HITLER STOPPED BY FRANCO by Jane and Burt Boyar
Marbella Press - 2001
ISBN: 0971039208 - Trade paperback
Fiction / Adult / Historical

Reviewed by Barbara Buhrer, MyShelf.com
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It is 1940 and France has fallen to the Nazis. The Nazi army is camped at the border to Spain. Hitler wants to enter Spain to take Gibraltar to carry out his plan to close the Mediterranean to British shipping which would force the end of World War II before the United States could enter the war. Hitler feels Franco owes him a debt for his aid to Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Franco wants to keep his neutrality and keep Germany out of Spain; and keep Spain out of World War II. He feels that he owes Hitler nothing; that Hitler used the Spanish Civil War as a training field for his pilots. Spain has neither the finances or military resources for a war; Franco needs money, food, supplies and economic aid for Spain. Germany will give supplies to Spain if Spain enters the war. England wants Spain to stay out of the war in return for supplies.

This is a fictionalized account of a little known event during World War II. The authors document their facts with interviews with family and participants. The authors preface the narrative with a bone-chilling scenario of what could have happened if Franco had not stopped Hitler. It is noted that Franco refused to persecute the Jews, and allowed them to enter Spain when they were fleeing the Nazis in France. It is a prejudiced presentation. We are left to judge whether Franco, even though acting in Spain's self-interest, helped change the tide of the war. It is a very readable and informative narration.

 

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