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Hitler Stopped By Franco
Hitler Stopped By Franco is a documented historical novel, 1940-1943 WWII, describing Hitler's urgent wish to enter Spain, take Gibraltar and close the Mediterranean to British shipping, thereby winning the war in 1940. The book describes how Spain's leader, General Francisco Franco, kept Hitler on the frontier between France and Spain for three years, never allowing his troops to enter. At the same time, with the threat of 20 divisions of the Wehrmacht on his border, Franco actively rescued some 40,000 to 60,000 Jews from the Nazis. The book is a study in "how did he do it?" and proves the adage that wars are won by diplomacy and politics more than by military power.
- GenresHistory
323 pages, Paperback
First published July 17, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 8, 2021
During Spanish Civil War, the Republican government transferred most of the gold in the Spanish treasury to their friends in the Soviet Union. When the war finally ended, Spain was worn out and starving. To make matters worse, she was sandwiched between the Germans in Nazi occupied France and the English at Gibraltar in the south. Hilter wanted the rock of Gibraltar for its strategic importance, but he needed Spain's cooperation. The last thing Franco wanted was to drag Spain through another war, but Hitler expected Spain to return the favour of Germany's assistance in the Spanish Civil War. Had Franco succumbed to Hitler's demands, Spain would have become an outright enemy of the English, risking blockades and military action against an already starving population. On the other hand, failure to work with Hitler would have resulted in a Nazi invasion of Spain from the north. Hitler assured Franco that the Allies would lose the war and the future was with Germany. He insisted that Germany would take care of all of Spain's needs. Just about everyone assumed that Spain would join the war alongside the Axis Powers, but then a funny thing happened: Franco stopped Hitler.
That's not hyperbole. Hitler could have won the war had Franco allowed Nazi troops to March through Spain and take Gibraltar at the south, giving them control of both the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa. So how did Franco stop them? And why? You'll find out in this book.
This book is written in the form of a novel but is well reference and jam packed with historical information. I can understand why the authors chose this format, as a typical historical text would be less accessible to the average reader. Moreover, the authors, although American, were friends with Franco's surviving family members, who gave interviews for this book.
In addition to learning how and why Franco stopped Hitler, you'll also get window into Franco's only meeting with Hitler, and what prompted Hitler to once tell Mussolini that he would rather have "four of his teeth pulled" than to have to meet with Franco again. You'll learn how Wilhelm Canaris, the chief of the German military intelligence service, betrayed his own government and acted as a spy for Franco against the Nazis (a crime for which he was eventually executed). Finally, you'll learn how Franco opened the Spanish border to tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from Nazi occupied France and elsewhere.
It is unfortunate that people know so little about this true history. People think of Franco as a quasi-fascist dictator who was somehow sympathetic to Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The truth is he was an anti-communist crusader who did anything necessary to keep Spain out of the Second World War, even if it meant "buying peace with words" by paying lip service to the Nazis.
Franco's greatest fault may have been his ineptitude at publicity, which was something his communist enemies excelled at both then and now. But if we are to judge Franco's interaction with Hitler by his deeds, the fact remains that he disrupted Hitler's plans for Gibraltar, thereby giving the Allies an advantage in the war effort where none had been before. And he did this despite Hitler's constant threats, intimidation, and deception.
That's not hyperbole. Hitler could have won the war had Franco allowed Nazi troops to March through Spain and take Gibraltar at the south, giving them control of both the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa. So how did Franco stop them? And why? You'll find out in this book.
This book is written in the form of a novel but is well reference and jam packed with historical information. I can understand why the authors chose this format, as a typical historical text would be less accessible to the average reader. Moreover, the authors, although American, were friends with Franco's surviving family members, who gave interviews for this book.
