Spain: the Failed Front of the Second World War

The little-known aspects of a problem long discussed in historiography are highlighted: why Spain did not enter the Second World War. On the eve of his suicide, Hitler called his two fatal mistakes: the attack on the USSR, as well as the fact that he failed to draw Spain into the world conflict in 1940, capture Gibraltar and thereby break England, avoiding a war on two fronts. An important role in Franco's decision to remain neutral in the war was played by the chief of German military intelligence, V. Kanaris, who was part of the so-called "resistance group" to Hitler. He managed to convince the Spanish dictator, whom he had known for a long time, of the inevitability of Germany's defeat in World War II. He also gave Caudillo top-secret information about Hitler's impending attack on the Soviet Union: this meant that Germany would not be able to allocate troops either to attack Spain, in case it refused to participate in the war, or to defend it if Hitler's opponents invaded the Pyrenees. Even during the only personal meeting between Hitler and Franco in October 1940, the Fuhrer failed to force Caudillo to change his position. Hitler nevertheless found out about the betrayal of Canaris, for which the latter paid with his life in April 1945.