by Allan Chase
1943, Put­nam, 278 pages
Down­load Pt. 1 | Down­load Pt. 2

In 1936, Reichs­mar­shall Her­mann Goering—one of Hitler’s top aides and the head of the Luftwaffe—observed that “Spain is the key to two con­ti­nents.” Goer­ing was enun­ci­at­ing a key prin­ci­pal of Ger­man and Nazi geopol­i­tics. By con­trol­ling Spain, the Nazis felt they could con­trol both Europe and Latin Amer­ica. Geo­graph­i­cally dom­i­nat­ing the entrance to the Mediter­ranean Sea from the Atlantic and “flank­ing” France, Spain also wielded tremen­dous influ­ence in Latin Amer­ica through the strong cul­tural and eco­nomic ties between the Span­ish and Latin Amer­i­can aris­toc­ra­cies. In addi­tion, the pro­found Catholic influ­ence in both Spain and Latin Amer­ica, aug­mented Span­ish clout in that part of the world. (In FTR#532, we exam­ined the Vatican’s involve­ment with fas­cism. The Vatican/Fascist axis was another major con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the influ­ence of the Falange through­out the Spanish-speaking world.)

In order to uti­lize Span’s geopo­lit­i­cal influ­ence as a tool for Nazi impe­r­ial designs, the Third Reich turned to Gen­eral Wil­helm von Fau­pel and his Ibero-American Insti­tute. Von Fau­pel was a bit­ter oppo­nent of the Weimar Repub­lic, and read­ily accepted the Nazis as the anti­dote to Ger­man democ­racy. Known as an “I.G. Gen­eral” for his links to the I.G. Far­ben com­pany, von Fau­pel also main­tained close ties to the pow­er­ful Thyssen inter­ests which, like Far­ben, were the pow­ers that backed Hitler. (The Bush fam­ily were also closely linked to the Thyssens.) Dur­ing the 1920’s, von Fau­pel had served as a gen­eral staff adviser to the Argen­tine, Brazil­ian and Peru­vian mil­i­tary estab­lish­ments and was famed through­out Latin Amer­ica for his skills as an offi­cer. Because of his Latin Amer­i­can ties and his links to the cor­po­rate inter­ests that backed Hitler, von Fau­pel became the Reich’s point man for the fas­cist takeover of Spain and sub­se­quent con­struc­tion of a Fifth Col­umn through­out the Spanish-speaking world.

In 1934, von Fau­pel assumed con­trol of the Ibero-American Insti­tute, an aca­d­e­mic think tank orig­i­nally founded as a legit­i­mate schol­arly insti­tu­tion. Under von Fau­pel, the orga­ni­za­tion became a front for orga­niz­ing the Nazi infil­tra­tion and con­quest of Spain. Reject­ing roy­al­ist and Catholic sec­tar­ian right­ist par­ties, von Fau­pel and the Nazis set­tled on the Falange as their cho­sen vehi­cle for gain­ing dom­i­nance over Spain. After arrang­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Gen­eral Jose San­jurjo (a roy­al­ist rival for the lead­er­ship of Spain after the over­throw of the Repub­li­can gov­ern­ment), the Ger­mans and their Ital­ian allies installed Franco as head of the fas­cist Falange.

” . . . Gen­eral Jose San­jurjo, wear­ing a peacock’s dream of a
uniform-the London-made gift of Adolf Hitler-boarded
a Junkers plane in Lis­bon and ordered his pilot, Cap­tain
Ansaldo, to take off for a secret land­ing field in Spain. But
on July 17 the old gen­eral was actu­ally headed fo: another
land­ing field his Nazi com­rades had cho­sen with­out his
knowledge.

A few remarks he had let slip to inti­mate friends in Esto­ril
ear­lier that year had, unknown to San­jurjo, reached cer­tain
Berlin ears. On April I 3, 1936, for instance, San­jurjo had
com­plained, “They want me to start a rev­o­lu­tion to serve
the bankers and the spec­u­la­tors, but I won’t do it.” Two
weeks after say­ing this, he made another trip to Berlin. He
remained in Ger­many for only a few days, and on his return
he went to work in earnest on his plans for the pend­ing
revolt. What hap­pened in Berlin while San­jurjo con­ferred
with von Fau­pel is of lit­tle moment now. His fate had already
been sealed before the visit.

Very shortly after Sanjurjo’s plane took off from Lis­bon,
a Ger­man time bomb planted in the bag­gage com­part­ment
exploded. The blaz­ing frag­ments of the Junkers mono­plane
became the pyre of the Anointed Chief of the Span­ish Rev­o­lu­tion.
Jose San­jurjo had the dubi­ous honor of being the
first of the Nazis’ mil­lion vic­tims of the Span­ish War. . . .”

Falange; pp.20–21.

Von Fau­pel then pro­ceeded to direct the con­struc­tion of the “Falange Exte­rior” as the fas­cist Fifth Col­umn move­ment through­out the Spanish-speaking world (includ­ing the Philippines).

