"The Spanish State under Francisco Franco did not officially join the Axis Powers during World War II, although Franco wrote to Hitler offering to join the war on 19 June 1940. Franco's regime supplied Germany with the Blue Division to fight specifically on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, in recognition of the heavy assistance Spain had received from Germany and Italy in the Spanish Civil War. Despite ideological sympathy and allowing volunteers to serve on the Eastern Front, Franco later stationed field armies in the Pyrenees to deter a German occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish policy frustrated Axis proposals that would have encouraged Franco to take British-controlled Gibraltar. Franco considered joining the war and invading Gibraltar in 1940 after the Fall of France, but knew his armed forces would not be able to defend the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco from a British attack."