Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco
File:1francisco-franco.jpg
Spanish Head of State
In office 1 April 1939 – 20 November 1975
Preceded by	Manuel Azaña (as President)
Succeeded by	Juan Carlos I (as King)
Spanish Head of Government
In office 30 January 1938 – 8 June 1973
Preceded by	Juan Negrín
Succeeded by	Luis Carrero Blanco
Personal details
Born	December 4 1892 Ferrol, Galicia, Spain
Died	November 20 1975, age 82 Madrid, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Political party	None (Falange/Carlism)
Spouse	Carmen Polo
Profession	Chief of the General Staff, Spanish Army

Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde (4 December 1892–20 November 1975), commonly abbreviated to Francisco Franco (pron. IPA: [fɾan'θisko 'fɾaŋko]) or Francisco Franco Bahamonde, and also known as Caudillo or Generalísimo, was the dictator and later formal head of state of parts of Spain from October 1936, and of all of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975.

Franco led a successful military career and reached the rank of General. He fought in Morocco and suppressed a strike in 1934. In February, 1936, the left-wing Popular Front won the general election and formed a government. Widespread chaos followed the election, with escalating violence between left and right wing supporters. Anti-clerical violence against the Church by left wing militants further raised tensions. After the assassination of a major opposition figure, José Calvo Sotelo, by government forces in July 1936, Franco participated in a coup d'etat against the Popular Front government. The coup failed and evolved into the Spanish Civil War during which he emerged as the leader of the right-wing Nationalists against the left-wing government.

After winning the civil war he presided over the government of the Spanish State. During the Second World War, Franco maintained a policy of neutrality, although he did assist Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on a small scale. Most view Franco as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue. He appeased right-wing factions ranging from the fascist Falange, to monarchists and traditionalists. Franco's state combined corporatism, nationalism, and a focus on traditional values. From 1947 and until his death he was de facto regent of Spain which he ruled as dictator, repressing dissident opinions. After his death Spain began a transition to democracy.

Franco's legacy is still controversial. Some Spaniards remember him as a strong leader who pacified Spain, whereas many others remember him as a harsh dictator. Issues surrounding his controversial legacy include whether the Popular Front government he overthrew after the murder of José Calvo Sotelo was a democracy or had become a repressive Communist regime, the extent of violent anti-clericalism among his opponents, the nature of the relationship between his politics and those of contemporaries Hitler and Mussolini, and the shooting of thousands of opponents during the civil war and in the early years after.

Early life

Franco was born in Ferrol, Galicia, Spain (between 1938 and 1982 his hometown would be known officially as El Ferrol del Caudillo). His father, Nicolás Franco y Salgado-Araújo, was a Navy paymaster and was very rude to his wife. His mother, María del Pilar Bahamonde y Pardo de Andrade, also came from a family with naval tradition. His siblings included Nicolás, navy officer and diplomat; and Ramón, a pioneering aviator who was hated by many of Francisco Franco's supporters. Their mother, through the 7th Conde de Lemos and his wife the 3rd Condessa de Villalva, was twice a descendant, from a sister of King Manuel I, and thus from other Portuguese Kings .

Francisco was to follow his father into the navy, but entry into the Naval Academy was closed from 1906 to 1913. To his father's chagrin, he decided to join the army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo, from which he graduated in 1910. He was commissioned as a lieutenant. Two years later, he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to physically occupy their new African protectorate provoked the protracted Rif War (from 1909 to 1927) with native Moroccans. Tactics at the time resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, but also gave the chance of earning promotion through merit. It was said that officers would get either la caja o la faja (a coffin or a general's sash).

Franco soon gained a reputation as a good officer. He joined the newly formed regulares, colonial native troops with Spanish officers, who acted as shock troops.

In 1916, at the age of 23 and already a captain, he was badly wounded in a skirmish at El Biutz. His survival marked him permanently in the eyes of the native troops as a man of baraka (good luck). He was also proposed unsuccessfully for Spain's highest honor for gallantry, the coveted Cruz Laureada de San Fernando. Instead, he was promoted to major (comandante), becoming the youngest field grade officer in the Spanish Army.

