By the time Hitler met Benito Mussolini, the Duce, at the Brenner Pass on Friday 4 October, he had dismissed the visit of Serrano Suñer to Berlin as futile. He was now caught in a morass of inactivity. What was clear was that negotiations with Spain had ground to a halt. Much of the bewilderment of the meetings with the Spanish minister could be laid at the door of Ribbentrop. Most people who had to deal with the German foreign minister took an almost instant dislike ‘to his preposterous vanity and to his overbearing methods in trying to get his own way.’1
Ciano wrote in his diary about the meeting at the Austrian-Italian border: ‘Rarely have I seen the Duce in such a good mood and in good shape as at the Brenner Pass today. The meeting was cordial and the conversations were certainly the most interesting that have taken place so far. Hitler put at least some of his cards on the table, and told us about his future plans.’2
Ciano put these broad plans in order: First, Sealion was over. Second, Hitler hoped to bring Vichy-France into the anti-British coalition. Third, greater importance was to be given to the Mediterranean. Key to this was to bring Spain into the war and to take Gibraltar and improve the German position in Morocco and the Canaries, thereby facilitating the control of Portugal through Spain. He observed that Hitler ‘was energetic and again extremely anti-Bolshevik’ and he recorded him saying: ‘Bolshevism is the doctrine of people who are lowest on the scale of civilization.’3
The meeting at the Brenner Pass might have pleased the Duce but it still left Hitler groping for a course of action. He needed Franco to come into the fold and stop his prevarication. Then he could group the continental powers against the sea power of Britain, which was a policy that Napoleon had failed with. Still unsure, he retreated to the Berghof. Four days later he was back in Berlin and met with Raeder, Keitel, and Jodl. Raeder did most of the talking. The Fuhrer seemed preoccupied. He asked just one question about the feasibility of sending troops to the Canary, Azores, or Cape Verde Islands. He asked Raeder and the Navy to study the problem. After this he flew back to his mountain retreat.
In Spain, Britain, through the efforts of Sir Samuel Hoare, had managed to gain the confidence of Colonel Beigbeder, the Spanish Foreign Minister, who felt Britain was far from beaten. The two men became friends. Yet Hoare felt that his friend had become over confident when he, the British ambassador, was being closely watched by the Germans. Beigbeder went out of his way to demonstrate his friendship with ‘Don Samuel’ which Hoare had warned him about, saying: ‘But no words of caution would deter him from showing to the world his contempt for all Germans and Germanophiles.’4
Yet, in the Civil War, Juan Beigbeder had helped Franco with vital Nazi contacts at the start. He was one of the main proponents of expanding Spain’s dominion in Morocco and north-west Africa, which was a policy close to Franco’s heart. It was also Spain’s main colonial experience at that time. It reflected the close association Spain had with the Muslim world through centuries of history. Beigbeder told Hoare ‘we Spaniards are all Moors’. Hoare thought that his ‘dark, thin Quixotic figure was more in keeping with the Riff and the desert’, rather than a room at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.5
In June, with France tottering towards defeat, Beigbeder had encouraged Franco to act in Tangier. Spain had sent troops into the Tangier neutral zone on 14 June and had 26,000 troops in Spanish North Africa which had annoyed Hitler. However, Vichy France retained control of its protectorate while Germany became the arbiter of the situation. It was Beigbeder who sent a letter to Hitler and Mussolini outlining Franco’s general requirements of entering the war. They would seize Gibraltar, take all of Morocco, parts of Algeria, and extend the territory of the Spanish Sahara. In return, Spain would enter the war on Germany’s side provided Germany granted military and economic assistance.6
On 18 October, as Hoare had predicted, the friendly Beigbeder was replaced as foreign minister by the pro-German and Falangist Interior-Minister Serrano Suñer, who took on both jobs himself. It had been forced on the Caudillo by Himmler, who felt Beigbeder was too close to Hoare. Franco deeply resented this interference but complied and sacked his friend. He was also becoming infuriated by the activities of the SD in Spain. SD agents had flooded into the country and had set up their own station in the Spanish Post Office to check on the correspondence of the Allied Embassies not using the diplomatic bag, going so far as to frank the stamps with the Swastika. This was pointed out virtually daily by the Allies. There were some heated arguments when Franco learnt that even some of his own letters had been franked by the SD.