In addition to learning how and why Franco stopped Hitler, you'll also get window into Franco's only meeting with Hitler, and what prompted Hitler to once tell Mussolini that he would rather have "four of his teeth pulled" than to have to meet with Franco again. You'll learn how Wilhelm Canaris, the chief of the German military intelligence service, betrayed his own government and acted as a spy for Franco against the Nazis (a crime for which he was eventually executed). Finally, you'll learn how Franco opened the Spanish border to tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from Nazi occupied France and elsewhere.
It is unfortunate that people know so little about this true history. People think of Franco as a quasi-fascist dictator who was somehow sympathetic to Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The truth is he was an anti-communist crusader who did anything necessary to keep Spain out of the Second World War, even if it meant "buying peace with words" by paying lip service to the Nazis.
Franco's greatest fault may have been his ineptitude at publicity, which was something his communist enemies excelled at both then and now. But if we are to judge Franco's interaction with Hitler by his deeds, the fact remains that he disrupted Hitler's plans for Gibraltar, thereby giving the Allies an advantage in the war effort where none had been before. And he did this despite Hitler's constant threats, intimidation, and deception.
March 5, 2013
Nothing Less Than Superb
Burt Boyar and his late wife had extraordinary access to intimate details of an obscure piece of World War II history. Most Americans' view of Generalísimo Franco is of an implacable Fascist dictator who ran Spain with an iron hand for nearly forty years. That may be true enough, but "Hitler Stopped by Franco" shows us that he had another facet. Imagine being the supreme leader of civil war torn, impoverished and helpless Spain with divisions of Wehrmacht amour parked on your border and Hitler continually whining, cajoling and demanding access to Gibraltar through your sovereign territory. With Spain totally defenseless, Franco had to play the ultimate cat and mouse game. He had to convince Hitler of his friendship, and that he would join the Axis 'any day now' while he kept relief coming from the Allies with assurances of maintaining strict neutrality. For three years he managed to walk this tightrope.
The Boyars were able to interview actual players in this tableau who were present at high-stakes meetings with the world's most dangerous men. The depth of the research behind this story is uncanny. Written in the form of historical fiction, this fascinating history reads like a suspense novel. The characterization of Franco will give the reader a new perspective of the man who saved Spain twice. I cannot give this book enough praise.
Burt Boyar and his late wife had extraordinary access to intimate details of an obscure piece of World War II history. Most Americans' view of Generalísimo Franco is of an implacable Fascist dictator who ran Spain with an iron hand for nearly forty years. That may be true enough, but "Hitler Stopped by Franco" shows us that he had another facet. Imagine being the supreme leader of civil war torn, impoverished and helpless Spain with divisions of Wehrmacht amour parked on your border and Hitler continually whining, cajoling and demanding access to Gibraltar through your sovereign territory. With Spain totally defenseless, Franco had to play the ultimate cat and mouse game. He had to convince Hitler of his friendship, and that he would join the Axis 'any day now' while he kept relief coming from the Allies with assurances of maintaining strict neutrality. For three years he managed to walk this tightrope.
The Boyars were able to interview actual players in this tableau who were present at high-stakes meetings with the world's most dangerous men. The depth of the research behind this story is uncanny. Written in the form of historical fiction, this fascinating history reads like a suspense novel. The characterization of Franco will give the reader a new perspective of the man who saved Spain twice. I cannot give this book enough praise.
November 28, 2025
I decided to engage in some dialectics and read a book whose thesis I strongly disagree with. This title attracted me because it was a creative hybrid of fact and fiction and it made me think of a book I read long ago by Steven Condon about a trial of General John Pope in the US Civil War. I always appreciate these innovative ideas.
It also made me think of the film Denial about the court case between Deborah Lipstadt and David Irving, where the judge concluded that David Irving incorporated the Leuchter Report into his books even though he knew it was fraudulent, simply because he *wanted it to be true.*
I felt like that a lot as I read through this. I would sorely like to accept the thesis that Franco was a diplomatic mastermind who played off Hitler against the Allies and fooled both. That would have been much more creditable to him and to Spain. And, well, there are a lot of interesting points in this book that can make one think.
