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On October 23, 1940, Francisco Franco, at the time His Excellency the Caudillo, and Adolf Hitler, the Führer and Chancellor of the Third Reich, met in Hendaye. The meeting, arranged months in advance, was intended to determine Spain’s entry into World War II and the conditions of such participation in the event of an Axis victory. Much has been written about what happened in that meeting, though the facts have rarely been thoroughly analyzed.
The best testimony of the encounter between Hitler and Franco
The best testimony History has left about Hitler’s and Franco’s meeting in Hendaye was provided by the transcript made by the Baron de las Torres, Luís Álvarez de Estrada y Luque, the Spanish translator present at the meeting. This is where we get the most important data from this historic event.
But before the trip to Hendaye, where Hitler waited for Franco at three in the afternoon, there had been contacts between Spain and Germany. On September 17, Hitler sent a letter to Franco in which he took Spain’s entry into World War II for granted.
The first conditions for the entry of Spain into World War II
That same month, before being appointed Foreign Minister, Serrano Suñer met with Ribbentrop and Hitler in Berlin. In that interview, the Spanish delegate laid out conditions for entering the conflict:
- the return of Gibraltar,
- the annexation of Morocco and,
- food, specifically: wheat.
But Spain was still a neutral country, as it had declared on June 12, 1940.
The Interview between Hitler and Franco…
With an hour’s delay, the Spanish delegation arrived at Hendaye station. After introductions, as Hitler and Franco had not met personally before, they convened in the Führer’s lounge car. At a rectangular table sat the two leaders, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, Marshal Keitel, Serrano Suñer, and the two interpreters, with no one else allowed in the room.
After Hitler’s initial pleasantries, recalling Spain’s “deed against communism,” and reviewing the events of the past thirteen months of the war—which the Führer insisted he had not wished for but had been “forced to accept with all its consequences”—he described Germany’s excellent position. He added phrases that showed the superiority with which he intended to handle the meeting: “I am the master of Europe and since I have two hundred divisions at my disposal, there is nothing more to do but obey.”
Furthermore, Hitler claimed that the fall of Britain was imminent, and this was where Spain could play an important role. The Führer believed that circumstances presented Spain with an opportunity that might never come again regarding its interests in Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, and Morocco.
The Gibraltar affair
Regarding Gibraltar, Hitler referred to it as “a piece of soil that is still in enemy hands” and “the most important point for navigation in the Mediterranean.” The Führer’s idea was to close the Strait by controlling both Gibraltar and Ceuta. With regard to Morocco, Hitler took an interesting historical walk through the past to point to Spain as the country that should have all of French Morocco and Oran, territories he promised to Spain. Finally, he noted the Canary Islands were also strategically located for submarine warfare.
Franco takes the floor
After Hitler’s presentation, Franco took the floor and answered the points one by one. He acknowledged that Gibraltar was a “piece of Spanish land,” but emphasized—a point he would repeat—that after the recent Spanish Civil War, entering World War II would be a “sacrifice,” since “the wounds of every kind that it has suffered” were not yet closed.
Furthermore, the compensation for entering the conflict would be very small, even with Gibraltar’s return. Franco also repeatedly tried to convince Hitler that closing the Suez Canal would be more strategically valuable than Gibraltar to cut off passage through the Mediterranean. It’s possible that not having many arguments to refute the Führer, Franco introduced a new idea that began to clarify his position: “To offer things, it is necessary to have them in hand, and so far, the Axis does not.”
Regarding the Canary Islands, Franco acknowledged they were not adequately protected: “the weapons there are insufficient.” At this point, Franco replied that he did not think they could be targeted by the allies. That’s when Hitler put on the table the offer that he would repeat throughout the meeting to counteract Francisco Franco’s elusive attitude: that Spain would have more than enough weapons and trained military to protect them…
The Tension between Hitler and Franco begins
As we have seen, the conversation between the two leaders was developing with prevailing disagreement. Given that the meeting lasted nine hours, we can deduce what happened after these initial interventions. Before a break occurred, Hitler would insist on making Franco see the “great opportunity” that entering the war would entail for Spain. After a break, at the edge of ten at night, Hitler introduced a new element. The Führer commented on the need to know Spain’s position, as the next day he was to meet with Marshal Pétain and Mr. Laval in Montoire, and he needed to know Spain’s attitude “to act accordingly with respect to France.”
Franco’s response did not please the Führer at all, as the translator writes, perhaps because it was a great truth. The tense conversation continued, with Hitler asking Franco to clarify whether or not he would enter the war and Franco finding no reason to give a conditioned response. Moreover, he offered the previous arguments again: “Spain comes out of a bloody war that has caused a million deaths”; that its state is calamitous due to the lack of food and weapons…”
Within the tense routine, Franco introduced a risky thesis. He said that, in reality, Spain was already helping the Third Reich with its declared neutral position. Seeing that both positions remained irreconcilable, the Führer proposed a commitment by Spain to sign on to the war along the Axis when Germany considered it appropriate. Franco, faced with this proposal, once again argued that the war would not bring benefits to Spain. Hitler lost his patience at that point, when the clock showed twelve o’clock at night. As the Baron de las Torres transcribes: “showing his arrogance or his bad manners, he gets up from the table and, completely military and sour, says goodbye to those present.” Shortly before, the führer had addressed Ribbentrop saying: “I have had enough; since there is nothing to do, we will come to an understanding in Montoire“…
The Baron of the Towers concludes his exhaustive transcription by saying: “the attitude of the leader has not been more virile or more patriotic or more realistic, since he has stood firm before the claims of the führer and has overlooked, with the greatest dignity, the bad manners… of the führer-chancellor.”
The anecdote of the molars
“I would rather have my teeth pulled out than meet again with Franco”
This phrase attributed to Hitler comes from the transcript that Count Ciano made of the meeting between the Führer and Benito Mussolini on October 28, five days later. From this conversation, the opinion that Hitler had of Spain is also known, which he considered “immersed in a great disorder.” And he also knew what he thought of Franco, who he said was “a brave heart, but a man who has only become a boss by a fluke. He doesn’t have the stature of a politician or an organizer.”
In the extensive memoirs that Churchill wrote, there are also references to the controversial talk. Referring to the Führer’s words, Hitler had prepared the invasion of Gibraltar for January 10, 1941. Hitler thought Franco made “the biggest mistake of his life.” The final reproach would come after these words: “I am, therefore, very saddened by this decision of Franco, so little in accordance with the help that we and you, Duce, lent him when he was in difficulties.”
The month of December was the most convulsive. On the 9th, Churchill met with the Duke of Alba. Britain was committed to maintaining regular trade with Spain. For the English, the Spanish attitude was fundamental. Commercially, iron for British munitions was extracted from the Vizcaya mines. In addition, it was essential that Spanish ports were not a refueling site for Italian and German submarines. As Churchill would recognize, for two years, Britain maintained an expedition of five thousand men willing to invade the Canary Islands in case Gibraltar was invaded.
Read this story in Spanish: Hitler y Franco reunión en Hendaya, la Historia Completa
It’s a chilling thought that the man meticulously planning the fate of Europe during this meeting was the same individual who, years earlier, had been a struggling artist twice rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. The story of Hitler’s failed art career offers a glimpse into the frustrations that may have shaped his path to power.
The world has long been fascinated with understanding the private thoughts of the Führer, a morbid curiosity that even led to one of history’s greatest literary hoaxes: the publication of Hitler’s supposed secret diaries.
