Did Franco consider Hitler a "son of the Catholic Church" who "died while defending Christianity"?
score:11
I found many citations (e.g., here) for this quote to Réforme, which is a French, Protestant weekly, not a Spanish newspaper. Being Protestant, it's hardly a credible source for the extraordinary claim that Hitler is a "son of the Catholic Church" who "died while defending Christianity."
The quote is obviously spurious.
Upvote:-2
Franco did not think that you couldn't be a Catholic and a bloodthirsty Fascist dictator at the same time, because he was.
Franco wouldn't have been able to win the war against the Spanish Republic without Hitler's help. In turn, Franco supplied Hitler with materiel before and during world war two, and was only prevented from joining the war on Hitler's side by Churchill's bribes to Spanish generals. This didn't stop him from sending a group of volunteers to fight on the Germans' side against Russia. He and Hitler shared an antipathy towards democracy, modernity and 'judeo-bolshevism'. Anti-communism was Franco's number one preoccupation, and Hitler had just fought a major war against the USSR.
In other words, Franco 'liked' Hitler. There is no evidence that he cared about Hitler's ambiguous relationship with Catholicism in Germany. Hitler hated communism and was born a Catholic, and that was enough for Franco.
I do not have access to the source, but prima facie, this quote is not unbelievable.
Upvote:2
In 1936, In military equipment, The Republicans were at advantage (the majority of the factories were in Republican-held lands) but they did not have numerical superiority in men power.
The Republicans enjoyed a lot of support in the Navy, possessed 91% of the Spanish made tanks, not to mention the support of nearly all of the Spanish aircrafts.
The Nationalist advantage was in the soldiers of the army because they had the best unit and ones with more combat experience but they were located in North Africa. The Arrival of German and Italian air forces was the key to achieve air superiority along with military aid in aircrafts and tanks. That's why Franco was in debt to them.
However, after Spanish Civil war ended, The Nationalist movement was also divided. Franco was surrounded by military and politicians. Each group further divided between Pro-British (monarchists that wanted the return of the king) and Pro-German (fascists that wanted to join fascist countries) factions. Mussolini even told Franco "don't even think of giving back the power to the King". At the end, with no rivals, he practically decided himself everything.
As for the matter of Hitler being Catholic and being at good terms with Franco, I don't think so. Even Franco himself said that he had better relation with Mussolini than Hitler. Even in his meeting he was disappointed. One of his famous phrase was: "This guy, who does he think he is?".
In the interview, Hitler told him that he had infantry divisions, tanks and aircrafts, all with tremendous arrogance. In other words, He was flaunting his power to make Franco join him.
Hitler, a common soldier of Germany (Who had risen to the office of the Chancellor), was treating Franco, who was a General, inferiorly. It was really incredible.
Upvote:7
The following quote from Historia de la literatura fascista española by Julio Rodríguez-Puértolas (Vol II, p974) implies that the origin of the "son of the Catholic Church" quote was an article in the Spanish daily Informaciones, written by the Francoist writer Víctor de la Serna, rather than Franco himself:
El dos de mayo de 1945, conocido ya el suicidio de Adolf Hitler en su búnker de Berlín, Víctor de la Serna publicaba en Informaciones y bajo el pseudónimo de Unus un espectacular artículo en recuerdo del Führer alemán, al que pertenecen estos fragmentos: "Un enorme ¡Presente! se extiende por el ámbito de Europa, porque Adolfo Hitler, hijo de la Iglesia Católica ha muerto defendiendo la Cristiandad....
The full text of the Informaciones article is reproduced in Historias curiosas del franquismo by Daniel Arasa (p137): see Google Books.
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