Rebuplicans win the Spanish Civil War...

[Mort]

A few facts:

The territory Hitler occupied at his peak went far beyond the size of Spain.

Hitler was easily capable of an occupation of all of France, as he did for more than 18 months after the Allies landed in French North Africa.

In Spain Hitler would have had a special advantage. Considering attitudes in Spain in our OTL, and how the increasingly Stalinist Republicans would have behaved, it is safe to say that something like 90% of the population either welcomes the Nazi liberators or at least sees Franco as no worse.

Once the Germans go through the Spanish gulag they have a domestic occupation force needing only a few weeks of rest and proper food and medical care. And some of the armaments captured from the Republican regime.

Now we have the Luftwaffe and wolf packs stationed minutes from Gibralter and the lifeline to Malta.

Does this even change much elsewhere? All that probably happens is that the Battle of Britain is reduced or cancelled and by January of 1941 the British position is even worse. This, of course, does not consider the chance that much of the British army and air force weren't destroyed trying to hold the last ally on the continent.

As for the effects on Greece standing up to Hitler's junior partner or a certain coup in Yugoslavia going off on schedule...

Im still not convinced. We're all forgetting an important factor here. Time. Its all very well to say Hitler would invade Spain, but we've also got to consider how long it would take. And you've still got to consider troop numbers. The troops would have to come from somewhere, most likely France. Its a pretty much fixed number of troops, it not like they grow the bigger he expands. Even if they get some spanish volunteers, they are going to suffer casulities, and there will be some sort of occupational resistance. Also, with less troops in france, does that mean a stronger resistance movement there?

And the bit about Spanish citizens rising up to welcom the Nazis is unlikely, and for several reasons. One is the fact that northern spain was never occupied by the Nationalist forces in the OT, and No-where near in my timeline. You talking Basque and Catalan, which are not going to take an occupation, by any forces lightly. Also, what makes you think the Spanish are going to support German occupation? first of all, i imagine that most pro-nationalist sympathisers would have been rounded up and dealt with, much the same way that Rebuplicans were in the OT. If the allies had invaded in the OT, they wouldnt have had a supportive populance. Think about it.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

By the most optimistic suggestion Spain in 1940 would be militarily far weaker than France was and after the fall of France, Hitler has more than a hundred divisions available for immediate use. Since at the time the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor less than a quarter of those divisions remained in France, he has the men and to spare.

The French resistance is, if anything, much weaker. With less British help available and less hope that the British will hold out, what would be the point to them?

Lastly, anyone who supported or sympathized with Franco before his defeat, roughly half the population, will certainly welcome the removal of his Stalinist conquerers. More than half the remainder will be heavily disenchanted with the current regime by 1940. I would estimate 30-40 percent heavily supportive of the Nazi liberators(ugh) and another 40-50 percent willing to go along.

Of course, if Franco or some of his lieutenants escaped and are advising Hitler, there is the grave danger of a sensible approach, with Germans to leave within a year, amnesty for all the poor Catalonians, Anarchists, etc who were so brutally betrayed by Stalin's men and so forth.

I might also add that the Republicans murdered as many people, if not more, than Franco's side, and they were on the losing side of the struggle. In a victorious Republican Spain it may be harder to find a family without a grudge against the government.

Of course, if the British and French have a Stalinist ally with Stalinist carnage on their side from the start it may become much more difficult to convince anyone in the US that they are the good guys.

 

[Wendell]

Could it delay/cancel Barbarossa?

 

[Karlos]

The military coup was to restore democracy? NO! It was to depose the democratic elements in the government. It was anti-democratic. Understand? Just read Franco and other speeches by the military and the Spanish church.

Of course it was sarcasm, I think it was pretty obvious if you read the whole paragraf. My grandfather fought on the republican army for three years and I have lived a good part of my life under Franco's regime, so believe me I don't have to read Franco's speeches.
I was just responding to some comments that put in doubt the Republica legitimacy.

 

[Karlos]

Grimm, I have to agree and disagree with you.
First, the Republic did not kill as many people as the fascists. The republican governemt had a big dilemma. Most of the professional army was on the rebel's side, and the only way the governmente resisted the coup in july 1936 was thanks to the irregular militias who took arms to defend it. Those militias belonged to different parties and sindycates and were impossible to control, some of them did the worst part of the killings, specially among priests and landowners. The fascist, on their side, ordered from the top a terror policy that included torture and killings and that went on for decades. We have today as many as 30.000 corpses in hidden "fosas" around the country.

About the war, though, you are right. I agree Hitler could have easily invaded Spain, and that he would have no difficult in recruiting a loyal fascist army among Franco's people, they were quite a lot. And most of the oher people just wanted to live by. The resistance would be no bigger than it was against Franco, and they had no success in OTL even with support from liberated France in 1944-45. How the war could have gone on without Gibraltar in british hands is anyone's guess.

 

[Condottiero]

Karlos both sides behaved in a similar way, please read "Homage to Catalonia" (Orwell is not suspicious of being fascist) and killed a lot of people, probably the only difference was that fascists won the war and had a plus overkill. The army was not fully on the Fascist side, the army of Morocco rebelled, and lots of units, but most of the navy and the airforce was on guvernamental hands. The problem was that the Republican government became very suspicious of all the officials and pushed lots of them to the fascist side or killed them. Yes, on the Republican side summary executions, tortures and political killings were as frecuent as on the rebel side.