To start off, much of the book revolves around Operation Felix and Germany's desire to seize Gibraltar, preferably in unison with Spain. Franco, of course, never permitted this. But it is, in my opinion, a much overrated strategy.
Frequent mention is made of how seizing Gibraltar would have closed the Mediterranean to the British and severed the route to India. This is simply not true. The British in both world wars routed as much as they could via the Cape, and in WWII as they did not have the large commitments in the Mediterranean as they had in WWI (the Salonica Front, the Palestine Front, allies in Greece and Italy that depended on imports, etc), this meant that they could reroute all commercial shipping excepting the occasional heavily defended Malta Convoy.
The loss of Gibraltar would have been inconvenient for Britain, but not lethal. Unless the British were unable to defend convoys west of Iberia due to lack of base, for which Churchill had planned the contingency of Operation Pilgrim to seize the Canaries. This operation is mentioned in the text, though not by name.
The authors seem to at times recognize this, because they quote Franco as insisting on the seizure of Suez prior to Gibraltar. But if the British could not reach Egypt save through the Mediterranean, then Gibraltar's fall would necessarily entail the loss of Egypt. Why would Franco insist on a reverse order? Of course, because the British could and were reaching Egypt via the Red Sea.
The authors have much to commend them for facts and for solid analysis. They quote Franco to the effect that Spain was doing Germany a favor by remaining neutral, as Spain would have been a great burden to the Germans. Long ago I had drawn an analogy here with Italy, which was a colossal economic and strategic liability to Germany, on balance. Spain would have been merely a weaker Italy. That is, her forces could not have stood up to serious British or American pressure without substantial German assistance, and her economy was non-viable without constant German infusions. Already Germany could not even supply Italy with oil, how could she supply Italy and Spain, the latter of whom was equally deficient in oil and equally dependent upon Germany?
The authors provide another insight when they quote Hitler to the effect that Germany could not invade Spain because the Germans could not, unlike in France, feed themselves and could not bring enough food from Germany to feed their troops. This made me think of Martin van Creveld's work on logistics that argued Germany relied heavily on requisitions in occupied France, without which she might well have failed. The Boyars establish that there could have been no similar requisitions in Spain.
There are many, many, thoughts I had while reading this book. The Boyars claim that Hitler wanted to hit Gibraltar with Stukas, but that since this type of aircraft had failed in the Battle of Britain that Hitler was bluffing. The RAF, so they claim, could have shot them down.
But this is patently unconvincing. The RAF operating from where? The runway at Gibraltar was small and crowed. The Boyars themselves even write about Operation Torch that the Spanish could have destroyed all the aircraft on the runway with heavy artillery, had they so chosen. Rather it would have resembled Dien Bien Phu, where the RAF would have been unable operate in any safety from Gibraltar, and would have found it difficult to fly aircraft from any other bases then under British control.
Stukas would have had free rein over Gibraltar because the RAF could not have provided any fighter cover unless they did it with carriers, which would be most inconvenient and dangerous.
We could quibble in other ways too. Such as that no Americans were at Dieppe, which the authors characterize as an Anglo-American operation. There were Canadians, but no Americans. The Boyars said that the French Army in Morocco was very formidable, which is true, but then said that it was sympathetic to de Gaulle, which is not true. Weygand remains something of a mystery but he was not Gaullist. He, evidently, remained loyal to Vichy despite Vichy's frequent suspicions.
One wonders how much the Rock actually controls the Strait. Garratt in a fascinating interwar study suggested that guns on the Rock could not prevent passage of enemy ships. He seems to have been vindicated by actual wartime experience in such instances as e.g. Operation Cereberus, or the French fleet's escape into the Atlantic that led to the dismissal of Admiral Sir Dudley Clarke. Or the Austrian fleet's escape through the Otranto Straits in WWI. Even the Japanese slipped through the San Bernardino Strait in close proximity to virtually the entire US Navy.
