General Franco gave list of Spanish Jews to Nazis

[rgjbloke]

On the one hand, he gave list's of Jews to the Nazi's but on the other, many Jews escaped to freedom through Spain. Convoluted politics to say the least.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/6/20/1277071294999/General-Franco-meeting-Ad-006.jpg Hitler and General Franco meet on the French side of the border on 23 October 1940. Photograph: LAPI/Roger Viollet/***** Images It was the list that would have sent thousands more Jews to their deaths in Auschwitz and other extermination camps run by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime during the second world war (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/secondworldwar), but this time the victims were to be Spaniards.


The Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, whose apologists usually claim that he protected Jews, ordered his officials to draw up a list of some 6,000 Jews living in Spain (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/spain) and include them in a secret Jewish archive.


That list was handed over to the Nazi architect of the so-called "final solution", the German SS chief Heinrich Himmler, as the two countries negotiated Spain's possible incorporation into the group of Axis powers that included Italy, according to the El País newspaper today.

Here's the link to the whole story in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/20/franco-gave-list-spanish-jews-nazis

[LineDoggie]

And yet he didn't send his Jews to the Nazis.

[deathil93]

I don't its that suprising, he was after all a Facist dictator and a tendency towards Nazisim.

[Connaught Ranger]

And lets not forget hiding behind the "Neutrality" card while sending Spanish troops, via Germany to the Russian Front.

[joemanu]

And giving support to the German submarines against the allied convoys. How ungrateful of him, after all the "unofficial" help he got from the Royal Navy (in Gibraltar!) to defeat the Republican fleet during the Civil War.

[nemowork]

I don't its that suprising, he was after all a Facist dictator and a tendency towards Nazisim. I dont know, he certainly used the Nazis and Fascists to get what he wanted, an authoritarian government in Spain to impose order but Franco always came off as too much of a pragmatist to completely fall in with any ideology.

[tattooman]

Only a correction. Spain was not neutral in wwII was Non-belligerent until late 1943.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-belligerent

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

I don't its that suprising, he was after all a Facist dictator and a tendency towards Nazisim.

Portugal was also governed by a fascist regime at the time, yet they tended towards the Allies.

[Dercius]

I dont know, he certainly used the Nazis and Fascists to get what he wanted, an authoritarian government in Spain to impose order but Franco always came off as too much of a pragmatist to completely fall in with any ideology.

x2
He gave the list but didnt handed them the jews.
He was pragmatic. At the same time spanish troops were fighting the soviets in Leningrad, Spanish Embassy staff in Budapest were forging papers and saving jews by the thousands. Over 5000 jews were saved by Spanish officials in Budapest alone . Giving them spanish passports and buying several buildings, were jews moved and which became part of the spanish embassy complex in Budapest

[zad]

x2
He gave the list but didnt handed them the jews.
He was pragmatic. At the same time spanish troops were fighting the soviets in Leningrad, Spanish Embassy staff in Budapest were forging papers and saving jews by the thousands. Over 5000 jews were saved by Spanish officials in Budapest alone . Giving them spanish passports and buying several buildings, were jews moved and which became part of the spanish embassy complex in Budapest
That was the just the ambassador acting on his own, not an spanish policy.

[Irbis]

Megaraptor;5029373']Portugal was also governed by a fascist regime at the time, yet they tended towards the Allies.

Only because they had this 600+ year long alliance with Great Britain against other continental powers.

And yet, most of the Portugal's actions in the war (besides letting allies resupply in Azores) was to aid III Reich (mostly unofficially, of course, but people in charge didn't really object).

[miguelencanarias]

And giving support to the German submarines against the allied convoys. How ungrateful of him, after all the "unofficial" help he got from the Royal Navy (in Gibraltar!) to defeat the Republican fleet during the Civil War.

Wait! What?

[Mastermind]

Wasn't there a case of a German freighter that was interred in a Spanish Port that was actually a headquarters for Nazi spies, a relay station for communications with German subs oeprating in the Mediterranian and reporting on Allied shipping in and out of the so-called "neutral" port. Several freighters were torpedoed right after leaving the port so the Brits sent in a team of specialists to sink teh freighter at her dock. I can't find any facts on this. Anyway, as I recall the read from many years ago, the spanish gvt was well aware of this ships true operations and did nothing to stop it. Yeah...there were Spaniards captured at Stalingrad. Something like a token battalion of volunteers. Anyway, they ended up in the Gulag.

