Fair and accurate looks at the late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco are rare. The video above is in that small company. Forty-six years after his death it is surprising how much mystery there remains about Franco the man, even though he led his entire adult life in the glare of modern history. In public he tended to be laconic; in private talkative, but he rarely said anything about himself or his inner motivations. He did say on one occasion that politicians of all stripes had done their worst to destroy Spain, and perhaps that one comment is the closest we shall ever have of truly understanding what motivated Franco.
In the final analysis, he was a legitimist. When the Republic disintegrated, it lost legitimacy. He cast about a bit looking for alternatives to it, but by 1947, he decided that the Borbons were going to come back eventually. He wanted a prosperous, but mostly undemocratic, Spain for Juan Carlos to rule. He managed the first, but by 1974 he knew that democracy was returning with the King.
Alas for the contemporary Kingdom: Franco’s comments about politicians apply with equal force to the current bunch of Spainsh kleptocrats and their friends who have sent the corruption metrics off the charts.
Great video clip.
I was raised on hatred of Franco—so everything I could find to read about the Spanish Civil War told me the opposite was true.
Franco: One of the few successful leaders against the iron talons of communism.
There is no field of modern history which is more fraught with bias and propaganda than the Spanish Civil War. Objectivity goes flying out the window in favor of narratives.
My good lady (a medieval historian of some ability) had this to say about the film and Franco. The film itself is much more objective than most historical treatments of Generalissimo Franco. Like so many treatments, when criticizing brutalities against the left, it fails to take note of the viciousness of the left in its treatments of the right: priests and nuns brutally tortured and murdered. Ordinary citizens who refused to support the Republicans were killed. During the preparation of a paper on Spains actions during the World War II, she (my good lady) read the diplomatic correspondence between the Spanish Foreign Minister and the German Foreign Office. The Foreigin Minister kept assuring the Germans “that of course they could have free passage through Spain to Gibraltar and North Africa (which would, of course close access to North Africa by the Allies).” As time passed, versions of this same message were repeated over and over with the addendum “but not just yet; the people are not quite ready for foreign troops to come in.” And thus North Africa and the Mediterranean saved for the Allies.
Quite right Bob. Franco made impossible demands on the Germans for Spanish entry into the War. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, Franco sent one division, the Azul division, which was withdrawn by Franco in 1943. Franco had no intention of risking Spain being on the losing side of World War II. It should also be noted that Franco never turned over the numerous Jewish refugees who fled to Spain and that some Spanish ambassadors aided Jews fleeing from the Nazis. Sephardic Jewish merchants in North Africa had aided the Nationalists in the early days of the Civil War, and Franco never forgot a favor or an offense.
The ‘Franco’ entry is only a tiny part of the left’s massive encyclopedia of history myths.
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