ABSTRACT
The official narrative of the Francoist regime, which claimed that Spain remained completely neutral during World War II, was never openly challenged from within the country until the transition to democracy that followed Franco’s death in 1975. This chapter discusses Spanish films that focused on the Blue Division and the 45,000 Spaniards who fought on the Eastern front alongside the Axis powers between 1941 and 1944. These include Boda en el infierno (Antonio Román, 1942), Embajadores en el infierno (José María Forqué, 1956), Franco, ese hombre (José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1964), and Silencio en la nieve (Gerardo Herrero, 2011). The chapter demonstrates how these films fail to dispel the enduring myth that Spain was ideologically and indeed militarily neutral during the war.