From 1917 to 1920, he was posted on the Spanish mainland. That last year, Lieutenant Colonel José Millán Astray, a histrionic but charismatic officer, founded the Legión Extranjera, along similar lines to the French Foreign Legion. Franco became the Legion's second-in-command and returned to Africa.

On July 24 1921, the poorly commanded and overextended Spanish Army suffered a crushing defeat at Annual at the hands of the Rif tribes led by the Abd el-Krim brothers. The Legion symbolically, if not materially, saved the Spanish enclave of Melilla after a gruelling three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, already a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.

The same year, he married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez Valdés; they had one child, a daughter, María del Carmen, born in 1926. As a special mark of honor, his best man (padrino) at the wedding was King Alfonso XIII, a fact that would mark him during the Republic as a monarchical officer.

Promoted to colonel, Franco led the first wave of troops ashore at Alhucemas in 1925. This landing in the heartland of Abd el-Krim's tribe, combined with the French invasion from the south, spelled the beginning of the end for the shortlived Republic of the Rif.

Becoming the youngest general in Spain in 1926, Franco was appointed in 1928 director of the newly created Joint Military Academy in Zaragoza, a new college for all Army cadets, replacing the former separate institutions for young men seeking to become officers in infantry, cavalry, artillery, and other branches of the army.

During the Second Spanish Republic

With the fall of the monarchy in 1931, in keeping with his long-standing apolitical record he did not take any notable stand. But the closing of the Academy, in June, by War Minister Manuel Azaña, provoked his first clash with the Republic. Azaña found Franco's farewell speech to the cadets insulting. For six months, Franco was without a post and under surveillance.

On February 5 1932, he was given a command in La Coruña. Franco avoided being involved in José Sanjurjo's attempted coup that year, and even wrote a hostile letter to Sanjurjo expressing his anger over the attempt. As a side result of Azaña's military reform, in January 1933, Franco was relegated from the first to the 24th in the list of Brigadiers; conversely, the same year (February 17), he was given the military command of the Balearic Islands: a post above his rank.

The Asturias uprisings

New elections held in October 1933 resulted in a center-right majority. In opposition to this government, a revolutionary movement broke out October 5 1934. This uprising was rapidly quelled in most of the country, but gained a stronghold in Asturias, with the support of the miners' unions. Franco, already general of a Division and assessor to the war minister, Diego Hidalgo, was put in command of the operations directed to suppress the insurgency. The forces of the Army in Africa were to carry the brunt of this, with General Eduardo López Ochoa as commander in the field. After two weeks of heavy fighting (and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000), the rebellion was suppressed.

The uprising and, in general, the events that led over the next two years to the civil war, are still heavily debated (between, for example, Enrique Moradiellos and Pio Moa.) Nonetheless, it is universally agreed that the insurgency in Asturias sharpened the antagonism between Left and Right. Franco and López Ochoa—who, prior to the campaign in Asturias, was seen as a left-leaning officer—were marked by the left as enemies. At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was persecuted, decapitated, his head stuck on a broomstick and paraded in the streets. [Jorge Reverte] By mobilising against these revolts, Franco had acted in defence of the Republic and stabilising the democratic institutions. Some time after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa (from February 15 onwards), and from May 19 1935 on, Chief of the General Staff, the top military post in Spain.

The drift to war

After the ruling centre-right coalition collapsed amid the Straperlo corruption scandal, new elections were scheduled. Two wide coalitions formed: the Popular Front on the left, ranging from Republican Union Party to Communists, and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the center radicals to the conservative Carlists. On February 16 1936, the left won by a narrow margin. The days after were marked by near-chaotic circumstances. Franco lobbied unsuccessfully to have a state of emergency declared, with the stated purpose of quelling the disturbances and allowing an orderly vote recount.

Instead, on February 23, Franco was sent away to be military commander of the Canary Islands, a distant place with few troops under his command.