Here is an interesting tid-bit I found...In April 1938 Hitler would muse out loud to Reinhard Spitzy, Ribbentrop's private secretary: `We have backed the wrong horse in Spain. We would have done better to back the Republicans. They represent the people. We could always have converted these socialists into good National Socialists later. The people around Franco are all reactionary clerics, aristocrats, and moneybags - they've nothing in common with us Nazis at all!'" (Irving, "Hitler's War", p. 60-61)

[nemowork]

Wait! What?

The Spanish civil war isnt my period so for a change of pace i'm reading Anthony Beevors 'Battle for Spain' and he certainly lists a couple of incidents of the RN supplying ammunition from Gibraltar in 36, mainly since Republican seamen had removed NAtionalist officers who might have rebelled and taken over the ships for Franco against the Government, after a recent mutiny at Invergordon in 1931 the RN officers were more sympathetic to the idea of supporting fellow officers against mutineers even loyalist mutineers.

Similarly a lot of Nationalist refugees from Republican areas ended up in Gibraltar and had some effect on the RN personnel there and made up their own little propaganda centre and assisted the British garrison in not deciding not to interf in the transport of the army of Africa by plane.

On the other hand a quick google comes up with this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/21/a2079821.shtml


In 1936 at the age of 18 years and 4 months I joined the Royal Navy as a stoker and after training was drafted to the H.M.S. DELHI a light cruiser and subsequently went to the Mediterranean for 10 months based at Malta.
The Spanish civil war was in progress and periodically we were dispatched to Palma to carry out rescue duties of the civilians there. These were mostly the dignitaries.
We would lie off of Palma till dark then send in a ships boat to pick up the evacuees and take them to Marseilles in the South of France.
Once during the daytime we were straddled by bombs from one of Franco’s bombers and another time we were in line of fire from Franco’s cruiser, The Canarius but luckily received no hits.So it suggests RN help might have been sporadic due to individual officers rather than any direct policy and comes nowhere close to supplying combat ships to guard troop convoys like the Germans did or supplying planes, weapons and training.


Out of curiosity, 6000 is a very low figure even after Spains historical repression, anybody know what the Jewish population of spain was at the time?

[GiladS]

Out of curiosity, 6000 is a very low figure even after Spains historical repression, anybody know what the Jewish population of spain was at the time?

You need to keep in mind that since the Alhambra Decree in 1492 and until its abolishment in 1869, Jews were not allowed to legally settle in Spain. Also to this day the Spanish Expulsion is known as one of the greatest calamities to have occured to the Jewish people so many didn't wish to live in the Iberian Peninsula.

I myself don't find the figure very surprising.

[miguelencanarias]

Yes, can you believe it? We expelled the Spanish Jews in 1492, thus missing centuries of hot IDF girls walking our streets in person. Instead we had to wait for the internet to be invented and realize what we had been missing...

[GiladS]

Yes, can you believe it? We expelled the Spanish Jews in 1942, thus missing centuries of hot IDF girls walking our streets in person. Instead we had to wait for the internet to be invented and realize what we had been missing...

I'm sure there are plenty of hot Spanish, Portuguese and Latin girls with Jewish converso ancestry. p-)

[miguelencanarias]

1492, sorry for the typo. As for the Jewish ancestries, all I know is that I look at our soldiers, then I look at Israel's, and I realize there is something missing.

[joemanu]

Wait! What?

It was not official policy of the British government, but in practice they were far from impartial.

The British upper class was against what they saw as a revolutionary Spain and the officer class felt great sympathy for their Spanish counterparts even if they were rebels against their legitimate government. According to A. Beevor, admiral lord Chatfield, then First Sea Lord, was an admirer of general Franco. Another example was the British ambassador, who often seemed to work more as a representative of the nationalist before the British government than the other way round.

Royal Navy officers in Gibraltar passed information to the nationalist about the movements of the republican fleet, which was very useful at the beginning of the war, when the colonial army was transported to Spain across the strait.

It was nothing comparable to the open assistance from Germany and Italy, but it had some effects in the march of the war. For example when the Royal Navy ordered to all British ships not to enter any Basque ports because they were mined, when it was only nationalist propaganda, or the British government consistently looking the other way whenever any British merchant ship with supplies for the republicans was sunk by Italian submarines .

