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a document-based novel by Jane and Burt Boyar
Reviewed by Patrick Killough
REVIEW for www.barnesandnoble.com 02/19/2003 Rating: ***** Title of Review: Francisco Franco: the wise serpent, the cunning dove I am “fond of good writing about any subject.” Also recommended: Steven Shapin, A SOCIAL HISTORY OF TRUTH:
===================================================== Like some other deceptively simple narratives (the Gospel of Mark comes to mind), HITLER STOPPED BY FRANCO rewards second, third and more readings and suggests far more than it states.+++ After the German Blitzkrieg had conquered France in the summer of 1940, Hitler intended to move on at once and capture Gibraltar-- the then still lightly fortified British fortress at the western end of the Mediterranean. The only sure way to do this was to march twenty German divisions from France over the Pyranees and on across Spain to attack Gibraltar from the land, before the reeling British had time to reinforce and fortify this colonial outcropping on Spanish soil. Hitler was certain that he could and would march through Spain with the permission and active cooperation of his Spanish counterpart. But he reckoned without Generalissimo Francisco Franco: el Caudillo of Spain, as his fascist senior colleagues Mussolini and Hitler were il Duce and der Fuehrer respectively of Italy and Germany. Seeing France on its knees, Mussolini safely entered Word War II (as it would soon become) on Hitler’s side. Franco seemed also to assure that he and his Spaniards would join the Axis as well, but not just yet, thank you. In fact he never allowed the Germans to enter Spain with an army. This “document based novel” by Jane and Burt Boyar is serious history albeit by authors who are not specialists in academic history writing. The text exhibits a modest but adequate list of primary and secondary written sources. The authors, during a stay of many years in Spain, also became personal friends of Franco’s only daughter, his wife and other relatives and colleagues of Spain’s unelected military ruler. Much of this novel is based on interviews with people who knew Franco intimately and/or who worked closely with him. The story line is sparse: limited in time from the fall of France to the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. It focuses on Franco’s successful maintenance of an official (but tilted towards the Axis) neutrality during the war and on the deceitful diplomacy by which the weakest nation in Europe cajoled and thwarted the schemes of Europe’s mightiest military power. The somewhat enigmatic Francisco Franco is portrayed as a tenacious and successful military leader, at one time Spain’s youngest general. He is a pious Roman Catholic who prays the rosary with his wife every night. His office held portraits of Hitler, Mussolini and Pope Pius XII. Franco was also a painter. Politically he was a monarchist and an authoritarian. He did not base his rule on popular consent. He was willing to leave the final judgment of him to God and to history. He tried to bring internal peace and reconciliation, on his own terms to be sure, to a Spain splintered by three years of unspeakably cruel civil war. He was anti-Communist and above all else a proud Spanish nationalist. The Boyars leave us with one unsettled mystery. How on earth did this apparently straightforward, simple soldier develop the political wiles to lie successfully to Hitler? What in his background made him rise to the occasion? For Franco had no training as an actor or diplomat. And his religion was notoriously intolerant of lying. Yet Francisco Franco did for Spain what he felt it no more than his Christian duty to do and he remained always a loyal although anything but supine son of the church. HITLER STOPPED BY FRANCO is a book that inspires all serious non-academic thinkers to follow the Boyars’ lead and write boldly and creatively about any subject in which they are or were once deeply immersed. -OOO- Canyon Lake, Texas
Review for www.amazon.com
Title of Review: Franciso Franco: Protector of Sephardic Jews Reviewer: Patrick Killough from Canyon Lake, Texas USA
Many have the true notion that Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco craftily prevented his Civil War ally Adolf Hitler from marching 20 divisions through Spain in World War II and occupying British controlled Gibraltar. This stopped the Axis from sealing off the western end of the Mediterranean and made a major contribution to ultimate Allied victory. What many may, however, learn for the first time in the Jane and Bert Boyars' 2001 documentary novel HITLER STOPPED BY FRANCO is that Franco also got away with provoking Hitler by his bold assistance to Jews. An introductory quote (p. 104): "The Sephardim, Jews of Spain and Portugal, had not seen Spain since Ferdinand and Isabella had expelled them in 1492 after giving them the opportunity to remain by becoming true Catholics." Franco's positive attitude towards Jews is at least six years older than Hitler's 1933 rise to power in Germany. As early as 1927 as a fighting Colonel commanding thousands of men in Spanish Morocco, Francisco Franco received permission from Madrid to use his troops to protect from Muslims the local Sephardic Jews. The Sephardic community was grateful and in 1936 supported Franco with money at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. In 1927 Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera had also told Franco that Sephardic Jews might return to Spain, become citizens and worship as they pleased. This invitation was deep in Franco's memory when, in 1940, French Jews began beseeching Spanish authorities in Vichy France for asylum on the basis of Spanish citizenship. (p. 104) As told by Franco's wife to the authors, Franco then briefly but decisively mulled over what to do. "...I have sworn to give my life protecting Spaniards." (p. 105) After prayer, Franco authorized issuing Spanish passports to Sephardim as their right under Spanish law. Asked by consular officials how to tell Sephardim from non-Sephardim, Franco ruled, "They are all Sephardim." By September 1940 Hitler was pressuring Franco to cede to Germany one of the Canary Islands and to allow the Wehrmacht to march on Gibraltar through Spain. (p.106) By November 1940 Hitler told Serrano Suner, Franco's brother-in-law, that he had at the moment 186 inactive German divisions and he intended to use some of them to take Gibraltar. Nor had he failed to notice Franco's Jewish policy. "Spanish passports are being issued to Jews who have never seen Spain, nor have their ancestors in precisely 448 years. ... Suddenly French are Spanish. And from Poland suddenly Poles are Spaniards. And in Denmark and the Netherlands ... overnight my enemies have Spanish passports and are able to leave my jurisdiction." (p. 159) And leave they did. Nor did Jews ever forget that Franco was their benefactor. For the rest of this little known story -- and for much more-- read HITLER STOPPED BY FRANCO. -OOO-
Canyon Lake, Texas
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