Mussolini’s response to appeals for armed assistance from the Spanish insurgents following their failed military coup of 17–18 July 1936, which precipitated the civil war in Spain, was initially cautious. Only when he had assured himself, on the basis of reports from [Fascist] diplomats, that neither France nor Britain nor Soviet Russia intended to intervene did [this Fascist] dictator give the green light, on 27 July, for the dispatch of aircraft to assist in the airlift of pro-rebel Spanish Moroccan forces to the Spanish mainland and arms and munitions to those fighting in Spain.
[…]
While sharing common ideological concerns over the Spanish conflict with [Fascist] Italy, the [Third Reich] during its course invested less in terms of military support for Franco both in terms of the number of personnel involved in Spain and in armaments supplied. In this connection, it has been variously estimated that the total cost of [Fascist] Italian war material amounted to between 6 billion and 8.5 billion lire (£64-£95 million) while for [the Third Reich] the cost is variously estimated at between 412 million and 540 million reichmarks (£35 million and £46 million).²⁶
In Berlin this greater commitment on the part of the Italians was recognized and in German eyes justified [Fascist] Italy’s strategic interests in the civil war. As the [Reich’s] Foreign Minister, Baron Constantin von Neurath noted, in early December 1936: ‘we recognize that Italian interests in Spain go further than ours, if only for geographic reasons’.²⁷
As early as 14 August the [Reich’s] Foreign Ministry had been advised that a victory for communism in Spain was ‘highly undesirable’ because the [Fascist] Italians believed that ‘it would finally result in strengthening the position of France and Russia in the Mediterranean at the expense of Italy’.²⁸ [The Third Reich’s] recognition of [Rome’s] greater strategic interest was communicated to the Italians on a number of occasions.
On 23 September 1936 Hans Frank, German Minister of Justice, reassured Mussolini personally that [the Third Reich] was giving aid to Franco ‘solely because of solidarity in the field of political ideas’ and that it had ‘neither interests nor aims in the Mediterranean’. According to Frank, Hitler was anxious that the Duce should know that he regarded the Mediterranean as ‘a purely Italian sea. Italy has a right to positions of privilege and control in the Mediterranean. The interests of the Germans are turned towards the Baltic which is their Mediterranean’.²⁹
When Hitler saw Ciano at Berchtesgaden on 24 October 1936 he declared that in Spain ‘Italians and Germans have together dug the first trench against Bolshevism’ and assured him that as far as he was concerned the Mediterranean was an Italian sea and that any future modification of the Mediterranean balance of power ‘must be in Italy’s favour’.³⁰
Almost a year later, on the occasion of Mussolini’s visit to see Hitler in Berlin in September 1937, it was agreed that with regard to Spain ‘the interests and potentialities of Italy will have due preference’ and, quite generally, [Fascist] Italy would not ‘be impeded by Germany in the Mediterranean’. In return, ‘the special German interests in Austria would not be impaired by Italy’.³¹
It suited [Berlin’s] interests at this point to concede priority in the Mediterranean to [Fascist] Italy because as Hitler recognized there was a growing Anglo-Italian rivalry in the Mediterranean[.] He told his military leaders at the Hossbach Conference of 5 November 1937 that ‘Italy — who under the spell of her history, driven by necessity and led by a genius — was expanding her power position, and thus was coming more and more into conflict with British interests’.³²
In supporting Franco by the commitment of military personnel [Fascist] Italy far outdid their German collaborators. Throughout the duration of the civil war more than 16,000 Germans helped the Nationalist forces, although the maximum in Spain at any one time was 10,000. These forces included the Condor Legion dispatched in December 1936, which consisted of 5,000 tank and air personnel.