Some interesting things I learned were about Canaris and his mission to design submarines in Spain in the interwar period, in an effort to circumvent the restrictions imposed by Versailles. Canaris, of course, is a slippery character and hard to pin down. It is generally believed that he did counsel Franco to remain neutral.
The authors do take some artistic license with the facts when they invent such episodes as Serrano Suner's mission to Berlin. This did happen, but the authors have the Spanish foreign minister say if England is beaten why are we taking shelter from her air raids? This was actually said, but not by Serrano Suner. It was said by Molotov in a similar mission a few months later. We also have Operation Figaro, which is fictitious but is clearly based on the famous Operation Mincemeat that preceded the invasion of Sicily. The Allies did have a deception for Torch that suggested Sardinia or Sicily were the targets, a less-sophisticated precursor to Mincemeat called Kennecott. But no Figaro.
Paul Preston is seen as something of the doyen of Franco studies, and he wrote a paper describing Franco as a lackluster unimaginative general. There were no Blitzkriegs in the Spanish Civil War, despite posterity seeing it as a prelude to WWII. It was primarily a contest between infantry, and the lessons were even against the use of independent armored columns (e.g. the heavy Italian defeat at Guadalajara).
Franco's pace of advance was accordingly very cautious and tedious. He failed to take opportunities early on to capture Madrid, and would instead methodically capture ground inch by inch. In this book the Boyars make the case that this was sound strategy and that Franco was acting thus in order to minimize casualties. This is a strange argument. A rapid defeat like that of France in 1940 would have kept casualties to a minimum, that is the aim of rapid decisive offensives. Franco's slow grinding ensured that hundreds of thousands would die, it prolonged the war for three years, and ruined Spain. This is hardly the strategy of a great commander. Franco was no Napoleon.
German contingency plans to invade Spain are elucidated, Ilona and Gisela. These were long ago discovered and described by Charles Burdick which must have been a source for this work but it curiously not mentioned in the bibliography. The Allies had their own contingencies with Pilgrim (the Canaries) and Backbone (Spanish Morocco) to be put into execution in the event Spain joined Germany.
But above all, the consensus among historians seems to be that Franco was in fact desperate to join the war on Germany's side but the reason he did not was less because of his own inclinations and more because of Hitler's. Historians like Norman Goda and Miguel Angel de Arco Blanco have strong established Franco's Axis sympathies and Arco Blanco quotes Serrano Suner, who claimed that primary reason Franco did not join was because Hitler would not give him Morocco.
Goda is the best source here, for he explains how Hitler attempted to deceive both Franco and Petain by promising Franco that Spain would acquire Morocco while promising Petain that France could keep it.
The Boyars hit close to this when they point out that Hitler was unwilling to commit anything to paper, and was insistent on verbal promises. They also hit close to the mark when they put words in the mouth of a bemused Franco who said both the Axis and the Allies promised Spain Morocco when neither of them controlled that territory.
The pro-Franco school would have a tall order of trying to explain why Franco continued to collaborate with Germany long after the sun had set on the Reich. Spain continued to pay her debt to Germany, continued to supply the isolated German ports in France, and continued to ship strategic resources to Germany long after D-Day, insofar as she was able. After Normandy and after Bagration even most German generals were convinced that Germany had lost, and the Boyars occasionally point out the plots that attempted to assassinate Hitler and end the war which underlines the point.
On the other hand, there are many seemingly inexplicable decisions by 'El Caudillo.' Such as allowing Jews to enter Spain freely. He also granted Spanish passports to numerous Jews in Eastern Europe towards the end of the war, when Germany was making a mad rush to kill all of the Jews before she was herself defeated.
