France had shown its best hand to Franco by returning "Gold, weapons, vehicles, valuables, ships, art," and other valuables that had been shipped by the rebels across the Spanish border into France during the Civil War (Bowen, p. 23).

A tense moment for Spain's so-called neutrality came on June 27, 1940, as German troops arrived at the border of Spain; a deal was struck that "small groups of Nazi soldiers" could travel (while in uniform) through northern Spain (Bowen, p. 29) but the Germans apparently never made a huge push into Spain.

The one force that Franco was definitely not neutral towards was the Soviet Union. In fact, when Germany sent massive troops into Russia in June1941, Franco quickly identified himself and his nation with the German cause, according to World History at KMLA (WHKMLA, 2007). A year previous to that, on June 14th, 1940 Spanish troops actually occupied the...
[ View Full Essay]