After a bungled attempt, by the burgeoning SD, to blow up the plane of the pro-Allied General Jose Enrique Varela by a ‘clumsily staged air crash’, relations between the Spanish and the SD went from bad to worse.7
Schellenberg despaired of the SD in Spain, who seemed to him to be more intent on having a good time with long ‘drinking bouts’ rather than working. He found out that the owner of a restaurant in Madrid was ‘the treasurer of our currency fund.’ The local police were paid off and joined in the drinking sessions, while some of the officers were ‘counter-agents, who reported everything that happened to other intelligence services.’ The code used by their main transmitter had been lost. The whole set up was a shambles and the information they supplied was ‘complete nonsense’. However Schellenberg felt that ‘It was a frightening thought that information based on such work had actually been passed to the top leaders.’8
At last, reluctantly, Hitler came to the conclusion that he would have to meet with Franco to make military progress. On 20 October he set out in his own personal train to meet with Petain, Franco and Mussolini. He met Petain in central France first, and then moved onto Hendaye on the Spanish Border to meet Franco on the 23rd. Hitler brought a large group with him, including Ribbentrop, Keitel, von Brauchitsch and Stohrer who came from Madrid. He had Paul Schmidt who was an excellent interpreter, along with an infantry band which struck up suitable stirring music when the trains arrived.9 Yet the German Spanish expert was not there. Canaris, who had a close relationship with the Caudillo, and who knew the affairs of the Peninsula so well, was not present. Colonel Erwin von Lahousen of the Abwehr told Ian Colvin that: ‘Ribbentrop did not trust his influence and did not want him to be there.’10
It likely suited Canaris not to attend for he would then have had to pay lip-service to the Fuhrer’s views. He had already advised the Spanish General Martinez Campos, the Spanish Chief of the General Staff, ‘that Spain should remain neutral and defend her neutrality.’11 While in Rome, Serrano Suñer had met with Josef Muller who told him to advise the Caudillo that Spain should avoid war at all costs, on the advice of Canaris, who felt that Germany had ‘little hope of winning the war.’ He promised that Hitler would not invade Spain. Clearly, Serrano Suñer held a different view, but he would have delivered the message to Franco for it could just as easily have reached Madrid through other avenues. Canaris was careful not to put anything down on paper or in a cipher.12
There are conflicting reports about who arrived first at Hendaye. The German diplomat Hans Stille, who was Stohrer’s representative, says Franco’s train was on time. Hitler was on edge and ready to overwhelm the diminutive Franco like a cat playing with a mouse, ready to intimidate him with his non-stop language as he had done to so many others. However he was to get more than he bargained for with the unflappable, dignified and affable approach of Franco. For the Caudillo was no political fanatic like the Fuhrer or the Duce. His main concern was Spain.