Meanwhile, a conspiracy led by Emilio Mola was taking shape. Franco was contacted, but maintained an ambiguous attitude almost up until July. On June 23 1936, he even wrote to the head of the government, Casares Quiroga, offering to quell the discontent in the army, but was not answered. The other rebels were determined to go ahead, con Paquito o sin Paquito (with Franco or without him), as it was put by José Sanjurjo, the honorary leader of the military uprising. After various postponements, July 18 was fixed as the date of the uprising. The situation reached a point of no return and, as presented to Franco by Mola, the coup was unavoidable and he had to choose a side. He decided to join the rebels and was given the task of commanding the Army of Africa. A privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, (still referred to in Spain as the Dragon Rapide), was chartered in England July 11 to take him to Africa.

The assassination of the right-wing opposition leader José Calvo Sotelo by government police troops (quite possibly acting on their own, as in the case of José Castillo) precipitated the uprising. On July 17, one day earlier than planned, the African Army rebelled, detaining their commanders. On July 18, Franco published a manifesto and left for Africa, where he arrived the next day to take command.

A week later, the rebels, who soon called themselves the Nationalists, controlled only a third of Spain, and most navy units remained under control of the opposition Republican forces, which left Franco isolated. The coup had failed, but the Spanish Civil War had begun.

The Spanish Civil War

See also: Spanish Civil War

The first months

Despite Franco having no money, while the state treasury was in Madrid with the government, there was an organized economic lobby in London looking after his financial needs with Lisbon as their operational base. Eventually, he was to receive enormous help from his economic and diplomatic boosters abroad. The first days of the rebellion were marked with a serious need to secure control over the Spanish Moroccan Protectorate. On one side, Franco managed to win the support of the natives and their (nominal) authorities, and, on the other, to ensure his control over the army. This led to the summary execution of some 200 senior officers loyal to the Republic (one of them his own first cousin). Franco had to face the problem of how to move his troops to the Iberian Peninsula, because most units of the Navy had remained in control of the Republic and were blocking the Strait of Gibraltar. He requested help from Mussolini, who responded with an unconditional offer of arms and planes; Wilhelm Canaris in Germany persuaded Hitler, as well, to support the Nationalists. From July 20 onward he was able, with a small group of 22 mainly German Junkers Ju 52 airplanes, to initiate an air bridge to Seville, where his troops helped to ensure the rebel control of the city. Through representatives, he started to negotiate with the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy for more military support, and above all for more airplanes. Negotiations were successful with the last two on July 25, and airplanes began to arrive in Tetouan on August 2. On August 5, Franco was able to break the blockade with the newly arrived air support, successfully deploying a ship convoy with some 2,000 soldiers.

In early August, the situation in western Andalusia was stable enough to allow him to organize a column (some 15,000 men at its height), under the command of then Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Yagüe, which would march through Extremadura towards Madrid. On August 11, Mérida was taken, and on August 15 Badajoz, thus joining both nationalist-controlled areas. Additionally, Mussolini ordered a voluntary army (CTV) of some 12,000 Italians of fully motorised units to Seville and Hitler added to them a professional squadron from the Luftwaffe (2JG/88) with about 24 planes. All these planes had the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them, but were flown by Italian and German troops. The backbone of Franco's aviation in those days were the Italian SM79 and SM.81 bombers, the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.

On September 21, with the head of the column at the town of Maqueda (some 80 km away from Madrid), Franco ordered a detour to free the besieged garrison at the Alcázar of Toledo, which was achieved September 27. This controversial decision gave the Popular Front time to strengthen its defences in Madrid and hold the city that year, but was an important morale and propaganda success.

Rise to power

The designated leader of the uprising, Gen. José Sanjurjo had died on July 20 in an air crash. In the nationalist zone, "Political life ceased." Initially, only militarily command mattered; this was divided into regional commands: (Emilio Mola in the North, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in Seville commanding Andalusia, Franco with an independent command and Miguel Cabanellas in Zaragoza commanding Aragon). From July 24, a coordinating junta was established, based at Burgos. Nominally led by Cabanellas, as the most senior general, it initially included Mola, three other generals, and two colonels; Franco was added in early August. On September 21, it was decided that Franco was to be commander-in-chief (this unified command was opposed only by Cabanellas), and September 28, and after some discussion, with no more than a lukewarm agreement from Queipo de Llano and from Mola, also head of government. He was doubtless helped to this primacy by the fact that, in late July, Hitler had decided that all of Germany's aid to the nationalists would go to Franco.