[joemanu]

1492, sorry for the typo. As for the Jewish ancestries, all I know is that I look at our soldiers, then I look at Israel's, and I realize there is something missing.

Well, for a fair competition we would have to introduce female conscription and then compare the recruits, I mean, the results.

[OrangeWolf]

Well, for a fair competition we would have to introduce female conscription and then compare the recruits, I mean, the results.

Make sure you give all (the good looking ones) an active job, so that they wont get fat on a office seat.

EDIT: and you can have exchange programs between Israeli and Spanish girl soldiers. And try to create like an Israeli-Spanish hybrid supersexwoman. Awesome no?

[miguelencanarias]

And try to create like an Israeli-Spanish hybrid supersexwoman.

I know I won't mind to die trying.

For starters, send this one over my way, let's see what I can do about the hybrid woman thing:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8yBmwXW4XEM/SsucQiruWkI/AAAAAAAACPE/Uj4Wzht7TYs/s400/Israel_IDF_girls_08.jpg

[T-5 Killer]

.... And try to create like an Israeli-Spanish hybrid supersexwoman.

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m282/T5killer/forum%20stuff/mother-of-god-super-troopers.jpg

That is the most amazing thing I have ever heard!

[Sada]

This thread has so many branches...About spanish and portugues diplomacy givng spanish passports to jews, Sanz Briz and Sousa Mendes, it´s true that it was mainly an activity of individuals more than national policies. In fact, both Sanz Briz and I think Sousa Mendez were sanctionated and had some obstacles to save in their careers after the war.
But if Franco gave a list of spanish jews to nazis, it´s a fact that Franco´s regime helped a lot Germany with information of any kind, I doubt that Franco knew that if nazis had invaded Spain most of spanish jews would be rounded and sent to Auschwitz. Franco, like many of the "african" group of spanish officers that seved in Morocco, had met and in fact had jew friends. This news is somewhat erroneus in what "invent" victims that weren´t victims and ignores the true victims in Spin at the time. The european jews above Pyrinees suffered enough evil to add more "what if in Spain...", the hard facts are that the only religious communities that were safe of any persecution since 1936 in Spain were jews and muslims: Catholics priests suffered badly in republican side, specially the first 6 months of war, and some basque catholics together with the tiny but strong believer protestant communities and all agnostics were persecuted in the "national" Spain, it´s generally overlooked out of Spain the persecution and execution of teachers of public schools because they were considered the arm of laicity in republican Spain.
I don´t know how many jews were in Spain 70 years ago, but 6.000 seems a right figure, probably most of them were sephardies living in the spanish protectorate in Spain. Of course, the europeans refugees coming to franquist Spain weren´t rejected if they were jews, that´s what matters. Contrary to that lists of spanish jews given to nazis, there were 8.000 spanish sent to Mathausen concentration camp rounded up in France, Gestapo asked about them to spanish chancellor Serrano Suñer, brother-in-law of Franco, and he replied "they aren´t spanish". They died 6.000 spansh in Mathausen, there were other more that died in Buchenwald and in other camps but they weren´t as many as in Mathausen. I mean, Franco is enough evil without giving him more faults that he didn´t commit.

[john@staustell]

I tend to avoid Guerra Civil accounts that are so obviously biased (nasty Franco, lovely democratic republicans) with today's revisionist politics and hindsight, in favour of those that are neutral and state the facts and the situations (Beevor, Juan Eslava Galán). There was no middle ground - fascists on one side and Stalinists/anarchists on the other, all very extreme. Any moderates were swiftly sidelined in 1936.

A horrible situation that developed over time, over centuries in fact, through decline of empire through Carlist wars, through the military disasters of a Cuba, the Phillipines and Morocco and through the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera to the very polarised politics of coalitions of left or right in the 30s.

Obviously many Spanish people have personal, deep-seated and understandable hatred for one side or another. But it is impossible for a truly neutral and impartial reader to see one side as good and one side as evil, to see a fascist outcome as bad without considering the alternative Stalinist outcome.

Very recently we stayed near Alcalá de Xivert, in Castellón province, and I came across a modern account of the immediate area in the period 1936 to 1948. Normally these local things can be unbelieveably dire, but this was excellent, by José Vicente Moya Julve.

