ABSTRACT
Most of the Spaniards who entered Nazi concentration camps passed first through a Stalag, though not necessarily any mentioned above. 1 The German High Command took the decision to refuse the status of prisoner of war to the Spaniards, even if they were captured in French uniform. The belief, prevalent in Spanish Republican circles for the last 50 years, that the German decision was the result of a request by Serrano Súñer to Himmler, has no documentary support whatever, and the evidence on which it rests is a demonstrable fiction. 2 The decision was undoubtedly taken on the harsh but legal basis that Germany was not at war with Spain, that these Spaniards had no passports, and that their status was stateless. The German purpose, however, in sending them to concentration camps went further: the Spaniards were dedicated antifascists who had fought the Germans and Italians in Spain, and as inveterate enemies of Nazi Germany they deserved the worst that Germany could devise. Some passed through the Neue Bremm punishment camp near Saarbrücken, where prisoners were held for only a month but subjected to a regime that broke all but the fittest: physical exercises hour after hour, and circling a pond in the 'frog position', with knees bent and hands behind the head. 3 Beyond that, Mauthausen was the logical terminus. Although Spaniards were sent to several other camps, probably nine-tenths of all Spanish prisoners were sent to Mauthausen and its various Nebenlager throughout Ostmark, the land once called Austria. 4