They started by both expressing their delight at the meeting. Franco expressed Spain’s thanks for the help Germany had given during the Civil War, and that the two countries were welded together spiritually. He then went on to explain the difficulties that Spain faced which ‘were well known to the Fuhrer’. He mentioned his concerns about feeding his people and that Great Britain controlled their essential supplies from the United States and Argentina which would soon be ‘intensified by the bad harvests’.13
Then Hitler spoke going over what had happened in the war and in particular the hopelessness of the British position. It dragged on for three hours. Paul Schmidt the interpreter described the talks as a ‘fiasco’. Even Hitler’s trump card of Germany delivering Gibraltar to Spain produced no effect on Franco: ‘I really could not tell from his face whether he found the idea a complete surprise or whether he was just considering his reply.’14
After lunch in Hitler’s restaurant car Franco disappeared for an hour. Hitler was left fuming when Franco explained on his return that he had just had his hour’s siesta. The meeting resumed and went on into the evening. Franco talked a lot, explaining the history of Spain in Morocco, about his own personal military experiences, all of which ‘bored Hitler to tears’.15 He would relate this to Mussolini: ‘rather than go through that again’ he would prefer ‘to have three or four teeth taken out’.16
Again Franco returned to Spain’s needs, but Hitler this time refused to discuss that and dismissed it. The Canary Islands were not mentioned during the meeting. Franco thought afterwards that Britain would fight on even from Canada, and he felt that the seizure of the Suez Canal was vital. However Hitler felt Gibraltar was vastly more significant. Finally the talk ended and they took dinner again in Hitler’s restaurant car – soup, fish and fruit salad was on the menu. There was a brief conversation afterwards, and they departed amicably enough but with no real resolution.17
The two foreign ministers had met separately and Ribbentrop produced a secret protocol for Serrano Suñer to sign, which pledged for Spain to enter the war, whereas Germany would promise unspecified assistance. Ribbentrop wanted it signed right away but Serrano Suñer insisted he show it to Franco first. The Spanish then produced a supplementary protocol dealing more closely with economic matters and the ‘French Zone of Morocco which is later to belong to Spain’.18 The next morning Serrano showed it to Ribbentrop who was furious. Hitler could not endorse it having already left, Ribbentrop is said to have slammed the door muttering ‘Jesuit swine’.19 It was not until the 4 November that the final draft of the protocol was completed after Italian interests were added. For Germany it was far from ideal and only spoke about Spain entering the war when ready: ‘at a time to be set by common agreement of the three powers.’20
Hitler had gone to Montoire to see Henri Petain again. The old marshal of France ‘was one of the few men who ever impressed Hitler.’ Despite this, he told Petain that France was in a difficult position, and once the war was over ‘France or England would have to bear the territorial and material cost of the conflict.’21 However when Petain in principle expressed himself willing to collaborate with the Axis, Hitler softened his approach and agreed that France might recover compensation from Britain. The wily old Marshal, though, was not taken in by Hitler for a moment, later confiding to a friend: ‘It will take six months to discuss this programme and another six months to forget it.’22
The same day, Ribbentrop telephoned Count Ciano from a small railway station in France. Ciano later wrote:
He [Ribbentrop] reports on a conference with Franco and Petain and is, on the whole, satisfied with the results achieved. He says the program of collaboration is heading toward concrete results. I do not conceal my doubt and suspicion. Nevertheless, it is essential that the inclusion of France in the Axis shall not be to our detriment. Von Ribbentrop also discusses an impending trip by Hitler to a city in northern Italy, to confer with the Duce.23
The meeting with Mussolini took place in Florence on the 28th but it was overshadowed by the Duce’s action on the same day. Expressly against Hitler’s wishes, the Italians attacked Greece. It was to prove a turning point in the war and would disrupt the Fuhrer’s plans for the Mediterranean and Africa. With Mussolini however, he behaved with ‘remarkable restraint’, and assured him he would give Italy his full support. It would prove to be a costly mistake.24
Hitler signed Directive No 18 on 12 November. It allowed for the possibility of France to come into the war on the Axis side. German troops would be committed to Africa to support the Italian offensive against Egypt and Greece. Preparations against Russia would continue. Sealion would maintain a state of ‘readiness’. However the bulk concerned Spain and Gibraltar. It alluded to the political steps needed for Spain’s entry into the war, and the Operation code-named Felix would drive the British out of the western Mediterranean through the capture of Gibraltar. The assault on the Rock would fall into four phases: Firstly, reconnaissance of the area for final assault plans where the specialist troops would assemble on the Franco-Spanish border. Secondly, a surprise aerial assault would be launched on the British fleet while German troops crossed the border. Aircraft would fly initially from French bases but would then use Spanish facilities. Then, thirdly, the main assault would follow. Finally, phase four, three divisions would move into Spain to counter any possible British landing. German troops would occupy the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands by air, while small German forces would land in the Canaries to assist the Spanish defence.25
The British had little knowledge of the Hendaye meeting although Beigbeder had warned Hoare, a few days before his fall, what was about to take place. After Spain sent troops into the Tangiers International Zone in June, Churchill ordered the Admiralty to prepare for plans to secure the Canary Islands if Spain came into the war. He told Halifax that operations were to be considered against Spain’s Atlantic Islands even if the Germans did not move into the Peninsula. The Canaries would be alternative bases to Gibraltar and would also be easier to defend. ‘How much do we care whether the peninsula is overrun or not’ Churchill said.26 Halifax and Hoare saw this view as potentially dangerous. Providing Franco or Hitler did not move against Gibraltar it had some merit. Yet there was a good advantage to be had by airing the invasion threats against the Canaries through the Spanish corridors of power.