This village/area is particularly interesting because it went through a period of Republican domination, in which the legitimate councillors were quickly sidelined by left-wing Stalinists and anarchists, the churches sacked, dozens of people (of conservative, ecclesiastical or old Carlist sympathies, or land-owners) taken away in the night and shot etc. Then as the nationalists advanced the war front passed through the area for several months, and finally of course the new nationalist government with it's hasty trials and executions (although many of the real murderers from 1936 had fled to France).

Every victim of both sides is named, together with locations and nature of death, and alleged assassins (neighbours). Relatives and eye-witnesses are interviewed, and many emplacements, trenches and buildings are still in place (and some munitions) to add to the sense of history you can revisit. Names are named wherever possible, and you get an overwhelming sense of sadness in many personal anecdotes.

Horrible, but very interesting. For whom the bell tolls indeed.

No jews though!

[MGL:s Reconstructors]

And yet he didn't send his Jews to the Nazis.

he´d sooner send The Basques or The Catalans to the Nazis

[Sada]

he´d sooner send The Basques or The Catalans to the Nazis
The basques, the catalans, the jews...my god. Everybody except the true victims. I beg humbly to you foreigners to read some history book about spanish war.

[john@staustell]

Read loads mate, as I said above, and I agree none of these 3 categories features heavily! But Jews is what the thread was started about, however much people like myself went off at tangents!


The basques, the catalans, the jews...my god. Everybody except the true victims. I beg humbly to you foreigners to read some history book about spanish war.

[LineDoggie]

The basques, the catalans, the jews...my god. Everybody except the true victims. I beg humbly to you foreigners to read some history book about spanish war.Who in your mind are the True Victims?

[Sada]

Read loads mate, as I said above, and I agree none of these 3 categories features heavily! But Jews is what the thread was started about, however much people like myself went off at tangents!
I believe you read them, my comentary wasn´t about you. But I feel tired of reading things about this conflict that reflict a basic ignorance of the country and of the war itself, and explaining the basics about it it´s like building sand castles, very useless and tiring.
Once again because I´m sure it was said in others threads: There isn´t a thing like Spain and the basques and catalans, like there isn´t a thing like G.B. and scots and northern irish. There are galicians, catalans, basques, aragoneses, castilians and several other groups, Spain is the state that includes all this groups. Of all this nationalities, they were precisely the basques from Alava and Navarra that ignited the civil war agaisnt the republic and were among the most fannatics and ultracatholics rebels that repressed republicans, giving Franco some of his best strike units. The rest of basques supported the republic and the basques institutions, some of them were members of PNV(nationalist party) and other weren´t nationalists, but to the shame of basques nationalists, of all the republican forces, they were a bunch of cowards in the front, with difference the worst republican soldiers, that betrayed at last the republic trying a deal with italian fascists that left the rest of asturian, cantabrian and other units not nationalists with a flank open.

There were many other basques that fought bravely in their regular units, like any other spanish by the way. Among the nationalists basques refugeed in S.France at the end of the war, they never showed any solidarity to their fellows spanish of other groups and in fact they looked for getting a better treatement by the frenchs, at first, and by the germans when they invaded France, and they all were safe and quiet under german occupation in the south of France, the few of them that hadn´t returned to spanish basque country for living peacefully and managing their own bussiness.

About the nationalist catalans, there weren´t any unit of them in the spanish civil war, they all were conservative middle class shop owners and factory owners that were mostly terrified by the revolutionary terror of anarchists in the first months of spanish civil war. Except the prominent politicians, most of catalan nationalists were respected after the war and could reanudate their control of their companies and of the SPANISH industrial public policy, like they have been doing in the last 250 years, surprinsing for anybody? What Franco did was to repress the culture(language) and public institutions of Basque Coutry and Cataluña, the same that in Galicia, but he didn´t repressed "basques" and "catalans" as that, but those that opposed him. There were many catalans that openly supported him. And that´s all, he never gave any spanish, catalan or murciano, to the nazis, what he did was receiving some spanish prisioners that nazis gave him back and letting the nazis to burn some thousands of spanish republicans in Mathausen, that were most of them true soldiers and resistance members, hardly a catalan or basque nationalist any of them.

