Spain during World War II.

So here we have the Spanish centimo, nominal - 10. The year of issue of this coin is 1945, mint: Madrid, Spain. Total circulation – 250.000.000.

Franco at first declared Spanish neutrality in the World War II. His policy changed after the fall of France in June 1940, when he approached the German leader Hitler; Franco indicated his willingness to bring Spain into the war on Germany’s side in exchange for extensive German military and economic assistance and the cession to Spain of most of France’s territorial holdings in northwest Africa.

Hitler was unable or unwilling to meet this price, and, after meeting with Franco at Hendaye, France, in October 1940. Franco’s government thenceforth remained relatively sympathetic to the Axis powers while carefully avoiding any direct diplomatic and military commitment to them. Spain’s return to a state of complete neutrality in 1943 came too late to gain favourable treatment from the ascendant Allies. Nevertheless, Franco’s wartime diplomacy, marked as it was by cold realism and careful timing, had kept his regime from being destroyed along with the Axis powers.

The most difficult period of Franco’s regime began in the aftermath of World War II, when his government was ostracized by the newly formed United Nations. He was labeled by hostile foreign opinion the “last surviving fascist dictator” and for a time appeared to be the most hated of Western heads of state; within his country, however, as many people supported him as opposed him.

His international rehabilitation was advanced further in 1953, when Spain signed a 10-year military assistance pact with the United States, which was later renewed in more limited form.