As the Republican institutions were weakened and communists and anarchists tried to seize power the political assassinations were unfortunately extremely common on the Republican controled areas. In fact there were several civil wars going on. Franco was extremely cunning by making the war to last so long and to make the different republican factions to bled themselves and to the population to be tired of war and very tame.

Basques and Catalonians would cooperate very happily with the nazis. Why? Suppose the Republicans win the war and a communist revolution takes place under tutelage of Stalin. The Commie government would be a clone of Stalin's and they would treat harshly any nationalistic claim. The Basques and the Catalans would look to the nazis as liberators as the Bretons, Corsicans, Croats and even the Irish looked at. They would cooperate with the nazis in exchange of help to achieve independence.

As for the global scenario, a weakening of the Nazi position would make them trying to have a closer alliance with the Soviet Union and Soviet Spain. Maybe an anticapitalistic axis (Moscow-Berlin-Rome-Madrid).

 

[Karlos]

The republicans were democratic people, not hard-line communists, when the army rebelled. As I said, most of the killing was done by stalinist-controlled factions or anarchists, of whom Madrid had very little control. The proffesional army went to the rebels in its majority. The navy was in the repulblican side only because, when the officers tried to sail to a fascist port, the sailors throw them to the sea. But wihtout officers, it was a less eficient navy.
As the war progressed, the stalinists became stronger as Moscow was the only one providing aid to the republic. They were the ones who organized the Republican army in 1938 and made it a coherent force able to fight. Surely if London and Paris would have helped Madrid, the democratic governement would have been much stronger. But they never were given a chance.
Of course, a republican victory achieved through Stalin's help could have lead to a Stalinist dictatorship similar to the one in the URSS. I can imagine a brief but bloody struggle between the communist army and the militas of the anarchists, the trostkyst and the catalans and basques. But they would never like or accept nazi domination. I imagine them as the polish rebels in OTL, who fougth both nazis and communist, hopeless.
To illustrate the difference between both sides: When Miguel de Unamuno, writer and intelectual, stood against the rebellion in a famous speech, Millan Astray, founder of La Legión (Franco's main shock force) shouted: "¡muera la inteligencia!" (Death to intelligence!)

 

[Condottiero]

In fact some PNV politicians contacted with Hitler around 1941, when it seemed that he would win WW II and as Franco was giving only a mild support to Germany, in order to get recognition and support for a free basque nation. Nationalist (I mean Basques and Catalans) were not different from nationalists in other parts of Europe (Britany, Ireland, Croatia, Corsica, Slovakia...).

As for the so called Republican Government was in fact more hard lined than you hint. The CEDA could not form a government although they won the previous elections due to presures from most of the political parties, and the 1936 government (Frente Popular) was very weakened because of the different political lines. The PSOE was quite radical then and had nothing to do with the current party, not to mention the communists, Azaña´s party (Acción Republicana) and the extra-parliamentary powerful anarchist syndicates.

 

[wkwillis]

Hitler's victory in the Battle of France was solely due to the inexplicable actions of the French generals in not watching four roads through the Ardennes. The German army wound up in the rear of the French and British and Belgian army, cutting them off from supplies and orders from metropolitan France, which is what initiated the collapse. Whether they should have collapsed or simply reformed their supply lines on Amsterdam is another question. Whether the Germans could have moved several armies along four mountain roads twenty feet wide against any form of resistance isn't one of those questions.
Put anything in the way of the German army in the Ardennes and even the Italians would have beaten them, let alone the experienced Spanish veterans. It's strictly about the logistics of mountain roads.

 

[Karlos]

With all its faults and limitations, the republican governement was one elected by the people, and a democratic one, not a stalinist one. In those years, really, Spain was heavily radicalized. So was Germany during Weimar. And like in Germany, some people saw a strong dictatorship as the best way to restore order. But as we all probably agree that the nazis were not a better alternative to a turmoiled democracy, and the same applyes to Spain. And democracy in Spain could have been saved if the forces that stood for it would have been helped from abroad. The danger of a stalinist regime was only real after the military rebelled, not before, and specially after Stalin was the only one helping the governement.
Those PNV contacts where, at least, very naive, sporadical and non-significant. The basques, and the catalans, saw Franco as the biggest threat to its national aspirations, and history proved them right. Even if the basque and catalan elites were afraid of communism, they knew their national identity would be destroyed by Franco, as he tried to do.

 

[benedict XVII]

In fact some PNV politicians contacted with Hitler around 1941, when it seemed that he would win WW II and as Franco was giving only a mild support to Germany, in order to get recognition and support for a free basque nation. Nationalist (I mean Basques and Catalans) were not different from nationalists in other parts of Europe (Britany, Ireland, Croatia, Corsica, Slovakia...).

From what I understand, the Corsicans were actually quite active in the liberation of their island in 1943, and I never heard of any significant Britton movement involved with the Nazi's. Are you sure you're not epitomizing some very marginal people?

 

[Condottiero]

It was part of the nazi policy to divide the bigger nations favouring nationalisms. The corsicans cooperated in 1943, but they welcomed nazis first as communists did in the whole of France, or even Stalin.

As for the PNV they were real tentatives to gain support. Hitler did not consider them in order not to lose the card of Franco.