The Red Terror of General Franco's reign.

[Dave7]

Just finished a fiction novel but based on fact.
I have googled this to double check.
Under Franco's reign babies of non active supporter parents were taken by various means and given to parents that supported him.
300,000 cases of that.
At least 50,000 people murdered.
7,000 priests, clerics and other religious people murdered..... including some priests being crucified.
I had no idea it was so bad during that period.
I am sure there were attrocities from 'the other side'........this IS NOT a political thread

 

[Cycleops]

His rein lasted until 1975. Something that all Spanish people should be ashamed of.

 

[Globalti]

We hear that Franco's was a time of terror but apart from the inevitable suppression of any regional loyalties, Basque, Catalan, Andaluz, etc. we don't hear about the more "domestic" atrocities he committed.

 

[viniga]

All civil wars are brutal and this was certainly no exception. They are still digging up the bodies of the disappeared and i believe it still has a huge impact on Spanish politics and psyche. Antony Beevors work is accessible and a good place to go next if interested in the history. What does make this civil conflict unique is the international angle and link to the socialist movement. There is a statue of La Passionara in Glasgow down on the Clyde near where the Glasgow member of the international brigade left to join the fight. There is still an annual gathering (of course sadly the members of those brigades have long since passed).

 

[classic33]

Just finished a fiction novel but based on fact.
I have googled this to double check.
Under Franco's reign babies of non active supporter parents were taken by various means and given to parents that supported him.
300,000 cases of that.
At least 50,000 people murdered.
7,000 priests, clerics and other religious people murdered..... including some priests being crucified.
I had no idea it was so bad during that period.
I am sure there were attrocities from 'the other side'........this IS NOT a political thread

How close did the book, fiction, mirror real life?

 

[Dave7]

How close did the book, fiction, mirror real life?

It might surprise you to know that I wasn't actually there so cannot say for certain**.
The book didn't dwell on it.........just the fact that the baby theft culture carried on into our century. In digging into a modern case the main character was taken back to its origin.
**as I said, I googled it and the figures in the book seem to be correct.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

As a side-show

Just finished a fiction novel but based on fact.
I have googled this to double check.
Under Franco's reign babies of non active supporter parents were taken by various means and given to parents that supported him.
300,000 cases of that.
At least 50,000 people murdered.
7,000 priests, clerics and other religious people murdered..... including some priests being crucified.
I had no idea it was so bad during that period.
I am sure there were attrocities from 'the other side'........this IS NOT a political thread

As an addition to the book you've just read, look at a critical review of Picasso's Guernica and, read Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.

 

[alicat]

Something that all Spanish people should be ashamed of.

What prompts you to make such a sweeping statement, @cyclops? We have Spanish people on here and I wish them no harm.

 

[Cycleops]

Nor do I, so perhaps they could tell us why it took so long to get rid of Franco after the fall of the last bastion of fascism some thirty years earlier.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

His rein lasted until 1975. Something that all Spanish people should be ashamed of.

What's this "sins of the fathers" nonsense. Why should anyone, who wasn't complicit, be ashamed of an historic event?

The Germans and South Africans are Russians and I imagine Rwandians are all struggling with the same taint. Why should they?

 

[Globalti]

Nor do I, so perhaps they could tell us why it took so long to get rid of Franco after the fall of the last bastion of fascism some thirty years earlier.

Franco's Spain was a Police state with the supporting cast of the Roman Catholic church and Opus Dei. Any dissent was stamped out. To quote just one paragraph of many to this effect on Wikipedia:

"The Spanish State was authoritarian: non-government trade unions and all political opponents across the political spectrum were either suppressed or controlled by all means, including police repression. Most country towns and rural areas were patrolled by pairs of Guardia Civil, a military police for civilians, which functioned as a chief means of social control. Larger cities, and capitals, were mostly under the heavily armed Policía Armada, commonly called grises due to their grey uniforms."

I can well remember the fear of the Guardia Civil from childhood holidays in Spain in the 60s.

 

[raleighnut]

What's all this 'red menace' about Franco, he was a right wing Fascist .

 

[Drago]

I seem to recall the the fascist forces of Nazi germany and Mussolini's fascist Italian military helped Franco overthrow the second democratic republic during the civil war. He's so right wing he makes Baronet Mosely look moderate.

 

[viniga]

Nor do I, so perhaps they could tell us why it took so long to get rid of Franco after the fall of the last bastion of fascism some thirty years earlier.

Perhaps it's complicated?

The control of the population after the end of the official conflict was brutal and authoritarian as is so often the cases with dictatorships. The 'winners' from varied parts of the conservative right wanted to maintain the new status-quo. There was still resistance from the left and separatist factions that continued for many years especially in the border regions with France. But it was a very brave person who stood up to Franco and you and your family paid with social stigma, your liberty if not your life.

I could also pose the question 'why did the British (we) prevent supplies and aid to the Republic and watch whilst Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin all tried out their new weapons and ways of waging war (practice for WW2) and in part through our inaction allow Franco to establish a dictatorship in the first place...?'

It's complicated...

 

[Blue Hills]

I seem to recall the the fascist forces of Nazi germany and Mussolini's fascist Italian military helped Franco overthrow the second democratic republic during the civil war. He's so right wing he makes Baronet Mosely look moderate.

Yes, Mussolini used it as target practice to train troops and test equipment.
Then later declared war on more folk of course.
Then a common idea in Italy was that Italy was a victim of WW2.

On the priests etc referred to above I had the idea that a lot of violence towards them came from the left.
But then as has also been referred to above, the Catholic church's role in the whole nasty affair wasn't wildly different to Hitler's and Mussolini's so it's understandable that it and its agents/priests were despised by many.

By the by I used to know a Spanish chap in London through cycling.
We rode together a bit.
He was of a certain age and seemed well educated.
Had of course grown up through Franco's time.
I don't know if this is a measure of how turned in itself Spain was but he once told me had never heard of Winston Churchill.
I thought he was pulling my leg.
I seem to remember that he may eventually have hazarded a guess that he'd been a US President.