There are also documents, conveniently published as appendices in this volume, which show that the German diplomatic corps was thoroughly convinced that Franco was giving them the run-around by his excessive demands. And then there's the curious episode at Bordighera where Mussolini came out in defense of Franco's neutrality instead of convincing him to join the war as Hitler had hoped. Bordighera deserves some more scrutiny in the historical literature.
In fairness to the Boyars, they admit that most of their information comes from interviews and discussions with those close to Franco and his circle, including his immediate family. The Boyars admit that this is likely to be seen as biased. And so it is. For example we are told such things as the old myth that the Spanish Republic was a communist satellite, that Stalin killed thirty million of his own people, and even that Mexico was a Soviet puppet! The same Mexico that granted asylum to Stalin's arch-enemy Leon Trotsky was also a Stalinist stooge, we're to believe.
But while I am not exactly convinced of the interpretation that Franco was a wily fox who outwitted Hitler, this book provided me with a new angle to look at a lot of information, and there is a ton of that which is worth every second of reading.
This was a clever, entertaining, and informative book that I thoroughly enjoyed and, even if you're not a fan of Franco, you'll find a lot of value here. Winston Churchill once called the Soviet Union as 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.' It could equally be applied to Francisco Franco and Spanish wartime neutrality is always a compelling sidelight of the Second World War.
It also made me think of the film Denial about the court case between Deborah Lipstadt and David Irving, where the judge concluded that David Irving incorporated the Leuchter Report into his books even though he knew it was fraudulent, simply because he *wanted it to be true.*
I felt like that a lot as I read through this. I would sorely like to accept the thesis that Franco was a diplomatic mastermind who played off Hitler against the Allies and fooled both. That would have been much more creditable to him and to Spain. And, well, there are a lot of interesting points in this book that can make one think.
To start off, much of the book revolves around Operation Felix and Germany's desire to seize Gibraltar, preferably in unison with Spain. Franco, of course, never permitted this. But it is, in my opinion, a much overrated strategy.
Frequent mention is made of how seizing Gibraltar would have closed the Mediterranean to the British and severed the route to India. This is simply not true. The British in both world wars routed as much as they could via the Cape, and in WWII as they did not have the large commitments in the Mediterranean as they had in WWI (the Salonica Front, the Palestine Front, allies in Greece and Italy that depended on imports, etc), this meant that they could reroute all commercial shipping excepting the occasional heavily defended Malta Convoy.
The loss of Gibraltar would have been inconvenient for Britain, but not lethal. Unless the British were unable to defend convoys west of Iberia due to lack of base, for which Churchill had planned the contingency of Operation Pilgrim to seize the Canaries. This operation is mentioned in the text, though not by name.
The authors seem to at times recognize this, because they quote Franco as insisting on the seizure of Suez prior to Gibraltar. But if the British could not reach Egypt save through the Mediterranean, then Gibraltar's fall would necessarily entail the loss of Egypt. Why would Franco insist on a reverse order? Of course, because the British could and were reaching Egypt via the Red Sea.
The authors have much to commend them for facts and for solid analysis. They quote Franco to the effect that Spain was doing Germany a favor by remaining neutral, as Spain would have been a great burden to the Germans. Long ago I had drawn an analogy here with Italy, which was a colossal economic and strategic liability to Germany, on balance. Spain would have been merely a weaker Italy. That is, her forces could not have stood up to serious British or American pressure without substantial German assistance, and her economy was non-viable without constant German infusions. Already Germany could not even supply Italy with oil, how could she supply Italy and Spain, the latter of whom was equally deficient in oil and equally dependent upon Germany?
The authors provide another insight when they quote Hitler to the effect that Germany could not invade Spain because the Germans could not, unlike in France, feed themselves and could not bring enough food from Germany to feed their troops. This made me think of Martin van Creveld's work on logistics that argued Germany relied heavily on requisitions in occupied France, without which she might well have failed. The Boyars establish that there could have been no similar requisitions in Spain.