Mola considered Franco as unfit and not part of the initial revolutionary group. But Mola himself had been somewhat discredited as the main planner of the attempted coup that had now degenerated into a civil war, and was strongly identified with the Carlists and not at all with the Falange, nor did he have good relations with Germans; Queipo de Llano and Cabanellas had both previously rebelled against the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera and were therefore discredited in some nationalist circles; and Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was in prison in Madrid (a few months later, he would be executed) and the desire to keep a place open for him prevented any other falangist leader from emerging as a possible head of state. Franco's previous aloofness from politics meant that he had few active enemies in any of the factions that needed to be placated, and had cooperated in recent months with both Germany and Italy.

On October 1 1936, in Burgos, Franco was publicly proclaimed as Generalísimo of the National army and Jefe del Estado (Head of State). Mola was furious and Cabanellas intervened to calm the spirits down. When Mola was killed in another air accident a year later (June 2 1937), no military leader was left from those who organized the conspiracy against the Republic between 1933 and 1935. It is still disputed if Mola's death was a deliberate assassination by the Germans.

Military command

From that time until the end of the war, Franco personally guided military operations. After the failed assault on Madrid in November 1936, Franco settled to a piecemeal approach to winning the war, rather than bold maneuvering. As with his decision to relieve the garrison at Toledo, this approach has been subject of some debate; some of his decisions, such as, in June 1938, when he preferred to head for Valencia instead of Catalonia, remain particularly controversial.

Unable to receive support from any other nation, his army was supported by Nazi Germany in the form of the Condor Legion. These German forces also provided maintenance personnel and trainers, and some 22,000 Germans and 91,000 Italians served over the entire war period in Spain. Principal assistance was received from Fascist Italy (Corpo Truppe Volontarie), but the degree of influence of both powers on Franco's direction of the war seems to have been very limited. Nevertheless, the Italian troops, despite not being always effective, were present in most of the large operations in big numbers, while the CTV helped the Nationalist airforce dominate the skies for most of the war. António de Oliveira Salazar's Portugal also openly assisted the Nationalists from the start, contributing some 20,000 troops.

It is said that Franco's direction of the Nazi and Fascist forces was limited, particularly in the direction of the Condor Legion, however, he was officially, by default, their supreme commander and they rarely made decisions on their own. For reasons of prestige, it was decided to continue assisting Franco till the end of the war, and Italian and German troops paraded on the day of the final victory in Madrid.

Political command

He managed to fuse the ideologically incompatible national-syndicalist Falange ("phalanx", a far-right Spanish political party) and the Carlist monarchist parties under his rule. This new political formation appeased the more extreme and Germanophile Falangists while tempering them with the anti-German, pro-Spain Carlists. Franco's brother-in-law Ramón Serrano Súñer, who was his main political advisor, was able to turn the various parties under Franco against each other to absorb a series of political confrontations against Franco himself. At a certain moment he even expelled the original leading members of both the Carlists (Manuel Fal Conde) and the Falangists (Manuel Hedilla) to secure Franco's political future.

From early 1937, every death sentence had to be signed (or acknowledged) by Franco. However, this does not mean that he had intimate or complete knowledge of every official execution. From the beginning of the revolt, all the Junta generals were more than keen in publicly executing many people in order to spread fear and reduce resistance. After Franco's victory the executions continued with another 20,000 estimated victims. Recent searches with parallel excavations of mass graves in Spain estimate that the total of people executed after the war may even arrive to a number between 15,000 to 27,000. During World War II, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris had regular meetings with Franco and informed Franco of Germany's attitude and plans for Spain. This information prompted Franco to surreptitiously reposition his best and most experienced troops to camps near the Pyrenees and to reshape the terrain to be unfriendly to tanks and other military vehicles.

The end of the war

On March 4 1939, an uprising broke out within the Republican camp, claiming to forestall an intended Communist coup by prime minister Juan Negrín. Led by Colonel Segismundo Casado and Julián Besteiro, the rebels gained control over Madrid. They tried to negotiate a settlement with Franco, who refused anything but unconditional surrender. They gave way; Madrid was occupied on March 27, and the Republic fell. The war officially ended on April 1, 1939. On this very date, Franco placed his sword upon the altar in a church and in a vow, promised that he would never again take up his sword unless Spain itself was threatened with invasion, a vow which he kept.

