The working hypothesis of the high command was that Spain's principal enemies were Britain and France, and that the main objective was to expand the North African empire at expense of French. Franco was near to taking Spain into war on Axis side in summer of 1940 and on several subsequent occasions. Franco's alleged services to Spain and the Allies as the man who heroically held back the Nazi hordes were to be a central theme of his propaganda until his death. On 29 May 1942, addressing the Women's Section of the Falange, Franco compared his regime with that of Isabel la Catolica, praising her expulsion of Jews, her totalitarian racial policy and her awareness of Spain's need for Lebensraum. It was hardly surprising, as German ambassador Eberhard von Stohrer remarked to General Krappe in October 1941, that Fuhrer should concluded that Spain was more useful to Germany under the mask of neutrality, as its only outlet from British blockade.