EVER wondered why Spain remained neutral in the Second World War? After all, Hitler and Mussolini had given Franco ample support during the Spanish Civil War, and might have expected the Caudillo to return the favour by joining with the Axis powers.
But Franco declined to get involved, despite the Nazis’ best efforts to persuade him otherwise – and it’s just as well that he did.
“God knows what would have happened if the Axis powers had taken control of Spain,” the journalist and author Jimmy Burns told an audience at the Instituto Cervantes last month. “It would probably have changed the entire course of World War II.”
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