39
against Gibraltar. The Berchstesgaden meeting was difficult. While Hitler harped on the need
to act “as quickly as possible” to “attack the English vigorously also in the Mediterranean,”
Suner tried to explain the enormity of the “shortages and hunger” in Spain and the need for
Germany to act to allay them. Before Spain could join any war effort in the Mediterranean,
the “economic” and “public morale” problems would have to be remedied. Just then, said
Suner, Spain was receiving the first installment of 400,000 tons of wheat from Canada.
Closing the Western Mediterranean to the British would mean closing the Atlantic to the
Spanish. And that 400,000 tons en route would “by no means be sufficient”—it was just the
bare minimum “without which an entry of Spain into the war would be absolute folly.”
Spain’s needs for the year, he repeated, amounted to 600,000 tons.
Indeed, Suner noted, Franco was making “friendly complaint” about Germany “not
send[ing] the things necessary for Spain.” Hitler snapped: “There was no doubt that all these
problems would have been settled if Spain had already entered the war.” “Germany used all
available material for the conduct of the war. If Spain were a belligerent power, Germany
would supply her with material in the same way as was done very amply during the Civil
War.”
So that, for Hitler’, is what it came down to: if Spain wanted to eat on his dime, it
would have to start fighting.
Suner then reverted to the problem of “public morale,” by which, it turned, out he
meant the need for concrete promises to fulfill “Spanish aspirations in Africa.” The Hendaye
was too vague. Hitler again replied with the need to keep French North Africa quiescent, lest
it “break away” and join the ranks of Britain and America. He could “only declare
emphatically that in no circumstances would Germany’s friends emerge from this war
dissatisfied and the enemies satisfied….When Germany had reached her aim, Spain could be
satisfied in Morocco. Germany would then only claim for herself a base there.” The
transcript notes that Hitler’s responses “appeared to dispel” Suner’s objections on the
Morocco matter. The accuracy of this observation is questionable; but it is suggestive of
Spain’s priorities that Suner’s parting words to Hitler were not about territory but food: he
would use the period of military preparation prior to the start of the actual Gibraltar attack
“to get as much Canadian, American, and Argentine wheat as possible into Spain.”
179
DGFP, D, XI, p. 600.
180
DGFP, D, XI, pp. 605-606.
Convention