There are many, many, thoughts I had while reading this book. The Boyars claim that Hitler wanted to hit Gibraltar with Stukas, but that since this type of aircraft had failed in the Battle of Britain that Hitler was bluffing. The RAF, so they claim, could have shot them down.
But this is patently unconvincing. The RAF operating from where? The runway at Gibraltar was small and crowed. The Boyars themselves even write about Operation Torch that the Spanish could have destroyed all the aircraft on the runway with heavy artillery, had they so chosen. Rather it would have resembled Dien Bien Phu, where the RAF would have been unable operate in any safety from Gibraltar, and would have found it difficult to fly aircraft from any other bases then under British control.
Stukas would have had free rein over Gibraltar because the RAF could not have provided any fighter cover unless they did it with carriers, which would be most inconvenient and dangerous.
We could quibble in other ways too. Such as that no Americans were at Dieppe, which the authors characterize as an Anglo-American operation. There were Canadians, but no Americans. The Boyars said that the French Army in Morocco was very formidable, which is true, but then said that it was sympathetic to de Gaulle, which is not true. Weygand remains something of a mystery but he was not Gaullist. He, evidently, remained loyal to Vichy despite Vichy's frequent suspicions.
One wonders how much the Rock actually controls the Strait. Garratt in a fascinating interwar study suggested that guns on the Rock could not prevent passage of enemy ships. He seems to have been vindicated by actual wartime experience in such instances as e.g. Operation Cereberus, or the French fleet's escape into the Atlantic that led to the dismissal of Admiral Sir Dudley Clarke. Or the Austrian fleet's escape through the Otranto Straits in WWI. Even the Japanese slipped through the San Bernardino Strait in close proximity to virtually the entire US Navy.
Some interesting things I learned were about Canaris and his mission to design submarines in Spain in the interwar period, in an effort to circumvent the restrictions imposed by Versailles. Canaris, of course, is a slippery character and hard to pin down. It is generally believed that he did counsel Franco to remain neutral.
The authors do take some artistic license with the facts when they invent such episodes as Serrano Suner's mission to Berlin. This did happen, but the authors have the Spanish foreign minister say if England is beaten why are we taking shelter from her air raids? This was actually said, but not by Serrano Suner. It was said by Molotov in a similar mission a few months later. We also have Operation Figaro, which is fictitious but is clearly based on the famous Operation Mincemeat that preceded the invasion of Sicily. The Allies did have a deception for Torch that suggested Sardinia or Sicily were the targets, a less-sophisticated precursor to Mincemeat called Kennecott. But no Figaro.
Paul Preston is seen as something of the doyen of Franco studies, and he wrote a paper describing Franco as a lackluster unimaginative general. There were no Blitzkriegs in the Spanish Civil War, despite posterity seeing it as a prelude to WWII. It was primarily a contest between infantry, and the lessons were even against the use of independent armored columns (e.g. the heavy Italian defeat at Guadalajara).
Franco's pace of advance was accordingly very cautious and tedious. He failed to take opportunities early on to capture Madrid, and would instead methodically capture ground inch by inch. In this book the Boyars make the case that this was sound strategy and that Franco was acting thus in order to minimize casualties. This is a strange argument. A rapid defeat like that of France in 1940 would have kept casualties to a minimum, that is the aim of rapid decisive offensives. Franco's slow grinding ensured that hundreds of thousands would die, it prolonged the war for three years, and ruined Spain. This is hardly the strategy of a great commander. Franco was no Napoleon.
German contingency plans to invade Spain are elucidated, Ilona and Gisela. These were long ago discovered and described by Charles Burdick which must have been a source for this work but it curiously not mentioned in the bibliography. The Allies had their own contingencies with Pilgrim (the Canaries) and Backbone (Spanish Morocco) to be put into execution in the event Spain joined Germany.
