What if Spain joins the Axis in WW2?

Like the title says, what if in early 1940, Spain actively joins the Axis powers?

How much would this have helped the Axis war efforts? Would this have allowed the Axis to rule the med? How would this have affected America's approach if they join the war as per OTL?

General consensus on here is pretty much that Spain has nothing to gain and everything to lose from entering the war shortly after being absolutely trashed by the meatgrinder of the Spanish Civil War. Spain was for all intents and purposes a broken country before the Civil War, and the civil war only showed the fractures that had been in Spanish society for a long time. Franco stayed out because he realized the need to consolidate the country: rebuild from war, deal with the remnants of the Republicans as well as isolate and purge ideologically incompatible parts of the Nationalist coalition (Both sides of the Spanish Civil War were coalitions of deeply-incompatible ideologies who only banded together because they found the other side less desirable, it was only Franco's leadership that papered over this, the Republicans had no such figure, and consequently lost the war because of failure to unify against their common enemy of the Nationalists).

Franco purposefully asked for absolutely ridiculous concessions (enormous material aid from the Germans, in addition to enormous chunks of Vichy French colonial territories in North Africa) as a condition for entering the Axis Powers because he himself wasn't particularly interested in a war he knew would have dubious value for Spain.

So if he disregards common sense and throws in with Germany, Spain immediately finds itself the subject of British commerce raids that take out its merchant marine and promptly force an import-dependent country lacking in farm machinery to begin starving. The Franco regime is lucky if it makes it to the point where the Allies liberate Spain and ingloriously depose the evil tyrant as opposed to seeing another uprising by fellow Nationalists, Republicans, or some combination of the two. Spain would gain nothing, Franco would lose everything, but in the long-term, the Spanish people are awarded a democracy courtesy of your local Anglo-American divisions in Europe, so not an entirely bad ending.
 

Cook

Banned
Franco purposefully asked for absolutely ridiculous concessions (enormous material aid from the Germans, in addition to enormous chunks of Vichy French colonial territories in North Africa) as a condition for entering the Axis Powers because he himself wasn't particularly interested in a war he knew would have dubious value for Spain.
The material aid requested was less than the German Ambassador in Madrid considered Spain would really require if the war ran for longer than three months (this is important; the request origionally made was for a guarantee of aid in the event that the war did not end as promptly as everyone at the time expected it to). If Franco really was hoping to put the Germans off by exagerating his material request, he would have asked for considereably more, not less than he would have needed.

And Franco's claims on French territory were no more exaggerated than Mussolini’s claims of Nice, Corsica and Tunisia were and were claims that went back to before the First World War; Fascist dictators just had big appetites.
 
Last edited:
The material aid requested was less than the German Ambassador in Madrid considered Spain would really require if the war ran for longer than three months (this is important; the request origionally made was for a guarantee of aid in the event that the war did not end as promptly as everyone at the time expected it to). If Franco really was hoping to put the Germans off by exagerating his material request, he would have asked for considereably more, not less than he would have needed.

And Franco's claims on French territory were no more exaggerated than Mussolini’s claims of Nice, Corsica and Tunisia were and were claims that went back to before the First World War; Fascist dictators just had big appetites.

Really?

I can't for the life of me recall where I heard it but I remember encountering a theory somewhere where it was postulated that Franco did all that in order to

A. Get a high price for Spain joining the war.

B. But also deter Germany.
 

Cook

Banned
I can't for the life of me recall where I heard it but I remember encountering a theory somewhere where it was postulated that Franco did all that...
It started getting put around by Franco himself post-war, or by his apologists anyway, but is not supported by any contemporary evidence. Basically it is a conspiracy theory with one conspirator (Franco) and he is the only proponent with no corroboration for his story and a great deal of evidence against him.

From the letter sent by the German Ambassador in Madrid to the Reich Foreign Ministry on 8 August, 1940:

‘Besides this military assistance, however, economic support of Spain will also be necessary. To this belong, above all else, the delivery of gasoline and, at the beginning of next year, delivery of grain for bread. According to a recent utterance of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs (of the third of this month) Spain, due to its shortage of gasoline, can wage war without our help 1 1/2 months at the most As concerns the grain for bread, the Minister believes that Spain has sufficient supplies until about March of next year. I consider this latter supposition as too optimistic, unless a strict rationing is carried out.’
 
Last edited:
Yes, Spain was weakened by the Civil War, demanded a lot of help, and also wanted French colonies. IOTL, Hitler neither got Vichy France nor Spain as an ally. I'm starting to wonder whether we should better wonder whether Vichy France should have joined Barbarossa instead. Or is this ASBish?
 

Cook

Banned
Or is this ASBish?
Vichy as a member of the Axis is definitely not ASB; even without a formal declaration, Vichy fought against the British for two and a half years and Pierre Laval was enthusiastic for a German alliance and a declaration of war against Britain, as was Darlan.
 
Top