information on the discovery of a German Submarine in the waters North of Ibiza.

The Sun God said:
I added that Franco is widely said to have really disliked Ibiza and had nothing to do with it, which may be another reason why the centralised authorities perhaps weren't that interested in this accident? (again, am speculating wildly here) which perhaps explains why the island was freer to some extent than elsewhere, perhaps the kind of place you could hide without too much interest?
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According to a friend of mine who was born in Ibiza Formentera was used as a prison camp for Republicans and Republican sympathisers/collaborators and there were two atrocities on the island of Ibiza itself. The religious people in the citadel of D'alt Villa were executed and a large number of males in San Antonio Town were executed in revenge for hiding or helping Republicans. Apparently details are sketchy because few if any records were kept and most witnesses are understandably deceased by now.
 
The Sun God said:
My history is a bit rusty but I do remember reading that until around '43 the U-boats were causing serious disruption in the Atlantic, sinking a lot of supply ships but the development of depth charges was a gamechanger for the Allies.
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Interesting side note: In the book Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare it claims that in late 1943 the British Special Operations Executive invented a weapon codenamed 'Hedgehog'. It was basically a string of depth charges in powerfully magnetised casings and this would partially wrap itself around the hull of a submarine, blowing one end or the other straight off. British naval officers were either very reluctant or refused point blank to use it. Typical of the British officer class of the day they considered it extremely un-sporting. The Americans however were not so squeamish and used it to staggering success in the run up to the Battle of Midway with American Navy ships led ironically enough by the U.S.S. English sank six squadrons of Japanese submarines including the Japanese Imperial submarine flagship and taking with it the Japanese submarine master tactician who was considered by far the best in the world at his work at the time. Had they not destroyed all those subs and the afore-mentioned Admiral using a very British invention the chances are that the Battle of Midway would have been an absolute disaster for the U.S. Navy.
 
Padster said:
According to a friend of mine who was born in Ibiza Formentera was used as a prison camp for Republicans and Republican sympathisers/collaborators and there were two atrocities on the island of Ibiza itself. The religious people in the citadel of D'alt Villa were executed and a large number of males in San Antonio Town were executed in revenge for hiding or helping Republicans. Apparently details are sketchy because few if any records were kept and most witnesses are understandably deceased by now.
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Really interesting Padster. Didn’t know that! I think i read about Formentera. But unless I misunderstood i don't understand why the Nats would've executed anyone religious though? The church was widely in cahoots with the nationalists and a lot of priests and nuns were executed by the communists on the Rep side. My (Spanish) grandad fought with the Republicans but was very Catholic so he had to keep schtum to stay alive.!
 
The Sun God said:
Really interesting Padster. Didn’t know that! I think i read about Formentera. But unless I misunderstood i don't understand why the Nats would've executed anyone religious though? The church was widely in cahoots with the nationalists and a lot of priests and nuns were executed by the communists on the Rep side. My (Spanish) grandad fought with the Republicans but was very Catholic so he had to keep schtum to stay alive.!
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I don't know the reasoning behind it unless they were instrumental in hiding Republicans/collaborators. I know that Franco and Mussolini both were tolerant of religion and used it for their own ends at times and in turn Hitler was tolerant of Christianity after seeing the other two. Records are sketchy but there must have been some reason for it.
 
There was a whole bunch of nazis around cala San Vicente before, during and after the war, there was even Anita´s bar, a local nazi sympathizer: https://www.diariodeibiza.es/ibiza/2019/03/24/anita-restauradora-nazi-marina-29761098.html

Es figueral was considered a nazi refuge for years, there is still a massive German community there: https://www.periodicodeibiza.es/suc...riminal-nazi-heim-angel-negro-mauthausen.html
Ibiza was part of the nazi ratlines, and quite a few well known nazis passed through (and/or stayed for a while) on their way to South America.
As late as 1978, a nazi hiding under the assumed name of Gunter Esslen was arrested in San Rafael, where he had been hiding since the end of the war, with a whole arsenal under his house and a boat at the ready in a fishing hut in S´ila Plana:

https://elpais.com/diario/1978/02/12/espana/256086016_850215.html

here is the article translated if it shows behind the paywall:
A bank turned the money over to the alleged Nazi detainee in Ibiza
JOSEANTONIO RODRIGUEZ
Palma de Mallorca - 12 FEB 1978 - 00:00 CET
source:https://elpais.com/diario/1978/02/12/espana/256086016_850215.html
Interpol and the German police are very interested in discovering the true personality of the German subject Gunther Esslen, who was arrested last Thursday by members of the Spanish police, who found an authentic arsenal of weapons and explosives in the house that he owned in the term of San Rafael de Ibiza.
The Spanish police learned, thanks to a tip from a German resident on the island, that weapons were kept there, and after a thorough search they found two submachine guns with a telescopic sight, a pistol and three trigger pens, as well as three knives. mountain. The ammunition found amounted to six hundred cartridges of different calibers and thirteen cartridges orgas charges. The explosive material was made up of two and a hal fkilos of rubber-2, seventy percussion detonators, five fuse detonators and two large rolls of slow fuse. Also among the intervened material were two transmitters-receivers with devices for remote explosions and a megaphone. Gunther Esslen, who lived with the Peruvian subject Berta Rosario Burga Orcheffi, has lived in Ibiza for seven years, who arrived accompanied by a young German, Ruth Schwarz.Yesterday the Spanish police required the presence in Ibiza of Ruth Schwarz, who is now in Barcelona working as an interpreter in a real estate agency. She said that her former partner kept such a large number of weapons, and that the only thing she saw in him during the time she lived with him was a small pistol that she had as a yacht captain.
Esslen, before arriving in Ibiza, had owned a hotel in Switzerland, a property that he sold to move to the island. As has been known in the Spanish police media, he periodically received transfers of significant amounts that were wired to him from a German bank, and among his friends are recognized German nationalists who, following the end of the Second World War, chose Ibiza as a refuge and center of operations.
This group of Germans, belonging to secret Nazi societies, had moved to Formentera in recent months, considering that on this small island they were safer from the police pressure to which they were subjected. For two years now, the local police had been under close surveillance of the two groups of Germans currently residing on the island, the Nazis and left-wing intellectuals, suspected sympathizers of the Baader-Meinhoff gang. The intense activity of these two groups in recent weeks seems to have been the cause that alerted the Ibiza authorities to discover this important discovery located just three kilometers from the Ibizan capital.
Late yesterday, sources close to the Palma de Mallorca police declared that the journalistic information about Gunther Esslen's possible connections with German Nazi groups was unfounded. The special delegate of the DGS in the Balearic Islands described this possible connection as "pure speculation" and added that the police do not know, for now, anything about the possible political links in the case.
 
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