However, during the 1940s and 1950s, guerrilla resistance to Franco (known as "the maquis") was widespread in many mountainous regions. In 1944, a group of republican veterans, which also fought in the French resistance against the Nazis, invaded the Val d'Aran in northwest Catalonia, but they were easily defeated.

Spain under Franco

Main article: Spain under Franco

File:Hitler and Franco.JPG

Hitler and Franco

Spain was bitterly divided and economically ruined as a result of the civil war. Even with the war over, Franco's government sought to repress any dissent. The early years of Franco's administration were marked by harsh repression, with thousands of summary executions, an unknown number of political prisoners and tens of thousands of people in exile, largely in France and Latin America. The 1940 shooting of the president of the Catalan government, Lluís Companys, was one of the most notable cases of this early repression. While the major groups targeted were real and suspected leftists, ranging from the leftist supporters to Communists and Anarchists, the Spanish intelligentsia, atheists and military and government figures who had remained loyal to the Madrid government during the war. The repression in Spain did not end with the cessation of hostilities; many political prisoners suffered execution by the firing squad, under the accusation of treason by martial courts.

Franco was officially known as "Su Excelencia el Jefe de Estado" ("His Excellency the Head of State"), but in state and official documents he was also referred to as "Caudillo de España" ("the Leader of Spain") and "el Generalísimo" ("the Most High General"). During his rule he was called "el Caudillo de la Última Cruzada y de la Hispanidad" ("the Leader of the Last Crusade and of the Hispanic World") and "el Caudillo de la Guerra de Liberación contra el Comunismo y sus Cómplices" ("the Leader of the War of Liberation Against Communism and Its Collaborators").

World War II

Further information: Spain in World War II

In September 1939, World War II broke out in Europe, and although Adolf Hitler met Franco once in Hendaye, France (October 23 1940), to discuss Spanish entry on the side of the Axis, Franco's demands (food, military equipment, Gibraltar, French North Africa, Portugal, etc.) proved too much and no agreement was reached. (An oft-cited remark attributed to Hitler is that the German leader would sooner have some teeth extracted than to have to deal further with Franco.) Contributing to the disagreement was an ongoing dispute over German mining rights in Spain. Some historians argue that Franco made demands that he knew Hitler would not accede to in order to stay out of the war. Other historians argue that he, as leader of a destroyed country in chaos, simply had nothing to offer the Germans and their military. Yet, after the collapse of France in June 1940, Spain did adopt a pro-Axis non-belligerency stance (for example, he offered Spanish naval facilities to German ships) until returning to complete neutrality in 1943 when the tide of the war had turned decisively against Germany and its allies. Some volunteer Spanish troops (the División Azul, or "Blue Division")—not given official state sanction by Franco—went to fight on the Eastern Front under German command. Some historians have argued that not all of the Blue Division were true volunteers and that Franco expended relatively small but significant resources to aid the Axis powers.

On June 14, 1940, the Spanish forces in Morocco occupied Tangier (a city under the rule of the League of Nations) and did not leave it until 1945.

According to a recent book Hitler's Chief Spy (author Richard Basset, 2006), his neutrality was bought dearly with a sum paid by Churchill into Swiss bank accounts for him and his generals. Franco thus waited quite a long time after WWII to pressure the United Kingdom regarding Spanish claims on Gibraltar.

After the war

Francisco Franco and President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Madrid in 1959

With the end of World War II, Franco and Spain were forced to suffer the economic consequences of the isolation imposed on it by nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States. This situation ended in part when, due to Spain's strategic location in light of Cold War tensions, the United States entered into a trade and military alliance with Spain. This historic alliance commenced with United States President Eisenhower's visit in 1953 which resulted in the Pact of Madrid. This launched the "Spanish Miracle," which developed Spain from corporatist autarky into semi-capitalism. During the 1960s, Francist Spain's population would experience an enormous increase in personal wealth. Spain was admitted to the United Nations in 1955. In spite of this, once in power, Franco almost never left Spain.

