Foreign relations of Vichy France policy of keeping 2 million French prisoners of war in Germany, effectively as hostages. Although Vichy France was nominally in control of all of France--apart from Alsace Lorraine--in practice the Germans controlled over half of the country, including the northern and western coasts, the industrial northeast, and the Paris region. The Petain government in Vichy controlled the rest until October 1942, when Germany took it all over. At that point, the Vichy regime became entirely a puppet of the German occupiers. Germany wanted food, minerals, and industrial productions, as well as volunteers to work in German factories. Vichy was allowed
Portugal during World War II islands and over the wolfram (tungsten) trade. At the outbreak of World War II, Portugal was ruled by António de Oliveira Salazar, the man who in 1933 had founded the "Estado Novo" ("New State"), the corporatist authoritarian government that ruled Portugal until 1974. Salazar's dislike of the Nazi regime in Germany and its imperial ambitions was tempered only by his view of the German Reich as a bastion against the spread of communism. He had favoured the Spanish nationalist cause, fearing a communist invasion of Portugal, yet he was uneasy at the prospect of a Spanish government bolstered by strong