What's your opinion on Francisco Franco?

Giovanni   Fri Apr 30, 2010 7:22 am GMT
I know too little about him but from what I know he was a true Christian warrior and loved his country so much that he would not give an inch to those that would see her destroyed, his choice of friends is questionable and rumors of his killing of priests trouble me.

All that said he was a brutal man dealing with brutal men.
Francine   Fri Apr 30, 2010 8:21 am GMT
<<his choice of friends is questionable and rumors of his killing of priests trouble me.


>>

I don't know where you heard those rumours because it is just the opposite: enemies of Franco killed priests indeed. Frente Popular (coalition made by the Socialist Party, Communists and Catalan nationalists) back them invited partisans to rape nuns whenever they could and shot people who attended religious services. I think Franco was in reality soft as silk because circumstances asked for massive extermination for those people.
Curious   Fri Apr 30, 2010 8:32 am GMT
It seems that the Spanish mainstream media is very anti-Franco. They always create TV shows where the Franquistas are the bad guys and the commies are the good guys. They always condemn Spain's past and Franco.

Is this because of the socialist government or do most people actually hate Franco? If you admit that you like Franco in public will people be offended, or is it a normal opinion?
Francine   Fri Apr 30, 2010 8:38 am GMT
TV's are controlled by the Government, which at the same time is much more P.C. than the populace. Franco is a taboo on TVs but not in everyday conversations you can hear to Spaniards. Maybe you would get into trouble if you talk positively about Franco in Catalonia, but not in the rest of Spain.
Baldewin   Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:01 pm GMT
He was voted as the 22th greatest Spaniard to have ever lived on some TV show. I have talked to one Spaniard before who was opposed to him, but who claimed he WOULD have taken up arms for him during the Civil War because he considered him better than the Republicans.
ha   Fri Apr 30, 2010 6:00 pm GMT
it's funny, of all people, franco actually hasn't posted on this thread
Stalin   Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:33 pm GMT
Ha, you do realise that the person who posts as Franco is not ACTUALLY the dead Spanish ex-dictator?

Whereas I am of course Stalin (erm... vodka spasiba das verdanya chernobyl ratushinskaya niet da niet).
joolsey   Sat May 01, 2010 1:37 pm GMT
Whatever your political persuasions, you have to admit that Franco was very skillful at brinkmanship politics in terms of Spain's status during the Second World War. Officially neutral, though offering indirect moral and material support to the Axis, he was constantly risking an Allied invasion, faced down Allied sanctions and risked potential isolation (or even hypothetical occupation) by the Allies in a post-war settlement.

But Franco also got incredibly lucky: the West softened its ostracization of him by the early 50s only because of the Cold War.
All the praise he receives for engendering economic prosperity in the late 50s and 60s would have been redundant had the Allied boycott continued.

Another question: have Spanish members of the Blue Division been ever investigated for war crimes on the Eastern Front? Are we really to believe that they did not exterminate Jews? Lord knows, they were high on anti-Semitic propaganda (and had plenty of 'previous' in this respect).

Can you imagine the reaction of the USA and later of Israel had things turned out differently? The Simon Wiesenthal centre would be having a field day even to this day!
Jewish   Sat May 01, 2010 1:45 pm GMT
<<Are we really to believe that they did not exterminate Jews? >>

No they didn't. Division Azul was composed by Spaniards with anti-communist sentiments, not antisemtic, and civil population in Eastern Countries considered them to be way more human and even friendly than the German soldiers . Spaniards are generous even with enemies.
Jewish   Sat May 01, 2010 1:49 pm GMT
The only ally of the Germans that was actively involved in Jewish extermination was Italy.
Don Jose   Sat May 01, 2010 2:13 pm GMT
Yeah, the Spaniards were really generous to the Aztecs and Incas when giving them smallpox and converting them.

How much was Italy involved in that anyway? I know also that Romania and Hungary participated in the Holocaust to an extent as well, with several hundred thousand people killed. Though many were able to be spared luckily. But yeah, I can't see that blue division having been actively involved in that kind of thing.
Jewish   Sat May 01, 2010 2:20 pm GMT
Conversions were done to save their souls because according to Christians five centuries ago those who were not Christians were condemned for the whole eternity. For the Spaniards it was a supreme act of generosity. If they didn't care the Aztecs they would simply have killed them like the Anglos did in USA .
time traveller   Sat May 01, 2010 10:35 pm GMT
Yes, it's true that the Italians participated in the holocaust and hence indirectly participated in the Great Holocaust because they inspired the Chinese.

Oh wait, um, don't pay any attention to that... Wrong year... you didn't hear that, ok...
Franco   Sat May 01, 2010 10:56 pm GMT
Please P.C. zombies, stop depicting the Aztecs as adorable people who lived in harmony with their neighbors. Spain may have commited her faults in Americas, but the Aztecs practised massive human sacrifices which according to some Historicians would have provoked extinction of the entire native population in Americas had the Spanish never discovered Americas. Maybe this would be a praise on the other hand as Mexico nowadays would be inhabited by pure Castilians and not brown skinned Mexican drug smugglers.
Aztecman's burden   Sat May 01, 2010 11:50 pm GMT
I wish Mexico had been discovered by whites rather than Spaniards.