Paul Preston

Not So Neutral

Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II

By

Yale University Press 328pp £19.99 order from our bookshop

The defeat of Hitler in May 1945 was greeted by Spain’s tightly controlled press with extravagant eulogies of Franco, the genius who bestowed the gift of peace upon Spain. According to the Falangist Arriba, the end of the war was ‘Franco’s Victory’. The monarchist ABC carried a front-page picture of the Caudillo ‘chosen by the benevolence of God. When everything was obscure, he saw clearly … and sustained and defended Spain’s neutrality.’ For the next thirty years, Franco’s admirers hailed wartime neutrality as something achieved by dint of skilful and courageous deceit of Hitler. 

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