In 1928, Miguel Primo de Rivera’s Minister of the Interior, General Severiano Martínez Anido, signed a collaboration pact with the German police to share information on elements considered subversive in their respective countries, especially communists and anarchists.
With the arrival of the Second Republic, this agreement was not repealed, but it was frozen until, in May 1935, the Minister of War, the Cedista José María Gil-Robles, expressed his desire to reactivate it. The arrival of Joaquín Chapaprieta’s cabinet in September and the subsequent victory of the Popular Front, on February 16, 1936, left him in nothing. But with the outbreak of the Civil War, collaboration was revived in national Spain.
In 1937, as head of the Security and Interior services of the State Technical Board, General Martínez Anido once again asked Berlin for help to organize his files. The contacts converged in the agreement of July 31, 1938, which, among other aspects, provided for the delivery to the respective police of compatriots who were considered enemies of the State.
In this sense, some Germans residing in Spain were forcibly taken to the Reich, either by Gestapo agents, led by SS-Sturmbannführer Paul Winzer, or by the more obscure Ogre organization, led by Hans Hoffman, a former member. of the Condor Legion that acted under the umbrella of the press department of the German embassy.
Thus, in July 1940, SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, as head of the German police, invited the Spanish Director General of Security, José Finat y Escrivá de Romaní, Count of Mayalde, to visit Berlin to compare opinions on some aspects of their services.
It is often pointed out that, in the background of this meeting and the subsequent trip of the Reichsführer to Spain, there was the future interview between Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler that would be held in the French town of Hendaye, which was surely talked about. But the reason that worried Himmler was something else.
When the armistice was signed, on June 22, 1940, there were about 250,000 Spanish refugees in France (100,000 in the area occupied by the Germans and another 150,000 in Vichy France), of the more than half a million who had fled. between January and February 1939 before the advance of Franco’s troops. More or less half had returned to Spain, believing that they would not suffer reprisals as they had no blood crimes, but the number of those who remained was still significant.
For a person as methodical and orderly as Himmler, refugees represented a cumbersome problem that he wanted to get rid of or, at least, know what to expect. There were two aspects that worried him the most: logistics and maintenance; as well as knowing if Spain would take care of them if they were expelled. Always – this was a basic premise – that his measures did not bother the government of a potential ally like Spain.
During the visit of the Count of Mayalde, in a meeting in the company of other commanders of the SS and the German police, Himmler brought up the issue, but José Finat pointed out that he was not competent, and agreed to forward the request to his immediate superior, the Minister of the Interior in Franco’s second government and his strong man, Ramón Serrano Suñer.
To soften the situation, Himmler was invited to visit Spain, a proposal that was accepted almost two months later, something unusual for him. The Reichsführer made the decision when he saw that Madrid did not respond to his request, and given his interest in settling the matter.
The acceptance caused a certain stir in Spain, and the visit was prepared as if it were a head of state. Of course, Himmler was the third figure in a Reich that seemed close to winning the war, but the guest did not even have ministerial rank, since on paper, although not in reality, he depended on the Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick. But it was necessary to be on good terms with Germany, especially if Franco planned to profit from the next interview with Hitler, so the authorities did the rest.
Furthermore, as Professor Manuel Ros Agudo has rightly pointed out, the Himmler of 1940 did not appear to the eyes of the Spanish like the one he did five years later. There was news of repression in Germany, but it was something that did not worry the Spanish leaders.
The existence of concentration camps was known, but there were also them in Spain. And although it was known that the Jews were being concentrated in ghettos, their mass extermination had not yet begun, while the confusing news about some pogroms had not yet clouded the figure of the German police chief.
Meanwhile, the fate of the Spanish refugees was in a limbo in which all kinds of dramas could occur, as exemplified by the so-called “927 train”, which perhaps was nothing more than a warning of what could happen if the reluctance of Hispanic authorities to speak out.
At 09:05 on October 19, 1940, Himmler arrived in Hendaye by train. On the international bridge he was welcomed by the Count of Mayalde and a large entourage. After receiving the honors of ordinance, the delegation traveled by car to San Sebastián.
