The West Turned a Blind Eye to
Franco's Collaboration
With the Nazis
| by Vincent Navarro
( December 13, 2012, Washington
DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) There is not full awareness in the international
community of the degree of influence that fascist forces still have over the
apparatus of the current Spanish state and related associations. The Spanish
Royal Academy of History for example has just published a Historical Dictionary
that includes laudatory remarks about General Franco and the dictatorship that
he established. There are a lot of myths
that continue to be reproduced in the Spanish intellectual life in spite of the
historical evidence that exists to question each one of them.
 |
The evidence also shows that Hitler played a critical role in the fascist coup lead by General Franco against the democratically elected Spanish government in 1936, and Hitler’s support for that coup until its victory in 1939. Without such military and economic assistance, Franco would not have resisted the popular mobilization against the coup. As a consequence, Franco’s Spain became practically a colony of Nazi Germany.
One example of these myths is the
perception that the fascist dictatorship (referred to in Spain as Francoist
dictatorship) did not persecute the Jews.
Actually, it is widely believed that Franco’s regime actually helped the
Jews who were escaping Nazi occupied France to arrive in Lisbon and from there
to the Americas. Several documents have
now appeared, however, which show the falsehood of such interested and
apologetic perceptions of that regime.
This evidence also shows,
incidentally, that the Allies were fully aware of the Holocaust. By July 15th, 1944, Sir Harold MacMichael,
top British authority in the Palestinian Protectorate, sent a note to Sir
Antony Eden, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom, referring to
the Holocaust, indicating that several million Jews had been executed, some of
them Jews of Spanish origin.
The Franco government fully
cooperated in that Holocaust. Hitler
gave Franco the chance to take back the Jews of Spanish origin, which Franco
refused, knowing that this decision would condemn them to the gas
chambers. Franco did request, however,
to take possession of the property of those Jews, requesting them to be sent
back to Spain.
The recent book, El Franquismo,
Complice del Holocaust (Francoism, Accomplice of the Holocaust), written by the
Spanish historian Eduardo Martin de Pozuelo, shows plenty of evidence that
Franco collaborated in the Holocaust and also demonstrates that the Allied
authorities, including the U.S. Federal government, was fully aware of this,
which was not an obstacle.
Later on, President Eisenhower,
recognizing Franco’s dictatorship, defined him as “the great ally in the fight
for democracy against Communism.” Actually, one of the reasons why the Spanish
fascist regime helped in the elimination of the Jews of Spanish origin was not
only for the anti-Jewish views of Spanish fascism, closely allied to the
Catholic Church (Pius XII defined Franco as the Great Savior of Christianity),
but also because of military and security reasons.
According to the documents
published by Eduardo Martin de Pozuelo, the fascist regime was afraid that the
Spanish Jews, who would have likely sympathized with the Allied forces against
Hitler, could have easily become spies and saboteurs.
The evidence also shows that
Hitler played a critical role in the fascist coup lead by General Franco
against the democratically elected Spanish government in 1936, and Hitler’s
support for that coup until its victory in 1939. Without such military and economic assistance,
Franco would not have resisted the popular mobilization against the coup. As a consequence, Franco’s Spain became
practically a colony of Nazi Germany.
The Nazi establishment had an
enormous influence on the economic and political Spanish establishments. And the Allied Forces were fully aware of
this, partially because of the Spanish antifascist resistance that, under
extremely repressive conditions, helped the Allied Forces, to be ignored and
betrayed later on once the war ended and Franco became the best ally of the
so-called democratic governments, lead by the U.S. in their “fight for
Democracy against Communism.”
The enormous paradox is that the
Communist Soviet Union (along with Mexico) had been the only power who had
assisted the democratic forces in Spain in their resistance against Fascism.
Vincent Navarro is Professor of Public Policy at
the Johns Hopkins University. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and
the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press and now available in Kindle
format.
