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And here Payne draws a striking parallel: this Spanish "crusade" became "the nearest Christian equivalent to Islamist neotraditionalist revivalism in the Middle East and elsewhere."
Second, this sense of leading an embattled neotraditionalist revival—very much tied to an idealized vision of Spain's Golden Age and a desire to reestablish Spain as an imperial power—formed the basis for Franco's understanding of Hitler, especially at the peak of Germany's triumphs early in World War II:
Franco saw Hitler as an instrument of divine destiny, who would somehow right the wrongs of the deserving nations of Europe, of which Spain stood at the forefront. Since in historical hindsight this notion seems ludicrous, it should be remembered that Nazi and Fascist propaganda was very active in fostering the image of the Axis states as new kinds of powers that would break up the dominance of the Western liberal and Soviet empires. Hitler had been redrawing the map of much of central and east-central Europe, while, ever since World War I, German imperialism had made a special appeal to the Islamic world and both Italy and Germany would be very active in this regard during World War II. Such themes were expounded even more widely and vigorously by the Axis's Asian ally, Japan.
Much later, Franco and his propagandists had the effrontery to suggest that he had cunningly contrived to maintain Spain's neutrality. On the contrary: Franco was quite ready to join the Axis. What kept that from happening (apart from Hitler's calculation, for a time, that his plans would be best served by Spain's quasi-neutrality) was Franco's insistence on what Spain should get in return. The country was in terrible shape economically; moreover, Franco and his inner circle nourished fantasies of a Spanish empire in Africa, inconsistent with German priorities. Dickering over this and that deferred the decision until the certainty of Germany's defeat became clear.
Readers of Jonah Goldberg's bestseller Liberal Fascism would be well advised to follow that up with Franco and Hitler. Goldberg provides a valuable corrective to the slack use of "fascism" as an epithet—still alive and well, alas, as Chris Hedges' American Fascists demonstrates—and he is a witty writer with a sharp eye for intellectual hypocrisy. But he is too impatient to take account of evidence that doesn't fit his argument. He says almost nothing about fascism in Spain, and when he does mention Franco, it is only to exaggerate his role in saving Jews from Hitler (a subject that Payne treats carefully).
What happened in Spain does not give any credence to the notion that passionately orthodox Christianity (Catholic, evangelical, or otherwise) is inherently "fascist" in its tendencies. Indeed, Payne shows how Hitler's loathing for the church fueled his contempt for Spanish culture and the Spanish people—"he particularly detested the Spanish Catholic Church," Payne notes:
Conversely, Hitler considered Islam, with its simple theology and ethos of holy war, the best of the major religions. He believed that the highest culture ever seen in Spain was that of the Muslims, since it was so refreshingly non-Christian, and later lamented that the Muslim expansion had been checked in France. Hitler conjectured that if the Germans had been converted to Islam, rather than to decadent love-oriented Christianity, they might have conquered the world in the Middle Ages.
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