The official reason for the trip was to explain to the Spanish security authorities the functioning of the German police (their advice had a lot to do with the Police Law of March 8, 1941), but, in addition, the visit had a lot of cultural, something that the Franco authorities took maximum care of. The large murals by Josep Maria Sert in the San Telmo Museum of Fine Arts pleasantly surprised the visitor, since they were in line with the artistic conception in force in National Socialist Germany.
Throughout the trip, Himmler was accompanied by a small entourage of about ten people, including his doctor and his personal interpreter, as well as his bodyguard. When they wore the SS uniform, they all carried a pistol on their belts, something common in Germany, but which contrasted with Spanish customs. On the other hand, except on the visit to Barcelona, ??a lieutenant of the Legion who no one has been able to identify used to always be present.
After leaving San Sebastián, the delegation continued to Burgos, via Alsasua. Throughout the tour, he was received with enthusiasm not only by the Spanish population, but also by members of the German colony, whose young people used to wear the uniforms of the Hitler Youth and the BDM (League of German Girls).
After visiting the Castilian capital, the expedition took a train that took them to Madrid’s North Station at 09:00 the next day. There they were received by Ramón Serrano Suñer and the Count of Mayalde and lodged at the Ritz hotel. At 11:00 a short work meeting with Serrano took place at the Santa Cruz palace.
After testing his “brother-in-law” about the possibility of German troops entering Spain with a view to taking Gibraltar, Himmler addressed the issue of refugees. The Reichsführer’s desire was to repatriate them progressively, but, apparently, Serrano offered nothing more than excuses.
The regime did not care about the return of women and children, but considered the arrival of the most recalcitrant “reds” destabilizing, most of them with military training. Yes, he was very interested, however, in the delivery of his most prominent leaders, so he provided a list with about two hundred names in which Himmler became disinterested almost immediately.
For his part, the German leader presented a project for the creation of a Spanish-German information service in Latin America, under the umbrella of the elements of the Foreign Falange, which would bear little fruit.
At noon he was received by Franco at the Pardo palace, in what would be little more than a formal meeting. When the afternoon arrived, he attended a bullfight in his honor that had to be suspended halfway through due to the rain, and a gala dinner took place in the old Senate palace in which “all of Madrid” was present. .
The 21st and 22nd were eminently cultural. The first, visited the tomb of José Antonio in El Escorial and the fortress of Toledo; and the second, the Prado and Archaeological museums, where he was able to present his interpretation that both Celts and Visigoths had Aryanized Spain, under the acquiescence of the scholar Julio Martínez de Santa Olalla, who acted as his cicerone.
In the Prado, as he passed near Velázquez’s crucified Christ, he was heard muttering: “What a great Jew!” In contrast, he praised Hieronymus Hieronymus’ The Garden of Earthly Delights and Rogier van der Weyden’s The Descent.
On October 23, at 12:45, he landed at the Barcelona El Prat airfield aboard a Junkers Ju-52 trimotor: the goal of the also esoteric Himmler was to visit Montserrat, where he believed the Holy Grail was located.
Upon arriving at the monastery, around 5:00 p.m., he was received by Father Andreu Ripol, who spoke German and served as his guide. It has always been said that he suffered a certain boycott by Abbot Antoni Maria Marcet, in protest of the plight of German Catholics, but the photographs do not reflect this. The Reichsführer would end up accusing the monks of having hidden the Grail, and he refused, by the way, to kiss the statue of the Virgin of Montserrat, as was customary.
Back in Barcelona, ??he still had time to visit the Czech one at 1 Vallmajor Street (Preventorio D), where various means of torture were preserved, both physical and psychological, that the members of the republican SIM applied to their internal. He also missed his wallet, which had been lost and never recovered.
He dined at the town hall and gave the mayor a donation of twenty-five thousand pesetas for the victims of the recent floods. He did so on the advice of Ambassador Eberhart von Stohrer, and, upon returning to Berlin, he claimed that sum from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
That same night, as a farewell, Himmler and his entourage had a party at the Ritz in which champagne was plentiful and there was no shortage of ladies. The bill, of 13,275 pesetas, would be paid by the council. Finally, at 10:30 on October 24, the Junkers trimotor began its return flight to Germany.