One appointment by Serrano Suñer was to prove advantageous to Britain. The pragmatic Demetrio Carceller Segura was made Minister of Commerce and Industries and entered the government in September as a Falangist comrade, a member of the Falange, Fascist party of Spain. However he soon ‘began to show remarkable independence in his views about Anglo-Spanish trade.’ He came from a poor background and by hard work and guile had become one of the richest men in Spain. He was soon reconsidering the economic strength of the British.27
Hoare regularly advised London to put their main effort behind the economic weapon. Spain was in a desperate plight and the country had not recovered from the disruption of the civil war. Alan Hillgarth in 1939 had estimated that a quarter of Spaniards faced starvation.28 The Falange’s interference in agriculture had made matters worse, the people hated using the government food stores which were abused by corrupt officials. Britain was fortunate to have such a powerful card that could be used against Franco’s regime, but it was a card that had to be played with care. Eccles in Madrid, during the autumn of 1940, warned that ‘another bread-less period will see the end of the regime with one sure result, a short period of chaos followed by an Axis occupation.’29
Through the naval blockade and the system of ‘navigation certificates’, Britain in effect controlled a large share of the imports and exports of Spain. Ships were certificated by Britain to pass through the blockade. Hoare was at the centre of the debate. His view was that Britain should increase their economic assistance to Spain whose economy was staggering towards collapse. The critical choice was whether Britain should set conditions or not. Churchill tried to find common ground with the USA. In November Hoare met with Serrano Suñer when he accused the British of ‘starving Spain to death’. Hoare found he was making more headway with Carceller Segura, the practical businessman, but even he admitted that if Spain did not receive wheat soon the government might fall. By now Churchill had begun to appreciate how serious this situation was and appealed directly to President Roosevelt in November:
Our accounts show that the situation in Spain is deteriorating and that the Peninsula is not far from starvation point. An offer by you of food month by month so long as they keep out of the war might be decisive. Small things do not count now, and this is a time for very plain talk to them. The occupation by Germany of both sides of the Straits would be a grievous addition to our naval strain already severe.30
However the American administration, backed by public opinion, was against propping up a Fascist Dictator, and had already rejected a direct approach from Spain for a $100 million loan to buy wheat and petrol from the USA. The Canadian government took much the same view. Britain extended the War Trade Agreement in December for an additional £2 million to the original amount granted in March 1940 of £4 million.
This allowed 200,000 tons of wheat from Argentina to be shipped and Britain released 25,000 tons of cereals from its own supplies. The Americans also agreed to a food programme of aid through the Red Cross but refused to match the British loans. So Britain, through food, was keeping Franco in power.31 Hoare wrote to David Eccles in December to tell him that Carceller Segura was openly saying that he had worked well with him and it was ‘the British who helped smooth out the American trouble.’32 The wrangling over trade would continue and come to include Wolfram (tungsten) of which Spain and Portugal were exporters, but for the moment Britain had gained much ground. Even so, Churchill felt Spain was ‘trembling on the brink’.33
Carceller had told Hoare, in confidence, that he did not want wheat coming from Germany as he preferred working with the British.34 Hitler made a grave mistake insisting on conditions before supplying Spain with food. Given all the economic aid Britain had provided it was Hitler, by not ordering his troops into Spain, that proved the decisive factor in Spain’s neutrality. Britain and Spain were in no position at the time to resist such a move. Why then did the Fuhrer not grasp the moment?
