Spain and Its “Local” Second World War

Spain applied quite considerable efforts to get rid of the status of an ally of Nazi Germany and it should be understood that modern Spanish society quite clearly perceives German Nazism as being guilty of the most tragic and large scale was of the 20th century. The Spanish people even more obviously condemn the crimes of the Third Reich.

Spain’s participation in the Second World War is not all that easy to assess. Officially, Spain was not among the combatants, this often being forgotten when the country is assigned the status of an ally of Germany. Indeed, the Spanish people, under the leadership of Franco, who held definitely fascist (not to say Nazi) views, assisted Germany and its allies with weapons and soldiers, but refused to act openly on the side of the Axis.

At the same time, Franco continued talking to the allies, particularly Britain, since those close to him included quite a few anglophiles, who believed that greater benefit could be derived from an orientation on Britain and its allies.

It must not be forgotten, however, that, when World War II broke out in Europe, Spain had only just emerged from its Civil War (1936–1939), which cost the country over four hundred thousand lives, destroying its economy, military and cultural spheres. Consequently, Spain’s vacillations and its reluctance to enter the War should not be referred exclusively to the ideological preferences of the Spanish leadership but largely to pure pragmatics.

Moreover, we will leave it to the historians to decide whether Spain should be considered part of the Axis; it is much more interesting for us to understand how Spanish people today perceive the Second World War, whom they see as the victors and who as the losers.

Spain applied quite considerable efforts to get rid of the status of an ally of Nazi Germany and it should be understood that modern Spanish society quite clearly perceives German Nazism as being guilty of the most tragic and large scale was of the 20th century. The Spanish people even more obviously condemn the crimes of the Third Reich. Nothing can be heard even from the most Conservative politicians (it should not be forgotten that today’s ruling People’s Party was established at the end of the last century on the ruins of pro-fascist organisations) that would cast doubt on Spain’s official position as a state that condemns Nazism.

It must not be forgotten, however, that, when World War II broke out in Europe, Spain had only just emerged from its Civil War.

REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/Pixstream
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For Spain, the Second World War was a maximum local one.

Yet you will not discover on the pages of the Spanish press or in speeches by Spanish politicians any special attitude towards the 70th Anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. Leafing through the leading publications – El País, El Mundo, ABC – you will not see materials on their front pages about the great victory and definitely not anything about the role of the USSR in this victory. Most likely the only conclusion that can be drawn from the Spanish press is that, for Spain, the Second World War was a maximum local one.

It is not as if the Spaniards are ignorant of the holocaust or the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens. Simply, what is happening in their own country and to their own citizens is many, many times more important.

For instance, there were over seven thousand Spaniards interred in the Mauthausen concentration camp (Austria), mostly Communists (though opinions about their ideological preferences differ among Spanish historians) and neither Franco’s regime nor Moscow, supposedly friendly towards Spanish Communists, did anything to help them. Of these seven thousand, just over two thousand survived, and these survivors and the relatives of those who died are today fighting to make sure this great tragedy is not forgotten by anyone, to make public the guilty parties (including high level officials of Franco’s time) and the multitude of secret documents concerning how the Spaniards actually ended up in Mauthausen and, of course, to ensure that those who actually committed the crimes against the Mauthausen prisoners (there are court cases involving a number of former concentration camp personnel who escaped to the USA) are punished with the full force of the law.

Spanish society has always been full of contradictions and modern Spain’s attitude towards World War II took shape against the background of such critical, far-reaching and often tragic events that it simply cannot be unambiguous. In this sense, it is both possible and, most likely, even necessary to understand the Spanish people with their focus on the national aspects of the World War.