The sparks of the Spanish Civil War had not been extinguished when the conflict began to be much more serious: The Second World War. Even then, more than one emphasized the connection between the two wars. For example, Julio Álvarez del Vayo, Spain’s foreign minister, said in his book La guerra empezó en España, published in 1940: “The defeat of the Spanish Republic was the starting point of the present war.” The Spanish diplomat and politician was doing the right thing. In fact, the war of 1936-1939 advanced several components of World War II, and the Spanish conflict has been considered by many historians as an essay of world war. One of the most obvious links between these two conflicts is the thousands of refugees who fled the Pyrenees to the north. As is well known, as a result of the advance of the Francoists since 1936, the groups of exiles multiplied, especially towards the end of the war. In February 1939, after the Francoist takeover of Catalonia, thousands of fugitives of all ages and classes went into exile through the passages of Perthus, Le Boulou and La Tour de Carol.

It is estimated that about half a million people moved across the border. As for the Basques, it is usually explained in later reports that there were between 40,000 and 60,000 people. By leaving aside the debate on the exact amount of these amounts, it is completely objective and impossible to argue whether the French Government used a specific policy against all of them. The Head of Government, Daladier, and the Minister of the Interior, Sarraut, tried to Spanish as many refugees as possible, first entering the concentration camps. Numbers notwithstanding, more than 200,000 people used the Spanish option. For this reason, the French authorities had to prepare new concentration camps for them, in Agde, Bram, Rivesaltes... maintaining the repressive deviation that had been in force since 1938. Although the hardest was yet to come, the tightening of repression became increasingly evident during the reigns of Daladier and Reynaud, between 1938 and 1940. On the one hand, through a series of decrees, they sought to punish the camp of the undesirables or “perverts”; they considerably widened their range in order to crush Jews, communists and refugees from other countries. On the other hand, in addition to the proliferation of concentration camps that were opened to those who left Spain, these became increasingly severe, as the testimonies of many of those who have been there have indicated.

War Over the Treaties

In international politics, the Munich Treaties signed in September 1938 clearly explained that the British and French had bowed to Hitler. Thanks to this, the German army began to acquire the territory of the Sudeten and later took over the whole of Czechoslovakia. After a few months, following the agreement of Hitler and Stalin, when the turn of the division of Poland arrived, the Second World War began. As you know, then, France and Britain declared war on Germany. Barely 30 years had passed since the end of the First World War, and as then, in France, a general mobilization took place, directing the troops to the northern borders.

However, the “Holy Union” of 1914-1918 was not repeated at the time of 1939-1940, as right-wing extremists viewed peace with Italy and Germany favorably, as well as the conclusion of political and military treaties. De la Rocque, Ybarnegaray and others said aloud: “Better Hitler than Blum.” They preferred a far-right dictatorship—like the Nazi regime and what was supposed to be a wall against the leftists—to any coalition of authority that might have the tiniest hue of the left.

As far as the Communists were concerned, they were totally confused and connected with the agreement between Stalin and Hitler on the eve of the war. As a result, from one day to the next, the anti-fascist strategy went to shit. In fact, the main symbol and leader of Nazism, Hitler, became a friend of Stalin, the leader of their current, and as a result, they could not sustain the war against Germany. In addition, with this suspicious attitude, they gave the French authorities a great opportunity to illegally position their party. A month later it was like this: From September 27, 1939, in addition to banning the PCF, militants and leaders were included in the “infamous” camp. For this reason, the prisons and concentration camps of the hexagon began to be filled with communists.

Since the Strange War... The Lightning to the War

However, although the war was declared, for many months there was no attempt at struggle. After the French army settled on the northern borders, it stopped there without moving, under the protection of the Maginot line. This era of non-combat conflict was called the Strange War. While fighting in Poland, Norway and Finland, in France, as well as in the Netherlands, the soldiers were said to be bored waiting for the declared battle. Jean-Paul Sartre himself, when he was a soldier at the front, wrote: “There has never been such a war. I miss him because if he isn’t, what am I doing here?”

But that strange calm ended the day the Germans turned their mighty army westward on May 10, 1940. On that day the non-combative conflict became a widespread and rapid war. With the Nazi army's offensive, Blitzkrieg or the War Ray was launched and for 40 days Hitler's soldiers had enough to crush both the Belgian and French armies and bring the Reich's authority from Berlin to Hendaye.

Although the war had been planned for a long time – defensive lines such as Maginot were drawn up – this attack left the French, Belgian and British armies devastated. The offensive, which began on May 10, was about to end in mid-June. After thousands of British and French soldiers left Dunkirk, the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe rushed towards Paris. Thousands of French people were forced to flee as they could, motivated by the fear revived by the memory of 1914-1918 and stimulated by the echo of the German masses in the Netherlands. Citizens travelling from North to South and from Northeast to Southwest were accompanied by soldiers who witnessed the defeat of the French army.

