The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

Nationalist insurgents because the Popular Front government and the
revolutionary councils in Catalonia and Aragón were considered a threat to
British business interests in Spain. 7 Germany and Italy were able to remain in
the NIC despite continuing their support the Spanish Nationalists, which turned
the whole committee into a farce. 8 In the end, the NIC proved to be ineffective
in curbing foreign support to the fighting parties in Spain: German and Italian
aid to the Nationalists was increased and the Soviet Union was the only
European power, which sold arms to the Republic.
The common support of the Spanish Nationalists is often considered to be the
starting point of the axis Berlin-Rome: in the international press, it was soon
known that Mussolini and Hitler supported Franco because Italian air planes
loaded with supplies for Spain crashed in the Mediterranean Sea and documents of
an assumed collaboration between the insurgents and the NSDAP were found in
the revolutionary Barcelona. Those findings were quickly published in the
international leftist press, such as the German social-democrats in exile (SoPaDe)
paper Neuer Vorwärts. 9 Because of that, leftists all over Europe started to consider
Franco a puppet of Hitler and Mussolini 10 and believed that the coup d'état had
been planned by an international conspiracy of fascism, 11 a theory that was first
published by the Soviet journal Pravda on August 1, 1936. 12
Not only did the European leftist networks believe in an international union of
fascism, also Benito Mussolini made allusions in that direction. In a speech given
on November 1, 1936 he termed the expression „axis powers” 13 while speaking
about the friendship of Germany and Italy, which started with the common
support of the Spanish Nationalists. Before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil
War, the relations between the two countries had not been the best due to
Mussolini's fears that Hitler's aspirations for Austria would endanger his claim
for South Tirol. However, shortly after the joint support for Franco, an agreement
in this question was reached, so that historians consider the collaboration of the
two regimes in Spain as the beginning of the axis Berlin-Rome. 14
The Soviet Union was the only European power that supported the Spanish
Republic by selling weapons and by creating the International Brigades, whose
7 BERNECKE, Walter L.: Krieg in Spanien 1936-1939. Primus, Darmstadt, 1991. 84.
8 VILAR, Pierre: Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg 1936-1939. Wagenbach, Berlin, 2005. 35.
9 Neuer Vorwärts 165. 1936 (09.08.1936) 2.
10 ZUR MÜHLEN, Patrik von: Spanien war ihre Hoffnung. Deutsche Linke im Spanischen
Bürgerkrieg 1936 bis 1939. Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn, 1983. 128.
11 ANONYMOUS: „Spanien lehrt: Internationale Verschwörung des Faschismus
gegen Demokratie und Frieden- Schafft die Friedens-Weltfront”, in: DVZ 1.21
(09.09.1936), 3.
12 CARR, E.H.: The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War. Macmillan, London, 1984. 16.
13 SCHAUFF, Frank: Der verspielte Sieg. Sowjetunion, Kommunistische Internationale und
Spanischer Bürgerkrieg 1936-1939. Campus, Frankfurt am Main, 2004. 49-50.
14 MORADIELLOS, Enrique: El reñidero de Europa. Las dimensiones internacionales de la
guerra civil española. Península, Barcelona, 2001. 258.
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