Did the defeat of Franco's Nationalists began world war 2?

Answer 1

No, Franco's nationalists won in Spain and he ruled the country for nearly 40 years. Hitler sent German pilots to fight for Franco, called the Condor Legion, but this is not what started WWII.

WWII was ignited by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. After WWI, the German Empire was broken apart and new countries were created, and old ones liberated, where Germany had once ruled; like Poland, and Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) for example. The German state of East Prussia (now part of Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia) was cut off from the rest of Germany by what was called the Polish Corridor. A very important port city called Danzig (now called Gdansk), located in Prussia, was declared a League of Nations Free-City by the Allies at the end of WWI, and was cutoff from Germany by the Polish Corridor. After Hitler reclaimed Czechoslovakia into the German Empire by annexing the Sudetenland, and subsequently invading Prague, he began to demand that the Poles surrender the Polish Corridor to Germany, so they could gain land access to East Prussia and Danzig. The Polish refused these demands, and the Germans invaded Poland after signing a non-aggression pact with Russia called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In the agreement, Russia was granted the eastern half of Poland, whereas Germany claimed the western portion. After the Germans invaded, the Russians followed approximately two weeks later and Poland was absorbed by the dual aggressors. Britain and France declared war on Germany in response, before Russia had entered the war on Germany's side, but were of little help to their overwhelmed Polish allies.