Exuse me Marie Claude but you should really get your facts right. Jews couldn’t come back with Tarik: their expulsion is in 1492 Tarik was the leader of the Muslim invasion (you know the one who would later be stopped at Poitiers in 732). The Moriscos (that is Muslims, be they from Spanish or Berber stock, who had converted to Christianity in order to be allowed to remain in Spain) were expulsed in 1609.
Also if there were French only 6500 volunteers it ios not becausde there were not enough Nazis in France but not enough French with balls.
About Spain, Spaniards really, really is hate their country paying the price for the dreams of any loser or adventurer or demented in France be it Napoleon, the one hundred thousands sons of Saint Louis, the art thief Malraux or the demented Andre Marti (aka the butcher of Albacete).
So le’s start with the beginning. The Second Spanish Republic was no longer a democarcy and its governemnt had not been democratically elected. Also when you are being murderd on a daily basis, that it is getting worse and that laws are being voted dailay who increase the dictatorial nature of the regime then you are entitled to exert the fourth right enumerated in the second article of the Declaration des Droits de l’Homme. “La liberte, la propriete, la surete et la resistance a l’oppression”
For Franco slaughtering his people. The numbers have been grossly inflated by the same people who said that Finland had invaded Soviet Union in 1940. He cerainly had less peolme killed in teh whole of Spain than the French Revolution in Vendee alone (and I am not speaking about those killed in military operations against the Chouans)
Spaniards who elisted in teh Division Azul were not necessarily Nazi sympathizers. Just people who had a forst hand experience of Anarchist (cf the death crdavans in Catalonia) and communist paradises. When your country has been ruined, that your family is starving because Stalin stole Spain’s gold , that 80% of Spain’s artistic heritage has been destroyed (France would get a lot less tourists if it hadn’t been), atha many of yor raletiavess have been killed in Checas led by NKKVD agents or skinned alive directly by the NKVD (who was given a free pass in the Republican zone) you could be forgiven if you are in vengeful mode. Spanirds have long memories unlike the Frennch who went to fight for Satalin (Normandie-Niemen) that is Former Hitler’s best ally, with the communists who had sabotaged the French Army in 1940 or who started the EEC with people whose hands still reacked of Zyklon B.
Also it is becaise ypou see something that it is true. I have a depp distruts for French historians about WWII. They have been unable to cope with Vichy (vbest specialist about it is Alan Paxton, an American) and have completely silenced communist aid to the Wehrmacht in 1940.
Now use your logic. If Francgo gave Hitler nothing at Hendaya when England was on the ropes and an invasion seemed imminent why would he give him something after the invasion had been postponed and the US Navy had been attacking U Boots every time it had detected one?
But Frecn historians had ever liked to tell that France powes its fredom to Stalin and ever hated Franco. Now if Franco had given Hitler what he wanted: submarine and aircraft bases in Galicia and Canarias plus neutralizing Gibraltar then Freate Britain would have lost the battle of the Atlantic and the war. And Soviet Union would have been crushed like a bug.
