Goebbels’ man in Franco’s Spain – History Archives

After the end of the Spanish Civil War, relations between Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain were at a critical point. Franco owed his victory to the Nazis, at the same time that the new Spanish regime owed a considerable sum of money to Germany. But beyond economic considerations, the German irruption had reached many more areas, and one of them was the press. Paradoxically, one of the most influential German agents in postwar Spain was going to be Josef Hans Lazar, a pro-Nazi Jew no less.

the beginnings

Josef Hans Lazar, of Austrian origin, was born in Istanbul in 1895. The son of an Austro-Hungarian diplomat stationed in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, he dedicated himself to journalism and in his maturity would combine this facet with that of a diplomat. He even married a Romanian aristocrat, Baroness Elena Petrino Borkowska, traveling as a freelance journalist through several Balkan countries. Despite being Jewish, Lazar enthusiastically embraced Nazism after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938. His Hebrew origins, which he kept well hidden, did not pose any problem for him under the new regime.

Joseph Goebbels, the almighty Minister of Propaganda, even chose him to go to Franco’s Spain with the specific mission of organizing a great news service. He arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in September 1938, settling in a flat in the center of Burgos, then the seat of the Francoist government. At that time the Spanish civil war was leaning in favor of Franco’s Army, while the forces of the Republic used up their last cartridges. Good winds were also blowing for Germany: since 1936 it had considerably improved its position within Franco’s Spain.

Lazar had little trouble organizing his network, although he was officially a correspondent for the Nazi Transocean news agency. He also had an important asset in his favor: in April 1938 the Press Law had been approved in the Francoist area, by which journalism practically became an institution at the service of the State. In turn, the state became the main arbiter of journalism. With this law, which had been promoted by Ramón Serrano Suñer -minister of the interior and brother-in-law of Francisco Franco-, the figure of a General Director of the Press was created under the orders of the government and in charge of controlling everything related to the field. journalistic.

In the years to come, Lazar was going to know how to take advantage of the advantages that this new situation offered him. The end of the conflict, however, was also going to bring important changes to the German strategy.

Lazar, the most influential Nazi in Madrid

On April 1, 1939, the Civil War ended with the victory of the Francoists. The victorious army entered the besieged capital, taking over the old installations of the republican government.

At that time, Lazar moved to Madrid, where he was going to establish his residence, and he did not move to just any house: he settled in nothing less than a large palace located on Paseo de la Castellana that had been owned by the Hohenlohe family. He also moved his wife to the capital. During the following years, the marriage spent large sums of money on the decoration of that mansion, where luxuries reigned as well as numerous pieces of Gothic and Byzantine art.

The German embassy also moved to Madrid, where its main departments were reorganized -propaganda, espionage, counter-espionage-, and in which Lazar was going to find a preferential place. He became the embassy’s press attaché at a time when Germany needed to increase its influence abroad: on September 1, the German armed forces invaded Poland, thus starting World War II. Spain declared itself neutral in the conflict, despite the open Nazi sympathies of the Franco regime.

Thus, having become the main person in charge of the propaganda of the Third Reich in Spain and in turn Goebbels’ right-hand man in the Iberian country, it did not take long for him to begin to establish contacts with the great newspapers of the time. In the capital the evening paper Information, under the direction of the pro-Nazi Falangist Víctor de la Serna, became the main spokesman for the German embassy. The newspaper Up, the official organ of FET and las JONS, openly sympathized with Germany’s positions. This also extended to the other newspapers belonging to the “Movement” Press Chain, under the direct control of the single party of the dictatorship.

Lazar knew how to win over the hierarchs of the regime and his palace became the scene of sumptuous parties attended by important Francoist leaders. He went to restaurants in Madrid with such frequency that he would end up becoming a well-known figure. He became a regular customer of the Horcher restaurant, where he used to go along with other Nazi agents. This high standard of living that he ostentatiously exhibited contrasted with the poverty that reigned in that Spain broken by the war, which was struggling to survive.

The degree of complicity that Lazar demonstrated with the Francoist hierarchs was such that on one occasion he held a party at his house to congratulate the new Undersecretary for Press and Propaganda…one day before the appointment was made public. His friendship with José María Alfaro, the Undersecretary of Press and Propaganda, allowed him access to many of the regime’s journalists. With this network of contacts and influences he was able to get Nazi news and propaganda prominently featured in Spanish newspapers, which officially maintained a neutral stance.

