St. Fransisco Franco?

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SelecusNicator said:
Franco was a conservative reactionary he was fighting for the established order that had been in place in Spain for centuries. Fascists like Hitler wanted to radically change society, where as Franco was fighting to keep it how it had always been.
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Franco’s policies were driven more by pragmatism than ideology. It is at times even difficult to recognize where his true political convictions lay as his policies and politics reflected those of his political allies as much as his own. For example he venerated Primo de Ribera on a philosophical level and as a thinker, but was much more moderate than him on a practical level. Had de Ribera lived long enough to witness Franco’s peacetime policies, he would probably have been horrified at Franco’s willingness to forge links with former enemies and to step back from confrontation. But being dead, Ribera was a useful symbol in whose footsteps Franco could claim to be treading. When you talk about protecting the established order, I guess you are referring two the Carlist movement.But again, Franco was no Carlist originally. He formed an alliance with the Carlists during the Civil War and later nominated a number of Carlist leaders into government positions. Carlism thus influenced Franco’s policies without it being clear whether Franco fully stood behind them himself, or accepted them out of pragmatism and the need to build as a broad a support base as possible.
 
Cirdan_XII said:
It’s interesting that this discussion is going on here right now as I just finished reading an interesting article by a Spanish historian in which he looks at British attitudes to Franco during the Civil War period. He says that the British government and establishment didn’t like Franco much, and obviously the left disliked him even more. But interestingly the moderate and far right didn’t like him either. The article had some interesting Moseley quotations that basically deride Franco as a silly fool. The only bloc worth mentioning in Britain who were sympathetic to Franco were to be found inside the Catholic Church, and especially the more upper-class and aristocratic shade of the Catholic Church, with one bishop being quoted as drawing parallels between the age-old and historic anti-catholicism of the British establishment, which was still very much alive at the time, and anti-Francoism in Briatin, moving people who otherwise had little sympathy for communists to suddenly root for them in Spain. It is interesting to consider the present opinion of the Telegraph in that light.

The Catholic support Franco received obviously had sufficient influence on him so that, for example, throughout his reign, he sought to downplay the Gibraltar question. So Franco was more sympathetic towards Britain than most of Britain deserved.
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Francisco Franco did not downplay the Gibraltar question - in fact he closed the border between Gibraltar and Spain, which remained closed from 1967 to 1982, separating many families and communities on both sides of the border. If anything, he escalated the entire issue to a whole new level to the point that during the 60s the British authorities did fear a Spanish attack. Such a man should not be a Saint.
 
If anything, Gibraltarian Catholics got on - and still do - better with the British Protestants than with their Spanish Catholic counterparts (and Gib is a majority Catholic place) due to what occurred during the Franco years. not saying that he didn’t bring some stability to a broken Spain - Spain was probably more stable under him than it has been over the past 30 years or so. but he did so at a great cost and not everything was as great as some are making it out to be. - the man is certainly no Saint.
 
Saint? If anything this guy should be one of the residents “Down Under”, along with Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and all their Fascist/Communist lot
 
Gib1704 said:
Francisco Franco did not downplay the Gibraltar question - in fact he closed the border between Gibraltar and Spain, which remained closed from 1967 to 1982, separating many families and communities on both sides of the border. If anything, he escalated the entire issue to a whole new level to the point that during the 60s the British authorities did fear a Spanish attack. Such a man should not be a Saint.
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That was only after relations with Britain began to sour due to toffish and jinglistic attitudes gaining ground in Westminster. At the Hendaye conference, Hitler explicitly asked Franco to start getting tough on Britain over Gibraltar and Franco refused, stating that he has a debt of gratitude to the British Catholics who had provided him with moral support during the Civil War.

Anyway, the border was closed more in name than in reality. My parents drove to Gibraltar several times in the early 1970s and although the guards took their time, we got in and out without anything extraordinary happening.
 
I don’t know how your parents managed to cross the border - supply trucks were not allowed into Gib ( all produce in is period came from the UK, Morocco and Portugal), and pedestrians were not allowed through until it opened. in fact,people wold stand on either side of the border t communi ate with each other via shouting across the fence (as seen in the image, which is from 1977). the only way from Spain to Gib during this time was via a ferry to Morocco and another ferry to Gibraltar. one of the main reasons that Franco did not let Hitler take Gibraltar was that he feared the Germans attacking Spain, and he also knew thatif Hitler got Gibraltar, he would not give it to Spain.
 