Lacking any strong ideology, Franco initially sought support from various right-wing groups. He initially allied very closely with the fascist elements of the Falange, but Franco's administration became less ideological as time progressed. While fascists initially had a great deal of power in Franco's administration, they were marginalized in favor of technocrats, especially after the defeat of fascist Italy and Germany during WWII.

In 1947, Franco proclaimed Spain a monarchy, but did not designate a monarch. This gesture was largely done to appease monarchist factions within the Movimiento. Although a self-proclaimed monarchist himself, Franco had no particular desire for a king, and as such, he left the throne vacant, with himself as de facto regent. He wore the uniform of a Captain General (a rank traditionally reserved for the King) and resided in the El Pardo Palace (not to be confused with the El Prado). In addition, he appropriated the kingly privilege of walking beneath a canopy, and his portrait appeared on most Spanish coins. Indeed, although his formal titles were Jefe del Estado (Chief of State), and Generalísimo de los Ejércitos Españoles (Generalísimo of the Spanish Armed Forces), he had originally intended any government that succeeded him to be much more authoritarian than the previous monarchy. This is indicated in his use of "by the grace of God" in his official title, a phrase often used by monarchs.

During his rule, non-government trade unions and all political opponents across the political spectrum, from communist and anarchist organizations to liberal democrats and Catalan or Basque nationalists, were either suppressed or tighly controlled by all means including violent police repression. The only legal "trade union" was the government-run Sindicato Vertical.

The legal usage of languages other than Spanish (especially Catalan, Galician and Basque languages) was forbidden. Language politics in Francoist Spain stated that all government, notarial, legal and commercial documents were drawn up exclusively in Spanish and any written in other languages were deemed null and void. The usage of any other language was forbidden in schools and banned on advertising and road and shop signs. Citizens continued to speak these languages in private.

All cultural activities were subject to censorship, and many were plainly forbidden on various, often spurious, grounds. This cultural policy relaxed with time, most notably in the early 1970s.

Civil marriages which had taken place under Republican Spain were declared null and void and had to be reconfirmed by the Church. The enforcement by public authorities of strict Roman Catholic social mores was a stated intent of the regime, mainly by using a law (the Ley de Vagos y Maleantes, Vagrancy Act) enacted by Azaña [1]. The remaining nomads of Spain (Gitanos and Mercheros like El Lute) were especially affected. In 1954, homosexuality, pedophilia, and prostitution were, through this law, made criminal offenses [2], although its application was inconsistent.

Most towns were patrolled by pairs of Guardia Civil, a military police for civilians, and functioned as his chief means of social control. Franco, like others at the time, evidenced a concern about a possible Masonic conspiracy against his regime. Some non-Spanish authors have described it as being an "obsession".

Student revolts at universities in the late 60s and early 70s were violently repressed by the heavily-armed Policía Armada (Armed Police), aka "los grises" because of their grey uniforms.

Franco continued to personally sign all death warrants until just months before he died, despite international campaigns requesting him to desist.

In popular imagination, he is often remembered as in the black and white images of No-Do newsreels, inaugurating a reservoir, hence his nickname Paco Ranas (Paco – a familiar form of Francisco – "frogs"), or catching huge fish from the Azor yacht during his holidays.

File:Tomb of francisco franco.jpg

Franco's tomb is located at his monument, Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos, which has since been turned into a memorial to all casualties of the Spanish Civil War.

In 1968, due to United Nations' pressure, Franco granted Spain's colony of Equatorial Guinea its independence, and the next year, ceded the exclave of Ifni to Morocco. Under Franco, Spain also pursued a campaign to gain sovereignty of the British colony of Gibraltar, and closed the border in 1969, which was not fully reopened until 1985.

In 1969, he designated Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón, with the new title of Prince of Spain, as his successor. This came as a surprise for the Carlist pretender to the throne, as well as for Juan Carlos's father, Don Juan, the Count of Barcelona, who technically had a superior right to the throne. By 1973, Franco had surrendered the function of prime minister (Presidente del Gobierno), remaining only as head of state and commander in chief of the military. As his final years progressed, tension within the various factions of the Movimiento would consume Spanish political life, as varying groups jockeyed for position to control the country's future.