This situation changed considerably when in June 1940 the Germans completed their conquest of Western Europe, inflicting a humiliating defeat on France and leaving Britain badly wounded. At that time the Spanish press adopted a determined Germanophile tone, faced with the prospect that the war would conclude in a matter of weeks with a total victory for Hitler.

an alienated press

By 1941 the image of Germany in Spain was at its peak, at the same time that Nazi agents moved freely through the peninsular territory. The conflict seemed to be developing in favor of Hitler’s designs, and although the United Kingdom continued to resist, it seemed doomed to have to sign a peace agreement. Lazar had consolidated his position until he became, for many, the true forger of the Spanish press, a description that was perhaps not entirely exaggerated.

Lazar, who had numerous economic funds under his control, managed to have both politicians and journalists of the regime on his payroll, managing to reach where others could not. For the British embassy, ​​​​which was well aware of his covert activities, on more than one occasion it was more than a headache. On the other hand, the all-powerful German press attaché had managed to get the recently created news agency EFE to broadcast endless information and propaganda from German news agencies. And as if that were not enough, he exerted a great influence on the direction of EFE, to the point that the director of the agency –Vicente Gállego– there was a time when he was no more than a merely instrumental figure. But Nazi influence also came through other means.

From the German embassy they sponsored and organized trips for journalists to the territory controlled by the Nazis. For example, in the summer of 1940, shortly after the German victory on the Western Front, Lazar organized a trip for Spanish journalists to Germany, where they visited Berlin and other cities, as well as the modern facilities of the Nazi press, etc. Within this group were, among others, Víctor de la Serna – director of Information– and Xavier de Echarri – director of Up–, already converted into two ardent pro-Nazis.

Among the Francoist leaders who collaborated with Lazar, some important figures stand out, such as Juan Aparicio and Federico de Urrutia. The former was appointed National Press Delegate after the government crisis in May 1941. It did not take him long to establish a close friendship with Josef Hans Lazar, and a reflection of his relationship with the German press attaché is the fact that some author considered “one of the creatures of Lazar. That the German press attache managed to change his political relations and continue to maintain his influence, despite the internal Spanish crises, shows to what extent his power was omnipresent. For his part, Federico de Urrutia was the provincial delegate for Propaganda in Madrid, a position from which he carried out an outstanding activity in favor of Nazism and the cause of Germany.

In 1942, by the time Germany was already at war with the United States and the Soviet Union, it launched the so-called “Great Plan”. This would have consisted of the mobilization of up to half a million collaborators – mostly “old shirts” Phalangists – who helped in the Nazi propaganda effort. Many of these collaborators were postal and Telefónica officials, who would have helped distribute German propaganda as well as sabotage Allied propaganda. Nazi propaganda expanded with the publication of numerous magazines edited in Spain, and also with the distribution of propaganda magazines edited in Germany itself, such as Signal either Adlervery popular among the Spanish public of the time.

The Church was the next realm that came into Lazar’s range. He subsidized hundreds – or perhaps thousands – of parish sheets throughout the country that automatically became organs of Nazi Germany in Spanish churches. And he also had the collaboration of members of the Catholic sectors, who proceeded to distribute Nazi propaganda in the streets and parishes.

All this pressure, however, came at a cost. Lazar was very badly seen by an important part of the members of the German colony in Spain, who did not share neither the degree nor the tone that Nazi propaganda had reached. Among the Allies, especially the ambassadors of Great Britain and the United States, a poisonous climate prevailed before the powerful German press attaché and in fact they did not skimp on adjectives to describe him in their reports to London or Washington. But as if that were not enough, distrust also prevailed among the Nazi leaders in Spain.

His luxurious way of life, his fondness for works of art, his drug addiction and his mysterious private life made him a tremendously suspicious person for the dark Paul Winzer, the head of the Gestapo in Spain. Winzer, apparently suspicious of his non-Aryan origins, sent a number of negative reports to his SS superiors. Rumors circulated among Lazar’s subordinates at the embassy about his…