It's always bugged me as to why the Germans let Spain retain her neutrality. Spain was a haven for allied agents and escapees not to mention the British naval presence in Gibraltar. Surely invading would have been a walkover for the Germans being as they knew the terrain from the civil war. They could have cut off allied naval access to the med ensuring victory in Africa too. Strategic mistake by Hitler or not worth the effort?
Nazi supremo Hitler dreamt to curve up a continent of his own to set a thousand year Reich.So he intended not to loose any of his few friends. Since Generalisimo [Facist] Franko was close to Hitler ,in remembrance of Nazi help during their Civil War,Spain stood neutral. Not only this,countries like Sweden,Portugal,Ireland even Switzerland were then the vendors of Nazi War Mechanism .So the Nazis didn’t want to wrap up them by any means in the War. Another important thing was there.During the early years of Nazi invasion ,Luftwaffe pilots had to be safe in cases of their bailing out or from crash landings.I mean that the pilots won't be killed there and it 'll be easy by local authorities to handed over them to the Germans, if any such incident happen within these [safe]areas. Franco and Hitler were "Friends".!@#..;; as Spain sent 2 divisions of soldiers to the Eastern front.Many of them were non Christians --- loyal to Hitler.[How He then retains his neutralism??] So they wanted to remain by the side of Axis and vice versa ..