To expedite Directive No 18 Hitler summoned Ciano and Serrano Suñer to his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden on 18 November. However in Madrid the Spanish military were losing their enthusiasm about the war. Jose Enrique Varela the minister of the army, a strong, anti-Falangist recommended the trip to Germany should be postponed, but the danger of angering Hitler proved too risky. Ribbentrop met Ciano in Salzburg and told him that Hitler would talk about the Greek Crisis at the meeting.35
There, Hitler went into his usual lengthy explanation of the war situation. Turning to Spain he stressed the need for the Spanish to take rapid action. Serrano Suñer replied that, not knowing the agenda beforehand, he could only give a personal opinion.36 He explained that the Spanish government was deeply involved with the famine issue and they were forced to seek aid from Britain and the USA, while Franco, he knew, felt the Hendaye protocol was too vague in regard to Spain’s needs not to mention the concern about Morocco. Hitler responded by saying that once Germany had obtained her objectives, Spain would be satisfied in Morocco. Serrano Suñer did not raise any more questions.
On 20 November General Franz Halder issued orders for Felix the assault on Gibraltar. The troops were to be assembled in the Bordeaux-Bayonne-Orthez area. They would pass through Spain on or about 10 January 1941. The axis of advance would be Burgos – Valladolid – Salamanca – Seville to Gibraltar, with two corps of specially selected assault troops to attack the Rock.
The 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf would move to Seville, while 16th Armoured Division and 16th Motorised Infantry Division would move to the Portuguese Frontier. However there was no plan to invade Portugal, and this was just a precaution. 800 aircraft would also be committed to the operation. The plan to invade the Portuguese Atlantic Islands was abandoned.37 Clearly, the Fuhrer and Ribbentrop felt they had agreement on this.
In Spain the Spanish War Council met in December. The mood at the meeting was gloomy and it was felt that the country was in no state to enter the war.
At the last major Felix planning session on 5 December Hitler ordered Admiral Canaris to go to Spain and obtain Franco’s final agreement. The Admiral met the Caudillo two days later. The only other person at that meeting was General Vigon. It is unknown what was discussed but clearly Franco would not agree to cooperate with the German plans.38 Franco did state later that he was worried about British naval strength in regard to the Canaries and the economic state of the country was poor. He gave no alternative timetable to the Germans. When Canaris informed Hitler, he was told to try again. On 10 December he telegraphed Hitler via OKW stating that Franco would not enter the war as long as Britain could inflict great damage on Spain.
With the attack on Russia looming larger, Hitler, exasperated with the Spanish, ordered Felix to be postponed.39 During another meeting on 8–9 January at the Berghof, he stated that he was still attracted by the Gibraltar operation but saw no hope in taking it forward. Spain was too poor, too desolate, and too wide for effective troop movements without the permission of the incumbent regime, Hitler outlined. Having to support the Italians in Greece and Libya meant that there was no question of forcing Spain into the war, although he would still try and persuade Franco.40
At his next meeting with Mussolini, Hitler asked the Duce to meet with Franco and try to persuade him to join them. Franco and Mussolini met at Bordighera on the Italian Riviera on 12 February. Franco had refused to fly ever since two of his generals had died in an unexplained plane crash during the Civil War, so he travelled through France by car. Italy was hardly a shining example to Franco of the potential fate of entering the war. The Italian armies were defeated in Greece and Africa, and the Royal Navy had crippled the Italian fleet at Taranto. Yet Mussolini did the best he could to restate the good German position, although he agreed that Franco must decide when Spain would be ready to enter the war. Franco gave Mussolini the same assurances he had given Hitler, including his belief that the Axis would be victorious.
On 22 February Ribbentrop telegraphed Stohrer in Madrid, advising him not to take any further action ‘in the question of Spanish entry into the war.’41