Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-7559950-20130911012534/@comment-32656-20131010080519

Rdv, the overlap in claims bit was not at all the case - the two claims didn't overlap.

Franco did not join the war simply because Spain, as a whole, couldn't manage or afford it in any sense. He more or less outright refused to join when Hitler asked, and Hitler did not consider it worth making him do it. Better to have a "neutral" in your back pocket than to have an ally you need to station troops in so that they don't collapse. Would have been like Napoleon and Spain all over again had he tried.

Yes an "offer" for the Soviets to join the Axis was floated once. Simply would not have been accepted, though. For the Germans, it was an attempt to lull them into complacency, and the Soviet response was to demand a ton of territory. Had the Germans agreed to it, they'd have screwed themselves - which is more or less why Stalin made the demand.

Portugal was nationalist at the time. There is a difference, there.

No way they merge.

Portugal was very mildly pro-Allies, eventually letting them set up air bases in the Azores and other Atlantic islands.