And other tiring thing that I read frequently is that always the spanish republic is painted as an soviet republic. Hardly andy spanish fascist of now would say a thing like that. The true victim of spanish war was the same spanish people that was oblied to fight each other by three(G.B, Germany and Italy) traitor countries of the four(France) that in the League of Nations organized a Non-Intervention Committee that in fact was an Intervention Committe that helped with troops, cash, lies, active fighting and diplomatic maneouvers like freezing the funds of the legal republican government abroad for paying spanish ambassadors. Those countries tied the hands of spanish people in the back, and just because Soviet Union was the last foreing power that intervened the civil war, and the only one helping republic, and the first one in leaving of Spain before the end of the war is truly unfair and inaccurate to protray spanish war as a fight agaisnt communist revolution.

[LineDoggie]

And the Republicans Murdering Priests, Nuns, was Heroic?


The Murder of José Calvo Sotelo by a Unit of the republican police and then opening fire on Mourners at his Funeral was Heroic?


I do love how the left tries to claim the moral high ground in a vicious civil war where they perpetrated a equally gruesome amount of atrocities as the Nationalists. I also like how the left loves to Point out the Nationalist recived Aid from the Nazi Germany & Fascist Italy, yet tries to downplay Soviet Aid (Gen. Pavlov, his staff and his Hundred T-26 Tanks, 50 Fighterplanes, 400 trucks and weapons).

[MGL:s Reconstructors]

The basques, the catalans, the jews...my god. Everybody except the true victims. I beg humbly to you foreigners to read some history book about spanish war.

Galegos (The Galicians) right?

[Orocairion]

Franco was a moronic jackass. He was slightly smarter than Mussolini, thats why he lasted longer in power.

[LineDoggie]

Franco was a moronic jackass. He was slightly smarter than Mussolini, thats why he lasted longer in power.Which goes against the historic record of his acknowledged Bravery and Intelligence during the wars in Morocco, his rise to command the Officers academy, etc. He became a target for the left when his Best Man at his wedding was King Alfonso 13th, and took no side during the republics formation. It was when they closed the Officers academy and he gave a Farewell speeech that he became a left suspect and was put under watch by the Left.




He may have been Vicious, Fascist, Authoritarian, but Stupid he was not.

[Orocairion]

He might have had a marvelous military career, but since because of him, part of my family were either forced out of Spain or sent to imprisonment camps in France despite the fact that they weren't republicans nor commies, I couldn't care less about the guy's "achievements" or his apologists. I just hope he is having a wonderful time sucking the devil's ****

[LineDoggie]

He might have had a marvelous military career, but since because of him, part of my family were either forced out of Spain or sent to imprisonment camps in France despite the fact that they weren't republicans nor commies, I couldn't care less about the guy's "achievements" or his apologists. I just hope he is having a wonderful time sucking the devil's ****Then at least be honest enough to say you dont like him for personal reasons. Because you look foolish saying he was stupid when Obviously he wasnt, and how did the French Imprison your famiy members in France under Francos orders from Spain? France had supported the republic, and were hardly Nationalist sympathizing.

And what would have happened to Him (and his Family) if the republcans had won the war?

Guarantee you they would have been shot, that the way the communists operate.

[boreal]

In France some political parties openly supported the nationalist point of view, the nationalist side had some french volunteers fighting in their units, hell, they had volunteers even from UK, Ireland, Romania, White russians, yanks..

[LineDoggie]

In France some political parties openly supported the nationalist point of view, the nationalist side had some french volunteers fighting in their units, hell, they had volunteers even from UK, Ireland, Romania, White russians, yanks..
True, but the French Government, the Government which sent Arms & Ordnance to the republicans was a Leftist Government.

[Orocairion]

Then at least be honest enough to say you dont like him for personal reasons. Because you look foolish saying he was stupid when Obviously he wasnt, and how did the French Imprison your famiy members in France under Francos orders from Spain? France had supported the republic, and were hardly Nationalist sympathizing.


And who said I was being factual?. I never claimed such thing.
I think he was a moronic, idiotic jackass. Sorry if I insulted your idol or hero or whatever he is to you.

I mistake of words, they were sent to internment camps in France. Though when the nazis took over France in 1940, they were able to escape before being transferred to Mauthausen like most.



And what would have happened to Him (and his Family) if the republcans had won the war?

Guarantee you they would have been shot, that the way the communists operate. Lol, and Nationalists were the little charity nuns, right?. Give me a break.
Look, if you idolize them, thats your problem, not mine, just don't be hurt when someone voices an opinion about that dirtbag.