Among those who escaped was the Government itself. Paul Reynaud’s team moved from Paris to Bordeaux and then, under the command of Philippe Petain, to Vichy. In fact, in addition to the change of residence, he forced the Government to change its leadership III. The military and political failures of the Republic. Petain was the victor of the First World War and returned to France leaving the Spanish Embassy in Burgos to do something like military. But not only was it too late, but the defensive tactics used in the first war were as outdated as it was; they were utterly inadequate and deficient in dealing with attacks based on German avianism and panzer divisions. After overcoming the defensive lines at the borders and inland areas, the Germans quickly moved towards Sedan, Abbeville and Paris.

The winners of 1918, defeated in 1940

Petain’s initiative was no longer military, but political. As for the warrior, everything was lost in the French hexagon, and he, in the dispute between capitulation and armistice, favoured the latter. Several politicians were willing to resist the struggle from the colonies –Pierres Mendes France, Georges Mandel...– and some soldiers –notably De Gaulle– turned to Africa or Great Britain; but Petain began to agree on an armistice with the Nazis. Thus, with the help of the Spanish ambassador, José Félix Lequerica, he had the first contacts with the German leaders to prepare for the surrender. These deals continued and soon the first results were obtained, obviously in favor of the Nazis. Hitler invited the French military authorities to taste the vinegar of revenge, which led them to sign the peace of 1940 in the railway wagon used to end World War I in 1918. But, of course, the losers of the time were now victorious.However, the worst thing was not this humiliation, but the accidental acceptance of the points in the armistice. France not only completely lost its sovereignty, but also became a prisoner and servant of the Reich, although the eccentric Vichy regime continued in the free region. So he died at the hands of Petain, Laval and Darlan III. The Republic and the fascist state in which it was born. While turning their backs on Britain, they agreed on the essence of the new regime with Hitler and his representatives, meeting on the fascist motto of Travail, Famille, Patrie.

Basques under the “Reich Right”

In this context of political-military structure and fascistization, the measures against the refugees who left Spain were aggravated. Those who left the concentration camps through the working battalions were sent to the northern borders or to the Maginot line. At the time of the German offensive, most of them were imprisoned. From Alsace or Pikardia, many deliberately took the unknown route of Mauthausen, following the fate of thousands of European captives.

In the same way, refugees far from the war front suffered the repressive final setbacks of the old French regime, which, while hitting the Nazi attacks from the north, was spreading paranoia against the communists, the Jews and all the refugees who arrived from abroad. The hatred against these groups, which the far right had sown for a long time, became law. This led to an increase in raids and arrests in all regions where refugees were present. In the Northern Basque Country, for example, Jean Ybarnegaray, a member of the Basque National Assembly, vigorously launched measures against exiles. Both in Parliament and in the media, he was the most aggressive messenger of the Francoists to carry out what the Francoist Ambassador Lequerica demanded: the arrest of the exiles. Ybarnegaray was informed when, in mid-May 1940, he proclaimed, without any shame, that the refugees would be deported to the concentration camps or to Spain. In fact, a few days later, such measures began to be taken against the exiles. In addition to the closure of the headquarters of the Ligue Internationale des Amis des Basques, they were expelled from various workplaces, such as Breguet. The most serious of these were the mass arrests carried out since 25 May. In Olorue, in the hospital of La Roseraye, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in Bayonne, in Hendaye, as well as in the villages of Landata, many refugees – around 800 – were arrested and taken to the Gurs concentration camp by the French gendarmes. The general repressive measures against the refugees demanded by Ybarnegaray since the Irun exodus of 1936 became a reality to the satisfaction of the Francoists. In fact, since the French government approved Franco’s, the latter were constantly calling for such decisions.

But there was also some failure at the basis of this repressive initiative.The effect of the Reynaud government’s inability to stop the Nazi army was to encourage the hunt against the Reds; the military defeat led to the collapse of the regime. For this reason, while the Germans made the supporters of Petain sign the armistice, the few participants of free France tried to leave the hexagon. For example, several ships used by Spanish refugees to travel to the Americas in 1939, such as the one called Massilia, welcomed around 80 deputies and high-ranking politicians in Bordeaux in order to leave the Nazis and maintain the struggle in some way from the French colonies.

Many Basques, from both the North and the South, sailed to Great Britain from other seaports – mainly from Saint-Jean-de-Luz – aboard ships such as Kelso, Tsratt and Ettrick. This happened between the 20th and 24th of June, three days before the Nazis took over the Basque Country. On the 27th, after parading from Bayonne and Biarritz, the Wehrmacht soldiers joined their Francoist allies on the border with Hendaye. As a result of the armistice, the boundary line between Vichy and the territories under German rule also divided the Northern Basque Country from top to bottom. The line from Donapaleu to Arnegi left the whole of Lapurdi and a part of Lower Navarre under Nazi rule. The eastern part of this region and Zubero, on the other hand, remained under Vichy. But at the time of the 1940s, situations were very similar on both sides of this line boundary: The collaborationism of the Vichy supporters equalled the situation of those who depended on the Nazis, and the initiatives of both the Maki and the resistance had not yet been organized. So in 1940, the Right People looked like the Right Reich.