At their maximum, [Fascist] Italian forces in Spain numbered between 40,000 and 50,000 troops, including air personnel, though 80,000 actually went to Spain. [Fascist] German casualties were very slight, amounting to no more than 300 dead. [Fascist] Italian losses were far heavier with around 4,000 dead and 11,000-12,000 wounded.³³
The [Fascist] Germans were content to support this greater Italian commitment while deliberately limiting their own contribution not, as has been claimed by some historians,³⁴ in order to prolong the conflict and thereby keep alive the tensions engendered by it as a distraction from [the Reich’s] political and military expansion in central and eastern Europe, but because they were not prepared to run the risk of provoking a general conflagration by sending combat troops into the Spanish arena.
Admittedly, Hitler told his military leaders at the Hossbach Conference that Germany was more interested in a continuation of the war with all the tensions arising from it between Italy and France in the Mediterranean.³⁵ However, he was convinced that the dispatch of a large number of [Wehrmacht] troops to Spain would risk a general conflagration.
As a result[,] when in December 1936, Mussolini began to substantially increase his military commitment to Franco — within three months 50,000 [Regio Esercito] troops were sent to Spain — the [Third Reich was] more circumspect. The Foreign Ministry anxious to avoid further international complications, if not odium, took the view that if [Fascist] Italy considered intervention necessary and possible then ‘let her intervene, although there are also considerable objections even against this’ but Germany ‘should not permit herself to be drawn deeper into the Spanish enterprise’.³⁶
Neurath, Field Marshal Werner Von Blomberg, the German War Minister, and Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Chief of the Naval High Command (OKM — Oberkommando der Marine), also feared being drawn into a protracted war not vital to [Reich] interests and opposed any deployment of [Wehrmacht] troops in Spain. Hitler agreed, confiding to his generals on 21 December that he would not emulate Mussolini by sending large numbers of [Wehrmacht] troops to Spain.
(Emphasis added. Click here for more.)
[Berlin’s] decision to limit German intervention was reinforced two days later by the warning of Yvon Delbos, French Foreign Minister, that if Germany sent further troop transports, in addition to the Condor Legion, such action would ‘necessarily lead to war’. This underlined the risk that large scale German intervention would provoke a hostile anti[fascist] coalition comprising Soviet Russia and the western democracies, the key objective of Soviet policy in Spain. However, by limiting intervention[,] communist influence[] could be neutralised without unduly antagonizing Britain and France.³⁷
[…]
In the diplomatic sphere there was considerable consultation and coordination throughout the civil war between [Fascism’s] two foreign ministries and their various representatives including those who served on the Non-Intervention Committee in London. Admittedly, the [Fascist] governments did not coordinate their responses to the Anglo-French exchange of notes of 15 August 1936 which formed the basis of the Non-Intervention Agreement with regard to the civil war in Spain and [the Third Reich] chose to delay its membership of the Non-Intervention Committee beyond [Fascist] Italy’s acceptance.
But thereafter, there was a quite remarkable degree of cooperation between the two powers within the Committee where [Fascist] Italy was represented, throughout the Spanish conflict, by their Ambassador at London, Dino Grandi, and [the Third Reich] by Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop, until his elevation as Foreign Minister in early 1938, and thereafter by his successor, Herbert von Dirksen.
Although both Rome and Berlin were extremely sceptical not to say disdainful of the work of the Non-Intervention Committee, it suited [Fascist] purposes to maintain their membership of it and to participate in its work because, as the [Reich’s] Foreign Ministry acknowledged as late as December 1938, it provided an instrument for giving Franco diplomatic support while tying down French and British policy with regard to Spain.⁶⁴ Throughout its existence, as Christian Leitz has observed, [the Third Reich] and [Fascist] Italy had reacted in almost identical fashion to the efforts of the Committee, […] rarely letting it disturb their interventionist activities.⁶⁵
(Emphasis added.)
Thanks: I was oblivious to any fascist Italian involvement.
Because nazi germany was a more obvious party and mussolini was more beloved in the west. Non-leftist even claimed that he wasnt as bad as hitler because he didnt kill jews (he did).