And the chances of them being shot by the commies were quite low, considering how they helped them during the way out, even if they didn't belong to any side of the conflict other than not liking Franco at all and not afraid to voice it.

[LineDoggie]

And who said I was being factual?. I never claimed such thing.
I think he was a moronic, idiotic jackass. Sorry if I insulted your idol or hero or whatever he is to you.
See, there is your Problem, you're so ignorant you think I supported him. I merely gave Facts about the man. The Entire War was a waste of lives.



I mistake of words, they were sent to internment camps in France. Though when the nazis took over France in 1940, they were able to escape before being transferred to Mauthausen like most.
Big Mistake on your part due to ignorance then. As the way you stated it made it seem as though France held them on Francos Orders, now you use a totally different story.




Lol, and Nationalists were the little charity nuns, right?. Give me a break.
Look, if you idolize them, thats your problem, not mine, just don't be hurt when someone voices an opinion about that dirtbag.
Again, your ignorance shines like the sun. I don't Idolize either side of the war. I merely gave facts that it was far from a One sided fight of Good vs Evil. The Left likes to act as though the republicans were riding Unicorns and handing out Ice Cream and suddenly Franco & the Condor Legion appeared out of the blue. Francisco Largo Caballero had planned a Coup de Etat for late July. The Nationalists struck the week before. Caballero was planning a Stalinist Government , had the backing of the Anarchists, U.M.E. what would have happened to those who Opposed him?

7X57mm to the chest after being placed against the nearest wall.



And the chances of them being shot by the commies were quite low, considering how they helped them during the way out, even if they didn't belong to any side of the conflict other than not liking Franco at all and not afraid to voice it. Was talking about Franco and his Family if the Communists had won the war. Historically, they kill the Opposition.

[Sada]

Galegos (The Galicians) right?
Yes, galegos are the galicians. It was your post what made me writing my answer but don´t take it too bad, it´s just that I´m impatient when I see written stereotypes again and again and the guilty aren´t the foreign people but we the spanish that just don´t care in giving our opinion and even less in saying the true facts, but it´s even today people here can´t agree in some facts although when they see similar situations in other countries everybody is wise here.

Some facts that aren´t my opinions:
-In 1936 most of spanish population was rural, but industry workers lived in some areas that were deeply indusrialized since the beginning of the industrial revolution(Basque Country, Cataluña and some enclaves mostly in other northern areas and other ones in Andalucía and Levante). There were other industrial zones across Spain but they weren´t enough big to modify the structure of population.

-The population of Spain in 1936 was around 25 million people, but the trade unions back them had more affiliated workers than today, that we are about 44 million spanish. And remember that 75 years ago spanish worked mainly in the country, contrary to this days.

-The main trade union in 1936 regarding the number of their affiliated people was by far the CNT, an union of anarchist ideology. The second union was the UGT, of socialist ideology. There wasn´t a trade union of communist ideology of any consideration and the spanish PC was a tiny party. There were other unions of catholic doctrine inspiration that were interesting, but they just haven´t enough people for having any influence.

-The anarchists, in spite of their influence among workers, didn´t participated in the parlament nor in any government of the republic until 1936 because their ideology didn´t believe in participating in a party based democracy. The elections of early 1936 were the first ones in what they participated helping the coalition of the popular front, although they didn´t integrate in the front.

-The Popular Front was a coalition of different parties that joined together for the 1936 parlamentary elections, emulating the same movement done in France few time before. The coalition was quite heterogeneous, there were socialists(socialists that were happy with a representative democracy and those ones that were evolving to revolutionaries policies) and republican ones that supported representative democracy and private property together with a laic state, and other groups like the ORGA of the galician prime minister Casares Quiroga that were republicans, democrats, mainly agnostics and masons although there were catholics but above all wanted a sepparation of state and church. The thing they all had in common was their rejection of monarchy and influence of catholic church and/or any other religion in the state, although they weren´t atheist by definition.

-The falangists, the fascist party, was a minory like the PC in 1936, although with more influence than communists since they had many links with officers of the army belonging to the ellite units of N.Africa.

-CEDA was the main right party of Spain in 1936, it harbored a coalition of right groups, of christian and monarchist leanings. They represented what was the interests of the little spanish middle class with religious beliefes, big and small land owners and in general the affluent class. Gil Robles was the leader of CEDA and main opposition parlamentary the day before of war. Calvo Sotelo, although a significant politician, was the leader of a minor ultra-right monarchist party and declared enemy of republican system and of democracy. Many members of CEDA favoured democracy, but they considered that the republican organization of state was something revolutionary and simply didn´t accept the sepparation of church and state.