Spain after Franco

Main article: Spanish transition to democracy

Franco's intended successor, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, was killed in 1973 by a car bomb planted by the Basque nationalist group ETA.

Franco's successor as head of state was the current Spanish monarch, Juan Carlos. Though much beloved by Franco, the King held liberal political views which earned him suspicion among conservatives who hoped he would continue Franco's policies. Instead, Juan Carlos would proceed to restore democracy in the nation, and help crush an attempted military coup in 1981.

Very recently (2005) a somewhat systematic search for mass graves of people executed during his regime has been started by the present Socialist government in Spain, whose party bears the same name as the main party in the Republican government during the war: PSOE. There is talk about officially recognizing the crimes against civilians during the Francoist rule after the end of the Civil War. Some statues of Franco and other public Francoist signs have been removed. Additionally, the EU has taken steps toward a European resolution on this topic which may rewrite some historic views on Franco. In Germany a squadron named after Werner Mölders has been renamed, because as a pilot he led the escorting units in the bombing of Guernica. The controversy remains however. As recently as 2006, the BBC reported that an MEP from Poland had expressed admiration for Franco's stature as a saviour of the free world. [3].

Legacy

Franco's legacy is still controversial. Some Spaniards remember him as a strong leader who pacified an unstable and violent country. Many others remember him as a harsh dictator. Various major issues surround his mixed and controversial legacy.

Nature of government he overthrew

Democracy

A major issue is whether the Popular Front government he overthrew after the murder of José Calvo Sotelo was a democracy or had become a repressive Communist regime. Government supporters were carrying out many violent attacks on opposition supporters (as were opposition supporters on government supporters) and the government was either unwilling or unable to control this violence. Government forces, particularly the Assault Guards, the militarised urban police force, were involved in the violence. Franco and his supporters felt that the government did not intend to maintain a democracy or try to allow consevatives any place in the future politics of Spain.

Violent Anti-Clericalism

The extent of violent anti-clericalism among government supporters was a strong impetus for the opposition to take up arms. Franco and many of his supporters were shocked by government supporters' violence against clergy and church property, which went as far as the digging up and desecrating of nuns' bodies. This violent fundamentalist atheism, mixed with Marxism, encouraged Catholics to fight against the government and gave Franco a possible legitimacy (which he exploited extensively in propaganda) as defender of the freedom to practice Christianity.

Relationship with Hitler and Mussolini

Franco received important support from Hitler and Mussolini during the civil war. Spain remained neutral in the Second World War, but whether this was as a result of Franco's belief that neutrality was best for Spain or whether Hitler simply did not want him to join the war is debated. Spain's neutrality can also be questioned as she offered various kinds of support to Italy and Germany such as intelligence and shipments of Wolfram. Franco also sent Falangist soldiers to fight alongside the German Army against Stalin (the Blue Division). Franco's common ground with Hitler was particularly weakened by Hitler's propagation of a bizzare pseudo-pagan mysticism and his attempts to manipulate Christianity, which went against Franco's deep commitment to defending Christianity and Catholicism.

Deaths of opponents

The shooting of thousands of opponents during the civil war and in the early years after are a source of controversy and a notable negative point on Franco's record. The vicitims tended to be republican prisoners of war, suspected communists, and freemasons. Such killings became rare several years after the end of the war as Spain became peaceful and stable, but imprisonment and abuse of political opponents continued throughout Franco's period in power.

Economics

See also: Economic history of Spain: Economy under Franco

The Civil War had ravaged the Spanish economy. Infrastructure had been damaged, workers killed, and daily business severely hampered. For more than a decade after Franco's victory, the economy improved little. Franco initially pursued a policy of autarky, cutting off almost all international trade. The policy had devastating effects, and the economy stagnated. Economic growth picked up in 1959 after Franco took authority away from ideologues and gave more power to apolitical technocrats. The country implemented several development policies and growth took off creating the Spanish Miracle. At the time of Franco's death, Spain still lagged behind most of Western Europe. After periods of rapid growth during the late 1980s and late 1990s, Spain now only lags slightly behind the other Western European economies.

