The participation of Galicia (Spain) in World War II was marked by its location on Spain's Atlantic coast [1] and its mines. Despite the neutrality of Spain during World War II, the country was affected due to its strategic location. The tungsten mines, such as the Mines of San Fins, were used for the Axis war industry. Extraction and transport of the mineral was carried out by front companies, such as the Finance and Industrial Corporation (Galician: Sociedade Financeira e Industrial). [2]
Hundreds of Galicians traveled to fight with the Germans on the Eastern Front, in the Blue Division. On the other side, former republican combatants fought with the allies, many of them having been confined in French concentration camps.
Raw materials were vital in economic warfare. Tungsten was one of those used to manufacture armaments. Before the war, the main producers were China (36%), Burma (17%) and the United States of America (11%). During the war, British sea power gave the Allied powers access to these countries, and denied them to the Axis powers. Germany had to seek sources in Europe. Spain and Portugal were the only producers, with Galicia accounting for almost 70% of Spanish reserves. This made it the focus of the Wolfram Crisis.
Year | Quantity (t) | Value in millions of pesetas |
---|---|---|
1939 | 76 | 0,755 |
1940 | 563 | 6,985 |
1941 | 156 | 3,623 |
1942 | 159 | 18,751 |
1943 | 1396 | 241,054 |
1944 | 2502 | 406,455 |
1945 | 1662 | 246,221 |
In 1939, the Germans built a 112-metre-high (367 ft) aerial, in Arneiro in the municipality of Cospeito. It carried the communications of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, with a radius of one thousand miles (1,600 km). The station had two repeating lower and auxiliary buildings. [3]
It formed part of a German network of nineteen stations. The Allies' sabotage plans were not carried out, since Spain was treated as a neutral country. The Lorenz beam was also eventually used by the British and Americans. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Galicia is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra.
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country located in Southwestern Europe, with parts of its territory in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and Africa. It is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union member state. Spanning across the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla in Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Seville, Málaga, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Bilbao.
In Spain, an autonomous community is the first sub-national level of political and administrative division, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy of the nationalities and regions that make up Spain.
Pontevedra is a city in the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. It is the capital of both the Comarca and Province of Pontevedra, and the capital of the Rías Baixas. It is also the capital of its own municipality which is often considered an extension of the actual city.
The Kingdom of León was an independent kingdom situated in the northwest region of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded in 910 when the Christian princes of Asturias along the northern coast of the peninsula shifted their capital from Oviedo to the city of León. The kings of León fought civil wars, wars against neighbouring kingdoms, and campaigns to repel invasions by both the Moors and the Vikings, all in order to protect their kingdom's changing fortunes.
María Rosalía Rita de Castro, was a Galician poet and novelist, considered one of the most important figures of the 19th-century Spanish literature and modern lyricism. Widely regarded as the greatest Galician cultural icon, she was a leading figure in the emergence of the literary Galician language. Through her work, she projected multiple emotions, including the yearning for the celebration of Galician identity and culture, and female empowerment. She is credited with challenging the traditional female writer archetype.
The Galician Nationalist Bloc is a political party from Galicia, formed with the merger of a series of left-wing Galician nationalist parties. It is self-defined as a "patriotic front".
A Coruña is a city and municipality in Galicia, Spain. It is Galicia's second largest city, behind Vigo. The city is the provincial capital of the province of A Coruña, having also served as political capital of the Kingdom of Galicia from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and as a regional administrative centre between 1833 and 1982.
Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but only a relative few nations remained neutral to the end. The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers; the Soviet Union mobilised 34 million men and women, Germany 18 million, the U.S 16 million, Japan 9 million, and Great Britain 6 million. It is estimated that in total, 126 million people were mobilised during the war. It is generally estimated that a total of 72 million people died, with the lowest estimate being 40 million dead and the highest estimate being 90 million dead. The leading Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Italy; while the British Empire, the United States, the Soviet Union and China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.
The Kingdom of Galicia was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which at its territorial zenith occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded by the Suebic king Hermeric in 409, with its capital established in Braga. It was the first kingdom that officially adopted Catholicism. In 449, it minted its own currency. In 585, it became a part of the Visigothic Kingdom. In the 8th century, Galicia became a part of the newly founded Christian Kingdom of Asturias, which later became the Kingdom of León, while occasionally achieving independence under the authority of its own kings. Compostela became the capital of Galicia in the 11th century, while the independence of Portugal (1128) determined its southern boundary. The accession of Castilian King Ferdinand III to the Leonese kingdom in 1230 brought Galicia under the control of the Crown of Castile.
The Statute of Autonomy of Galicia of 1981 is the current basic institutional norm of Galicia. The Galician Government, Parliament and High Court of Galicia are regulated by it.
La Voz de Galicia is a Spanish daily newspaper owned by the Corporación Voz de Galicia. La Voz is highest circulation newspaper in Galicia and the eighth-highest circulation general-interest daily newspaper in Spain. It is written primarily in Spanish with Galician used in the cultural and opinion sections.
During World War II, the Spanish State under Francisco Franco espoused neutrality as its official wartime policy. This neutrality wavered at times, and "strict neutrality" gave way to "non-belligerence" after the Fall of France in June 1940. Franco wrote to Adolf Hitler offering to join the war on 19 June 1940 in exchange for help building Spain's colonial empire. Later in the same year Franco met with Hitler in Hendaye to discuss Spain's possible accession to the Axis Powers. The meeting went nowhere, but Franco did help the Axis—whose members Italy and Germany had supported him during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)—in various ways.
El Bierzo is a comarca in the province of León, Spain. Its capital is the town of Ponferrada. Other major towns are Bembibre and Villafranca del Bierzo, the historical capital.
The neutral powers were countries that remained neutral during World War II. Some of these countries had large colonies abroad or had great economic power. Spain had just been through its civil war, which ended on 1 April 1939 —a war that involved several countries that subsequently participated in World War II.
Italy–Spain relations are the interstate relations between Italy and Spain. Both countries established diplomatic relations some time after the unification of Italy in 1860.
The foreign relations of Third Reich were characterized by the territorial expansionist ambitions of Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler and the promotion of the ideologies of anti-communism and antisemitism within Germany and its conquered territories. The Nazi regime oversaw Germany's rise as a militarist world power from the state of humiliation and disempowerment it had experienced following its defeat in World War I. From the late 1930s to its defeat in 1945, Germany was the most formidable of the Axis powers - a military alliance between Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and their allies and puppet states.
Sindicato Labrego Galego-Comisións Labregas is a Galician farmers' and breeders' union centered on family farms and small peasants.
The Wolfram Crisis was a diplomatic conflict during World War II between Francoist Spain and the Allied powers, which sought to block Spanish exports of tungsten ore to Nazi Germany. "Wolfram" is an alternate name for tungsten, a strategic material used in anti-tank weapons and machine tools. Most of the wolframite mines in Europe, such as the Barruecopardo mine, are in northwestern Spain and northern Portugal.
The historic centre of Pontevedra (Spain) is the oldest part of the city. It is the second most important old town in Galicia after Santiago de Compostela, and was declared a historic-artistic complex on 23 February 1951.