Hitler's Table Talk

SPANISH CIVIL WAR 569
and thought that, if they must be employed in this fashion, they should
at least be given different clothing. Marshal Keitel said that, in passing
judgment on the Spanish army, German criteria were of no value.
"When the Fuehrer met Franco," he continued, "the Spanish Guard of
Honour was deplorable, and their rifles were so rusty that they must
have been quite unserviceable. When the meeting was being arranged,
Admiral Canaris warned me that the Fuehrer would be disillusioned to
meet in Franco—not a hero, but a little pipsqueak (statt eines Heroen
ein Würstchen)" The Fuehrer continued:
Franco and company can consider themselves very lucky to
have received the help of Fascist Italy and National Socialist
Germany in their first civil war. For, as the Red Spaniards
never cease explaining, they had not entered into co-operation
with the Soviets on ideological grounds, but had rather been
forced into it—and thence dragged into a political current not
of their own choosing—simply through lack of other support.
One thing is quite certain. People speak of an intervention
from Heaven which decided the civil war in favour of Franco;
perhaps so—but it was not an intervention on the part of the
madam styled the Mother of God, who has recently been
honoured with a Field Marshal's baton, but the intervention of
the German General von Richthofen and the bombs his
squadrons rained from the heavens that decided the issue.
Ambassador Hewel said the upper classes in Spain were both bone
idle and quite impervious to adverse criticism. Hitler continued:
Well, thank goodness, the discipline of both the Reds and the
Falangists working in the Todt organisation is first class, and
the more of them we can recruit, the better.
But the finding of people capable of clearing up the Spanish
political situation will be much more difficult. The problems
are more of an internal political, than of a military, nature;
and the foremost of them—the food crisis—is, in view of the
proverbial idleness of the population, about the thorniest of
the lot.
Whether a General possesses the political acumen necessary
to success, the future alone will show. But in any case, we must
promote as much as we can the popularity of General Munoz