Regions

Franco was reluctant to enact any form of administrative and legislative decentralisation and kept a fully centralised form of government with a similar administrative structure to that established by the House of Bourbon and General Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja. Such structures were both based in the model of the French centralised State.

Franco's legacy is still particularly poorly perceived in Catalonia and the Basque Country. The Basque Country and Catalonia were among the regions that offered the strongest resistance to Franco in the Civil War, but one of the strongest to his support during this regime. Franco dissolved the autonomy granted by the Spanish Republic to these two regions and to Galicia. Franco abolished the centuries-old fiscal priviledges and autonomy in two of the three Basque provinces: Guipuzcoa and Biscay, but kept them for Alava.

Among Franco's greatest area of support during the civil war was Navarre, also a Basque speaking region. Navarre remained a separated region from the Basque Country and Franco decided to preserve its also centuries' old fiscal privileges and autonomy, the so-called Fueros of Navarre.

Franco abolished the official statute and recognition for the Basque, Galician, and Catalan languages that the Spanish Republic had granted for the first time in the history of Spain. He returned to Spanish as the only official language of the State and education. The Franco era correspond with the popularisation of the compulsory national educational system and the development of modern mass media, both controlled by the State and in Spanish language, and heavily reduced the number of speakers of Basque, Catalan and Galicianas, as it happened during the second half of the twentieth century with other European minority languages which were not officially protected like Scottish Gaelic or French Breton. By the 1970s the majority of the population in the urban areas could not speak in the minority language or, as in some Catalan towns, their use had been abandoned. The most endangered case was the Basque language. By the 1970s Basque had reached the point where any further reduction in the number of Basque speakers would have not guaranteed the necessary generational renewal and it is now recognised that the language would have disappeared in only a few more decades. This was the excuse used by the franquist provincial government of Alava to create a network of Basque medium schools (Ikastola) in 1973 which were State financed.

Franco in popular media

• Raza or Espíritu de una Raza (Spirit of a Race) (1941): based on a script by "Jaime de Andrade" (Franco himself), the semi-autobiographical story of a military officer played by Alfredo Mayo.
• Franco, ese hombre (Franco, the man) (1964): documentary film about Franco, directed by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia. [4]
• Satirizing the network news "death watch" coverage of Franco during his final weeks ("Franco is still alive"), for some weeks after Franco's death Chevy Chase would mention the late Spanish leader during the "Weekend Update" segment on Saturday Night Live, declaring that "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."
• Espérame en el cielo (Wait for Me in Heaven) (1988): played by José Soriano
• Madregilda (1993): played by Juan Echanove
• Operación gónada (2000): played by Javier Eltell
• ¡Buen Viaje, Excelencia! (Bon Voyage, Excellency) (2003): played by Ramon Fontserè
• Cinema mil (2005, TV): played by Juan Echanove
• Evita (2000): Archive footage
• El Espíritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive) (1973): In a phrase of the film, Franco is compared with Frankenstein.
• Franco was featured in one of Mike Wallace's Biography TV series installments ca.1962.
• In his satirical song The Folk Song Army, Tom Lehrer included this verse: "Remember the war against Franco / The one where each of us belongs / While he may have won all the battles / We had all the good songs."

See also

• History of Spain
• Spain under Franco
• Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead
• Ramón Serrano Súñer
• Luis Carrero Blanco
• Emilio Mola
• Spanish Legion
• Language politics in Francoist Spain
• Movimiento Nacional

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Condecoraciones otorgadas por Francisco Franco a Benito Mussolini y a Adolf Hitler

External links

• Franco killer file/timeline
• Biographical page in Spanish about "Francisco Franco"
• Francisco Franco at IMDb. He wrote the script for Raza under the name "Jaime de Andrade".
• Franco Biography From Spartacus Educational.
• Hitler Stopped by Franco - Franco's indirect help to the Allies and Jews.
• 1939-1952: Armed resistance to Franco - a history of the guerrilla resistance movement to his regime

Video

• Documentary 52': When Franco died we were 30

Template:Succession box one to two

Template:Persondata