Gib1704 said:
I don’t know how your parents managed to cross the border - supply trucks were not allowed into Gib ( all produce in is period came from the UK, Morocco and Portugal), and pedestrians were not allowed through until it opened. in fact,people wold stand on either side of the border t communi ate with each other via shouting across the fence (as seen in the image, which is from 1977).
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Well, that image looks nothing at all like the border as a I remember it. Maybe there were different border crossings.
Gib1704 said:
the only way from Spain to Gib during this time was via a ferry to Morocco and another ferry to Gibraltar. one of the main reasons that Franco did not let Hitler take Gibraltar was that he feared the Germans attacking Spain, and he also knew thatif Hitler got Gibraltar, he would not give it to Spain.
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Hitler never wanted to attack Gibraltar. On the contrary, he wanted Franco to attack Gibraltar in order to divert and split the attention of British troops and so take pressure off his own fronts, without it costing him anything. Franco told him what he thought of that idea and Hitler went home humiliated. Hitler later said that he’d rather have all his teeth pulled one by one (and remember Hitler feared dentists almost more then anything else) than to have to negotiate with Franco again.
 
Cirdan_XII said:
Well, that image looks nothing at all like the border as a I remember it. Maybe there were different border crossings.

Hitler never wanted to attack Gibraltar. On the contrary, he wanted Franco to attack Gibraltar in order to divert and split the attention of British troops and so take pressure off his own fronts, without it costing him anything. Franco told him what he thought of that idea and Hitler went home humiliated. Hitler later said that he’d rather have all his teeth pulled one by one (and remember Hitler feared dentists almost more then anything else) than to have to negotiate with Franco again.
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Perhaps you crossed the border after it opened, in the early stages when it opened, as the Spanish side was locked during the Franco years (there was, and still is, only one main crossing - the one seen in this image). You are correct about Franco resisting Hitler’s advances, but there were indeed German plans to seize the Rock, which failed to materialise mainly due to German losses on the Russian Front, and also due to Franco not being willing to take the risk of the Nazis crossing through Spain. It was called Operation Felix - here is an interesting article about it:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Felix
 
devoutchristian said:
He was much better than he Communists.
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devoutchristian said:
He was much better than he Communists.
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How can one say that one group of killers is better than another? Both the White and Red Terrors devastated Spain - thus both the Falangist Fascists under Franco were equally as bad as the Communists. Fine, the Falanguists were Catholic, but - and I say this as a practicing Catholic - Franco’s way of doing things was very unChristian indeed, God would not condone what he did.

Even after the Civil War was over, repressions continued. There are countless individuals who “disappeared” for opposing the new regime, as well as babies who were stolen and sold (maybe the Communists wold have done the same, but that does not make it right). What about Guernica? Or the refinery placed in front of Gibraltar in the 1960s which has led to increased cancer rates both in Gibraltar and nearby Spanish towns? No excuses for that. If anything, Franco is, or should be, rotting in hell with the Red Terror Communists who he so opposed and who devastated Spain.
 
Thompson5 said:
But does that make the White Terror right?
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The White Terror was not a single act. Certain parts of it were wrong. Other parts were justified to the same degree as the Nuremberg war crime trials. And since you mention post-war repression, it should be noted that to this day the Nazi Party is prohibited in Germany.
 
devoutchristian said:
The White Terror was not a single act. Certain parts of it were wrong. Other parts were justified to the same degree as the Nuremberg war crime trials. And since you mention post-war repression, it should be noted that to this day the Nazi Party is prohibited in Germany.
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And why would we want Nazism to come back? They did more than enough in their time. Moreover, both Terrors were wrong - one thing is War Trials (which took place in Spain), and another is repression.
 
devoutchristian said:
We wouldn’t. So too, Franco didn’t want Communism to come back.
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But the way he did this was very wrong, to say the least. Nonetheless, I’m afraid you haven’t really provided too convincing an argument as to how Franco’s actions were good or positive any way. You are, of course, free to support him, what he stood for, but how can one justify the continuing repression of anti-Falanguists even after the war, many who weren’t even Communists, but were ordinary people - most Catholic - who were not in favour of the Generalissimo.
 
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