But above all, the consensus among historians seems to be that Franco was in fact desperate to join the war on Germany's side but the reason he did not was less because of his own inclinations and more because of Hitler's. Historians like Norman Goda and Miguel Angel de Arco Blanco have strong established Franco's Axis sympathies and Arco Blanco quotes Serrano Suner, who claimed that primary reason Franco did not join was because Hitler would not give him Morocco.
Goda is the best source here, for he explains how Hitler attempted to deceive both Franco and Petain by promising Franco that Spain would acquire Morocco while promising Petain that France could keep it.
The Boyars hit close to this when they point out that Hitler was unwilling to commit anything to paper, and was insistent on verbal promises. They also hit close to the mark when they put words in the mouth of a bemused Franco who said both the Axis and the Allies promised Spain Morocco when neither of them controlled that territory.
The pro-Franco school would have a tall order of trying to explain why Franco continued to collaborate with Germany long after the sun had set on the Reich. Spain continued to pay her debt to Germany, continued to supply the isolated German ports in France, and continued to ship strategic resources to Germany long after D-Day, insofar as she was able. After Normandy and after Bagration even most German generals were convinced that Germany had lost, and the Boyars occasionally point out the plots that attempted to assassinate Hitler and end the war which underlines the point.
On the other hand, there are many seemingly inexplicable decisions by 'El Caudillo.' Such as allowing Jews to enter Spain freely. He also granted Spanish passports to numerous Jews in Eastern Europe towards the end of the war, when Germany was making a mad rush to kill all of the Jews before she was herself defeated.
There are also documents, conveniently published as appendices in this volume, which show that the German diplomatic corps was thoroughly convinced that Franco was giving them the run-around by his excessive demands. And then there's the curious episode at Bordighera where Mussolini came out in defense of Franco's neutrality instead of convincing him to join the war as Hitler had hoped. Bordighera deserves some more scrutiny in the historical literature.
In fairness to the Boyars, they admit that most of their information comes from interviews and discussions with those close to Franco and his circle, including his immediate family. The Boyars admit that this is likely to be seen as biased. And so it is. For example we are told such things as the old myth that the Spanish Republic was a communist satellite, that Stalin killed thirty million of his own people, and even that Mexico was a Soviet puppet! The same Mexico that granted asylum to Stalin's arch-enemy Leon Trotsky was also a Stalinist stooge, we're to believe.
But while I am not exactly convinced of the interpretation that Franco was a wily fox who outwitted Hitler, this book provided me with a new angle to look at a lot of information, and there is a ton of that which is worth every second of reading.
This was a clever, entertaining, and informative book that I thoroughly enjoyed and, even if you're not a fan of Franco, you'll find a lot of value here. Winston Churchill once called the Soviet Union as 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.' It could equally be applied to Francisco Franco and Spanish wartime neutrality is always a compelling sidelight of the Second World War.
February 12, 2012
I read this book because I read somewhere that Pinochet took Franco as his model. I know little about the modern history of Spain, but I did know that Franco gave Spanish passports to Shephardic Jews, so they could leave German-occupied countries, and that he had saved thousands this way. I was fascinated to learn in this book the pivotal role that Franco played in the allied invasion of North Africa and the deadly tightrope he walked to keep the Germans out of Spain. This is a very different look at a man who is commonly reviled in the West. It is well written, but strictly business and well documented. If you think of Franco as one of the bad guys of history, this book might make you reconsider.
October 16, 2017
Fascinating
Even for me, a Spanish historian, this was a fascinating read. It opens up so many questions! I highly recommend it for those interested in the Iberian Peninsula.
Even for me, a Spanish historian, this was a fascinating read. It opens up so many questions! I highly recommend it for those interested in the Iberian Peninsula.
April 6, 2008
I adored this book. I absolutely loved how Franco basically did a shuck and jive on Hitler and managed to stay out of WWII! This is a great read for anyone interested in WWII.
June 9, 2013
Although this book was written poorly, I gave it 3 stars because I learned so much. Franco was not the one dimensional villain of my previous believe, nor the saint of this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews