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It was a rich jest of Churchill’s that he dispatched two of the most prominent prewar appeasers to contrasting diplomatic roles abroad. Lord Halifax was sent to Washington to help persuade the Americans to fight, and Sir Samuel Hoare to Madrid to try to induce the Spanish not to. Hoare appears to have been an effective ambassador, a good deal more sensible in handling Franco than his US counterparts.

The Americans adopted a harsh, principled line towards Madrid, rooted in their deep distaste for the fascist regime. Ironically, once Hitler was beaten and the cold war began, Washington turned this policy on its head and embraced Spain as a key ally in the struggle against communism. Thus Franco profited once more from a tide of history sweeping past Spanish coasts.

Only one hero, or at least real statesman, emerged from wartime Spain. In September 1942 the crass, passionately pro-axis foreign minister Ramon Serrano Suner was replaced by a diminutive little general named Francisco Jordana. Jordana both genuinely liked the British, and perceived – as Franco still did not – that the allies were likely to win the war.

From his accession to office until his sudden death in August 1944, Jordana laboured unceasingly to restore Spain to evenhanded neutrality. He battled with his pro-German colleagues and indeed with the Caudillo himself, repeatedly threatening resignation. By the time of Jordana’s death, even the most devoted Spanish supporters of Hitler could see that the Nazi game was up. With much regret, they addressed themselves to coexistence with Europe’s postwar democracies.

Payne, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, obviously knows a great deal about Spain. It is a pity that he writes as if English was not his first language. Any man capable of composing such a sentence as “the second interview with Ribbentrop . . . went more badly yet” should be disqualified from a duty of care to students. But the story that he tells deserves to be more widely known, not least by “useful idiots” of the right who continue to think well of Franco.

A helping hand

Spain’s supposed neutrality in the second world war did not stop it from giving secret aid to Hitler and Mussolini. The Spanish helped build observation posts round Gibraltar for German spies, and allowed German U-boats to be resupplied at their ports and Italian bombers to refuel at their airfields. Spanish agents were also actively involved in Axis operations against the rock. Worse still was the intelligence information collected for Berlin by members of the Spanish embassy in London. When one diplomat refused to do so, he was summarily dismissed and prosecuted for insubordination.

Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany and World War II by Stanley G Payne
Yale UP £19.99 pp328

Available at the Books First price of £17.99 (inc p&p) on 0870 165 8585

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