Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain

by David A. Messenger

In the waning days and immediate aftermath of World War II, Nazi diplomats and spies based in Spain decided to stay rather than return to a defeated Germany. The decidedly pro-German dictatorship of General Francisco Franco gave them refuge and welcomed other officials and agents from the Third Reich who had escaped and made their way to Iberia. Amid fears of a revival of the Third Reich, Allied intelligence and diplomatic officers developed a repatriation program across Europe to return these individuals to Germany, where occupation authorities could further investigate them. Yet due to Spain's longstanding ideological alliance with Hitler, German infiltration of the Spanish economy and society was extensive, and the Allies could count on minimal Spanish cooperation in this effort.
In Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain, David Messenger deftly traces the development and execution of the Allied repatriation scheme, providing an analysis of Allied, Spanish, and German expatriate responses. Messenger shows that by April 1946, British and American embassy staff in Madrid had compiled a census of the roughly 10,000 Germans then residing in Spain and had drawn up three lists of 1,677 men and women targeted for repatriation to occupied Germany. While the Spanish government did round up and turn over some Germans to the Allies, many of them were intentionally overlooked in the process. By mid-1947, Franco's regime had forced only 265 people to leave Spain; most Germans managed to evade repatriation by moving from Spain to Argentina or by solidifying their ties to the Franco regime and Span-ish life. By 1948, the program was effectively over.
Drawing on records in American, British, and Spanish archives, this first book-length study in English of the repatriation program tells the story of this dramatic chapter in the history of post--World War II Europe.

Genres: Spain

232 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 2014

Reviews

[Tuck]

the usa and uk's attempts to de-nazi iberian peninsula (didn't work too well, spain's intransigence and german firm grip of catholic falange and big business resulted in about 300 nazis getting repatriated and de-nazied, out of about 1600 usa/uk wanted to repatriate and try, or at least question)
by 1946 allies were WAY more worried about ussr and heck, kinda liked those ole nasty nazis and falangeists, compared to the monsters who were red, so denazi and repatriations ceased a sputtering death by 1947.
usa/uk were very worried the 'obnoxious germans", and all the networks and money the had in spain would further pollute the fragile dictatorship that was spain, and they absolutely did not want any more fighting, even for a good cause, plus the reds, the reds right? they were going to take over the world (and fat cat's money)
so the nazis got a pass. still do really.
no pics, no maps, good endnote, good index. bibliography pretty good, but mostly archival, not books.
a very focused look, one would like to see author do a broader more pop book, eventually.

[Kges1901]

Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain is an interesting book about Allied efforts to remove Nazis "obnoxious Germans" from Spain. After World War II, many Nazis were in neutral countries. One of the largest groups of Germans was in Spain, where the far right Falangist Franco government was sympathetic to them. The Spanish government obstructed Allied efforts to repatriate these Germans to camps in Germany by claiming that many of the Germans on the repatriation lists were Spanish in identity, among other ways. As a result of Spanish obstructionism and declining enthusiasm for repatriation among Britain and America, many Nazis were not repatriated, and many who were returned to their families in Spain. When the first legal neo-Nazi organisation in Europe (CEDADE) was formed, it was composed mainly of these 'obnoxious Germans'. Messenger concludes that, even though the program was not a successful as it could have been, it still decreased Nazi influence on the Franco government. Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain is a detailed and informative study of a little-known result of World War II.

[Matthew Pritchard]

I read this book as research for my latest novel, so the fairly dry, academic prose-style didn't bother me, but be aware this is not populist history. Even so, the subject is a fascinating one. Had the period covered by the book extended beyond the late 1940s, I would have given it five stars.

[Iñaki Tofiño]

Apart from a couple of interesting data, the book is boring as hell. A very simple historical fact, the attempt of British and American to get Franco's Spain to deport Nazi Germans living in Spain after the end of World War II, is developed in a lengthy and tedious way. The book is useful as a reference, but it is impossible to read.