Franco's Nazi Haven
Paul Preston amplifies recent claims that Franco offered safe havens to fugitive Nazis
An eleven page document recently discovered in the archives of Spain's Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores lists more than one hundred active Nazis provided with asylum and new identities at the end of the Second World War. This merely confirms Spain's fervently pro-Axis role during the war. What comes as more of a surprise is the assertion recently by The Times' Madrid correspondent that 'The disclosure will excite historians and biographers of Franco, most of whom believed that El Caudillo kept a scrupulous distance from the seamier side of Hitler's wartime enterprise'. The correspondent's view is shared only by fervent partisans and hagiographers of the Spanish dictator.
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