Quite a few Germans did find refuge within Spain in the postwar period. German wartime policy in Spain favored using it either as an intelligence center or as an import "window" to escape the Allied naval blockade. As such, there was a German community within Spain that consisted of intelligence agents and businessmen. Some second-rank offenders of the Third Reich did flee to Spain after the war. The most famous German emigre was the SS commando Otto Skorzeny, who fled to Spain after fleeing an Allied denazification court. Although Skorzeny made his way into various Third World intelligence and security agents as a German freelancer, Spain was one of his most consistent residencies. Likewise, the Belgian fascist and officer in the Waffen-SS Walloon unit, Léon Degrelle, found refuge in Spain. Mauthausen's infamous doctor Aribert Heim likely spent a few of his years as a fugitive in Spain.

But Spain itself was a somewhat peripheral destination for ex-Nazis and fugitives. Part of the problem for a Spanish escape was that Allied governments had active intelligence networks within Spain and had been pressuring Spain to cut ties with Germany since 1943. As early as 1944, the Western Allies had launched Operation Safehaven which pressured various neutral countries to remand German nationals involved with the Nazi government to the Allies. The postwar Allied Control Council (ACC) for Germany pushed Franco even further to repatriate "obnoxious Germans," (the British Foreign office's term for Germans in state service) to occupied Germany. Franco for his part belatedly played along with Allied demands by interning some Germans on Allied lists, but stonewalling on others.

Francoist Spain was caught on the horns of dilemma in the immediate postwar period. On one hand, its association with Hitler and Mussolini won it no favors in Allied public opinion and there was danger that harboring Nazi war criminals would be a pretext for an Allied regime change in Madrid. Spain had deported some 265 "obnoxious Germans" between 1946 and 1947, but a sizable number remained. The ACC sent Madrid a list of 104 names in 1947, but Madrid did little to aid the ACC. Releasing these men into Allied custody not only invited more poking around into Spanish politics, it also transgressed the various Falangist, state, and anticommunist networks that these Germans were becoming fast a part of in the postwar period. Yet time was on Franco's side as the emerging Cold War and Allied backpedaling on denazification meant that there was much less pressure on Franco to send back his Germans.

The immediate postwar period saw the emergence of the chaqueteo (turning of the coat) narrative of Franco in which he presented his actions in the 1930s and 40s as those of a staunch anticommunist and not as one sympathetic to fascism. The German community within Spain also adjusted to this new reality. Veterans of the Condor Legion, such as Meino von Eitzen used both their Civil War service and connections within the Spanish government to be treated as Spanish subjects. Spanish authorities had arrested von Eitzen on the basis of American intelligence he was using his business position as an espionage agent. Despite being listed as an "obnoxious," von Eitzen was able to appeal to the Spanish naval ministry to remain in Spain on the basis of his service. Other elements of the German expatriate colony in Spain filtered in and out of Spanish elite circles and state agencies. Like other parts of the Third World, German technical expertise was one chip postwar Germans used to ply their trade abroad when they could not in Germany; both Claude Dornier and Willy Messerschmitt briefly set up shop in Spain in the 1950s and helped to establish Hispano Aviación's postwar aviation development such as jet aircraft.

Not all Spanish-German cooperation was as benign as a jet trainer. German expatriates, Falangists, and veterans of the Azul Division helped to establish the Spanish neo-Nazi organization Círculo Español de Amigos de Europa (CEDADE). Both Skorzeny and Degrelle were founding members and CEDADE helped to establish connections between various far-right European groups in the 1970s and 80s and it eventually merged into the far-right Spanish political party Democracia Nacional. Heim's case also illustrates that it was also possible for Francoist indifference to German war criminals and these networks of National Socialists meant that Spain became a safe midway destination to the Third World for fugitives.

But leaving directly for Spain from Germany only really became a viable option in the early 1950s as pressure on Franco waned. The immediate postwar period saw at least the appearance that the Allies were gong to put the screws on Franco for his pro-Hitler policies. Allies intelligence networks were intact in this region and the Madrid government had the capacity to always remand expatriates. In contrast, the chaotic conditions in Austria and Tyrol, whose immediate status was unclear in 1945/46 was a more promising avenue for escape. Visas were much easier to obtain in these regions and it was harder for Allied investigators to track individuals moving through these areas. Spain as well as sympathetic diplomats in the service of the Vatican helped facilitate escape via Spain, and then Italy, to Latin America. Closer relations between Franco and Peron also facilitated an escape route to Argentina. Spain in the immediate postwar thus acted more as a station than a harbor for Nazis fleeing defeat.

Sources

Messenger, David A. Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Pressm, 2014.

Messenger, David A., and Katrin Paehler. A Nazi Past: Recasting German Identity in Postwar Europe. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2015.

Payne, Stanley G. Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.