Author Chase describes the Falange Exte­rior on page 31 of Falange:

“On the sur­face, von Fau­pel had—in the Falange Exterior—delivered to the Third Reich a remark­able net­work, extend­ing from Havana to Buenos Aires, from Lima to Manila. This net­work, accord­ing to its cre­ator, was capa­ble of con­certed espi­onage, polit­i­cal diver­sion, arms smug­gling, and any­thing that any other Fifth Col­umn in his­tory had accom­plished. It remained only for the Wehrma­cht to give von Faupel’s instru­ment the tests which would deter­mine whether the Aus­lands Falange had been worth all the trou­ble its orga­ni­za­tion had entailed. The answer was soon pro­vided by a num­ber of Falangists—among them one Jose del Castano.”

Del Cas­tano was the pri­mary Falange orga­nizer in the Philip­pines. (Recall that the Philip­pines had been a Span­ish colony before the Spanish-American war.) Del Cas­tano had orga­nized the Falangists in the Philip­pines into a very effec­tive Fifth Col­umn, much of whose mem­ber­ship had enlisted in the Philip­pine Civil­ian Emer­gency Admin­is­tra­tion, charged with dis­pens­ing first aid and other emer­gency ser­vices in time of war. Dur­ing the Japan­ese attack in 1941, del Castano’s agents went to work. Chase describes what hap­pened on pages 46 and 47:

“ . . . Toward the end of Novem­ber, Jose del Cas­tano made a thor­ough check-up on the work of the Falange Exte­rior in the Philip­pines. He sent a coded report to Madrid, via prepa­ra­tions taken by his Falanges. On Decem­ber 7, Spain’s Japan­ese Axis part­ner bombed Hawaii and the Philip­pines. . . In Manila, after the shock of the first attack, the peo­ple looked to the gov­ern­ment, to the Army, to the Civil­ian Emer­gency Admin­is­tra­tion, for guid­ance. In most cases, the aver­age Fil­ipino turned to the C.E.A.—under ordi­nary cir­cum­stances, the proper thing to do. But on Decem­ber 7, 1941, the C.E.A. was so shot through with Falangis­tas as to be the foun­da­tion of the Axis Fifth Col­umn in the city. . . On Decem­ber 29, the Japan­ese air forces staged their first great raid over the city of Manila. For three hours the Jap planes rained bombs on the forts along the bay, the docks, and the homes of the poorer Fil­ipinos. Then the planes flew off. But some­thing had hap­pened dur­ing the bom­bard­ment. The civil­ian defense orga­ni­za­tions seemed to have bro­ken down com­pletely. War­dens were receiv­ing orders to be every­where except the places where they were needed most. Stretcher-bearers were drop­ping like flies with bul­lets in their backs. Streams of con­fus­ing and con­flict­ing orders had most C.E.A. work­ers run­ning around in crazy circles.”

On page 47, Chase also notes that the Falangis­tas spread wild rumors to under­mine the will to resist the Japan­ese invaders, rumors that were all the more potent because they orig­i­nated with per­son­nel within the Emer­gency Administration.

“Wild rumors spread like hur­ri­canes through the city—rumors the char­ac­ter of which had already become famil­iar in all lands invaded by the Nazis in Europe: MacArthur had fled to Wash­ing­ton. Que­zon had gone over to the Japs. The entire Amer­i­can Air Force had been destroyed. The Amer­i­can Army had received orders to shoot all Catholics and imprison all Fil­ipinos. Henry Mor­gen­thau had per­son­ally req­ui­si­tioned all the funds in the Philip­pine National Trea­sury. Ad infini­tum. There was some­thing offi­cial about these rumors, some­thing had been added that made even level-headed cit­i­zens give them cre­dence. For these rumors were not being spread by obscure Japan­ese spies: they orig­i­nated directly from Civil­ian Emer­gency Head­quar­ters, from the lips of the hard-working air-raid war­dens who had been so dili­gent about tack­ing up the posters bear­ing the ten emer­gency point­ers for the cit­i­zen. ‘Get your facts straight from C.E.A.’ . . .”

Com­pare this with some of the wild rumor-mongering that occurred in the wake of 9/11—controlled demo­li­tion of the World Trade Cen­ter, cruise mis­sile hit the Pen­ta­gon, etc.

For the con­tem­po­rary reader, it is vital to remem­ber that Latin Amer­i­can (and the Philip­pines) were never “de-Falangized.” Franco and his fas­cists remained in power in Spain until 1975. Por­tu­gal remained under the con­trol of the fas­cist dic­ta­tor Salazar for decades after the war. The deci­sive influ­ence of Latin Amer­i­can fas­cists in the decades fol­low­ing the war (includ­ing their inti­mate col­lab­o­ra­tion with ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence) is a mat­ter of pub­lic record. The legacy of the Falange Exte­rior is very much with us today.