Vigón and other generals, it was still not known when or even whether Spain would enter the war on Germany’s side;47 Franco was still playing for time.
The significance of having Spain in the Axis was primarily to cover the situation in the Mediterranean and North Africa against the background of the planned war in the East, and at the same time to relieve the pressure on Italy; Mussolini’s refusal to become entangled in Operation Felix was final. Meanwhile, Felix was now competing in logistics and dates with the planned operations in the Balkans and in Greece. Disguising the operation precluded a Blitzkrieg because the troops now needed thirty-eight days to move down to Gibraltar from the French border. The first advance commandos would move into the Iberian Peninsula on 6 December, the main force would attack early in 1941.48
Canaris watched the hectic preparations in November with some concern, particularly Halder’s zealous plans calling for two numerically large advance commandos driving through France in civilian clothing in French vehicles and entering Spain under false identities; these advance commando stormtroops consisted of eleven officers for Seville in addition to sixteen artillery spotters and twelve other artillery officers for Cadiz, and sixteen supply officers. Canaris was sure that such large groups of officers were bound to be detected by British intelligence. He intervened, and at the end of November Halder’s plans were toned down.49 Halder noted: ‘The decision for Felix is firm [statement of Hitler]. Pummel every square metre of British ground. Therefore many mortar bombs needed. Disregard quantity used. Twenty to thirty munition trains through Occupied France or by sea to Malaga.’50
On the evening of 7 December, Canaris had an audience in Madrid with Franco to confirm his agreement to the passage of German troops through Spain,51 with Vigón taking down the notes of the meeting. Canaris conveyed Hitler’s desire to begin the attack very soon, and requested approval for the transit of German troops on 10 January, when the German aid package would also begin arriving. Franco was aware that the Luftwaffe did not have air supremacy over England and that the Italian position in the Balkans grew worse day by day, and he knew his own problems only too well. Accordingly, as he told Canaris, he could not fight a long war without the Spanish people having to make intolerable sacrifices. Vigón noted: ‘Generalissimus explained to admiral that it was impossible for Spain to enter the war on the date set for the reasons given, namely: the threat of British naval retaliation, his lack of armaments, and the supply situation did not permit an early entry into the war.’52 To Canaris’s enquiry of when the transit of German troops would be possible, the Caudillo was unable to provide a date. Canaris returned to the German embassy from where he cabled Bürkner the same night. Keitel took the telegram to Hitler, conveying Franco’s unequivocal message. His demand that Germany should make the preparations for the conquest of Gibraltar under conditions of the strictest secrecy and disguise was no more than a diplomatic smoke-screen. On 10 December, Canaris spelt it out: ‘The Caudillo has given us clearly to understand that he cannot enter the war until Britain is on the verge of defeat.’53
Hitler reflected on the ‘extreme consequences’ resulting from this information. If Operation Felix were cancelled, so must be the next step into French Morocco, and this would make it possible for General Weygand with his army in French Morocco to set up his own government to oppose the occupation of the remainder of France.54
The abandonment of the Gibraltar plan led the Eastern Mediterranean theatre to come into focus. Ambassador Alfieri had painted a very gloomy picture of the Italian Army’s predicament in Albania, and German preparations for Operation Marita, the occupation of Greece, continued apace. This was a prelude to the attack on the Soviet Union, for as Instruction No 20 made clear, at the conclusion of Marita the units involved would be withdrawn for other purposes.55
There has been much speculation as to Canaris’s real role in the negotiations with Franco and the eventual rejection of the plan to attack Gibraltar. Was he the tireless intelligence officer, planner and motivating force whose purpose was to lure Spain at any cost into the Axis and the war against Britain? Although the journeys to talks seem to support it, there is nothing to suggest that in his meetings with Franco, Vigón, Campos or Suñer he was especially convincing. He conveyed the German requests, probably aware that Franco neither wanted to, nor could, meet them. Keitel concluded in his memoirs that Canaris made no serious attempt to win Franco over for Operation Felix, and may even have advised his Spanish friends against it.56 More cautiously, former Legion Condor commander von Richthofen expressed the suspicion in his diary that Canaris might have helped contribute to Franco’s negative attitude57 while State Secretary von Weizsäcker put it more boldly: ‘After consulting me Canaris would not allow himself to be misused in a fraudulent business against his Spanish friends. He advised them against it, and that had plausible reasons.’58 In a note on 12 December 1940 he added: ‘It gives little satisfaction to have seen the Spanish in their true light. They say they can only join the Axis in the last moments before victory – but what else would they be for us than guests at the table?’59 A few days later he had harsher words to say: ‘Spanish disorganisation and Franco’s inability to run a state at peace makes it our fortune not to have to drag this cripple along with us. There are people starving in Spain.’60
This sounded like relief and corresponded completely to the strategy employed by Canaris to make Franco’s refusal palatable to Hitler and his generals. Even Ulrich von Hassell noted in October 1940 after the meeting between Hitler and Franco at Hendaye that Canaris had advised against getting too involved in Spain since the situation there was unstable and Franco was weak.61 Despite all the intelligence activity and diplomatic verve he displayed, Canaris seems to have had a foot on the brake and to have provided nothing persuasive to bring Hitler and Franco together.
It is significant that British writers on the Abwehr have interpreted Canaris’s first report at the end of July 1940 on the poor prospect for a surprise attack on Gibraltar as ‘a masterpiece of calculated discouragement’.62 There were, however, other personalities involved in the plans for the conquest of the Rock whom Canaris would not have influenced with negative assessments. In the early months of diplomacy Canaris would not have risked warning his Spanish friends. Lahousen recalls that Canaris had not been able to warn his friend V igon because the old general would not have understood the political message at that stage of the negotiations.63 Suñer was of a different calibre; on his visit to Berlin in September 1940, he had wondered at the confused ideas of Hitler, to whom the geographical and technical difficulties of capturing Gibraltar did not seem at all clear.64
Suñer had gone from there to Rome to hear Ciano’s opinion on Spain entering the war and – as alleged – had there met Canaris’s confidant Josef Müller, who had informed him: ‘The admiral asks you to inform the Caudillo that he would like Spain to stay out of the game. It may appear to you that we are currently in the stronger position – in reality it is hopeless, we have hardly any hope of winning the war. The Caudillo can rest assured that Hitler will not invade Spain.’65
Apparently it was also Canaris – eventually in unison with Richthofen – who had convinced Franco to demand ten 38-cm guns for the bombardment of Gibraltar knowing that Hitler did not have them. And it was also Canaris who advised Martinez Campos quite openly to preserve and protect Spanish neutrality. Although there is only the evidence of the eye-witnesses and inferences to rely on, everything points to Canaris having been more disposed to keeping Spain out of the war than expanding it into Hitler’s bastion in southwest Europe.