-Most of the massacres of religious people in Spain happened in Cataluña and Castilla La Nueve(or La Mancha) and during the first 6 months of the war, the time that took the republican goverment to regain some control of the situation. It´s worth of mention that in other republican controlled areas during the war like Asturias, Santander, Valencia or Andalucía the deaths of priests wasn´t the rule. And in the case of Galicia, it was a territory controlled by the rebel army very soon but the republicans were the majority, and even so in the first days where the situation wasn´t defined here, there wasn´t a single case of a priest or nun attacked although fascist propaganda voiced cases of killed priests.

-The communists began to be important since their few members were well organized the first days and some of their leaders had learnt some military instruction in Soviet Union. After Stalin began to sent weapons and advisors in october, it was when spanish PC began to surge and having influence in the republican government, not before. Never along the war the communists took control of the war nor they broke the republican legality. Those that say it ignore in fact the events of the last month of war in Madrid.

-Similarly, the falangist party began to surge when since the first day in the rebel side people looked at Mussolini and Hitler sending planes to rebel´s side. Basically the sons and grandsons of CEDA members embraced and ideology that they saw like more radical and efficient and flooded the volunteer units of the Falange, not the case of Navarra or Alava, where the ultra-right conservative militias of the Carlista Party were tha majority. But there were carlistas militias out of Navarra the same that were many falangist volunteers from Navarra. The Carlista Party were monarchists but they favoured a cadet branch of the Borbon dinasty(the heirs of Carlos, brother of Fernando VII in first half of XIX century) that they considered to be the legitime one and it was even more conservative and catholic, the other difference is that they were agaisnt the centralist administration of Spain and favoured the old "Fueros"(laws) of the spanish kingdoms that were eliminated in the administrative reorganization of spanish state in XIX century.

[Sada]

About the foreign participation in Spain, let´s be clear that the government of the french popular front with Leon Blum finished a year before the end of the spanish war, after him came Daladier. EVerybody here what happened after Daladier and Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich, and it was after that meeting that Stalin retired all his support to spanish republic, since he saw that meeting in Munich as a coalition against him.

[nemowork]

I believe you read them, my comentary wasn´t about you. But I feel tired of reading things about this conflict that reflict a basic ignorance of the country and of the war itself, and explaining the basics about it it´s like building sand castles, very useless and tiring.
Once again because I´m sure it was said in others threads: There isn´t a thing like Spain and the basques and catalans, like there isn´t a thing like G.B. and scots and northern irish. There are galicians, catalans, basques, aragoneses, castilians and several other groups, Spain is the state that includes all this groups. Of all this nationalities, they were precisely the basques from Alava and Navarra that ignited the civil war agaisnt the republic and were among the most fanatics and ultracatholics rebels that repressed republicans, giving Franco some of his best strike units. The rest of basques supported the republic and the basques institutions, some of them were members of PNV(nationalist party) and other weren´t nationalists, but to the shame of basques nationalists, of all the republican forces, they were a bunch of cowards in the front, with difference the worst republican soldiers, that betrayed at last the republic trying a deal with italian fascists that left the rest of asturian, cantabrian and other units not nationalists with a flank open.


Cowardice or just lack of interest in anything other than Basque nationalism? They seem to have fought well when they had to but they wouldnt leave Basque territory to fight for the republic and in return the communists wouldnt release tanks and planes to defend them from Nationalist attacks leaving them to fight off air, artllery and armour attacks with nothing but light weapons and no experience of modern warfare that sending out troops into the general conflict would have given them.

Trying to cut a deal with the Italians to preserve their peoples lives was the one chance they had left to preserve their people.

And surely that was the whole problem. The right had differences between the Falange, Catholics, Royalists, Nationalists and every other faction but they unified into one force.

The republic was crippled when the anarchists wouldnt serve in a government because they didnt believ in state control, the various unions didnt want the other unions gaining too much power, nobody trusted the Basques because they were catholic and traditionalist and wouldnt leave their own territory to join the struggle and through it all the communists were forcing their own people into positions of power and destroying rivals with propaganda and violence so they could have a spanish face on a communist controlled government