Yes big jamon, and my granddad was tortured in a franquist prison camp after the war, but we must see things in perspective. As someone said in this thread, give credit when it is due, and criticize when there is a reason. The Franco regime was not black or white. It was very bad in general, though it had certain positive aspects.

Cristobo, things are that, althought you may be right and there were reconverted franquists in AP (perhaps the reason for which they barely obtained votes) you are saying that there are many (that means a majority) franquists in PP. Tell me:

What is a franquist? Can someone be a follower of other who is dead?

If AP had 50,000 votes and now PP has 11 million votes, why do you think a majority of those millions are franquists? (Though I agree with your dislike for Opus Dei and certain ministers).

I'm sorry, but for me it is just rethoric...

Fernando

FERNANDO!!!!???
Remember, Hitler and Musalini did great things for some people!
Your debate tactic of dismissing arguments as rhetoric or grey areas does not get to the point.
Franco won and thus was able to establish a country on HIS terms. This legacy has not been over-turned merely transitioned. Spain MUST confront the stories and deal with them in a very civilized way. If Spain doesn't, and those that hold these horrific stories die, Spain will self-destruct upon the lack of a TRUE history.
toddy (a strong PP supporter)

A majority?
I think I never said that, see my post. In any case, for the record, I don`t believe there is a majority of Franquist supporters among PP voters.
But I do think they exist, and I also believe PP needs to keep them happy too, else they will look for some more suitable option, some Spanish version of Le Pen (Gil, for instance).
It is possible to be a Franquist after Franco`s death, just as it is possible to be a Peronist after the death of Peron.
But I do agree on something, things are never black and white. I think Toddy is right about the need to look at history in a civilized, honest way. That means, we have to face history is NOT a movie, there is nothing such as good and evil in it. We shouldn`t use the conquers of yesterday to justify our wrongs of today.
Yeah, Hitler did good things, just as Churchill did horrible ones. I don`t think Auschwitz is morally worse than the bombing of Dresden. But it is winners who write history. The only difference it is that, in Spain, it was the fascists who won.

Toddy, it is not a debate tactic, it is just that in my honest opinion Cristobo was using a great deal of rethoric by stating that "many" PP voters were franquist. If franquists exist they have more than 80 years-old. I don't know anyone, but I know of a bunch of PP voters.

We must respect any political election as long as its principles are democratic and respect our Constitution and values.

As for Hitler, Mussolini and the grey theory I don't understand what annoys you Toddy. With all due respect, no matter how bad, criminal and unhuman this dictators were, they also did positive things (Hitler for example was able to rebuilt Germany from the devastation following the WWI). Yes, they were criminals, genocides, they were directly responsible for the assasination of million of jews, and also for the deaths of two dozens of persons due to the war. On thing doesn't deny the other.

In the same way, I'm saying that, although Franco was a dictator who imposed a antidemocratic regime in which leftists were prosecuted for their ideas, and although he was responsible for war crimes, and post-war crimes (as these killings we are talking about), he made other smart decisions, and was able to rebuild a devastated Spain without the aid of the Marshall Plan, and the blockade of the allies. He also built a net of infrastructures (roads, railways, lakes) and industrialized some specific regions.

My opinion, however, is that his government was very negative. He governed Spain for 40 years, and in the end left Spain with 20 years of delay from the rest of Europe, not to forget what we are talking about (massive graves).

As I have said before I think that the families have all the right to investigate it (even with public money).

And for the symbols that still exist in Spain from the Franco era I wouldn't dismount or destroy them. No matter how horrible they are, and what they represent, they are historic monuments.

The Inquisition made real atrocities, and noone thinks of demolishing cathedrals or ancient churches or palaces.

Fernando

Fernando, where do you stand? You take one stance only to dance to another. Nothing in life is exactly black or white, however we MUST take a strong stance as human beings to progress a civilized society. Spain HAS to fully confront the Civil War; especially under the LEADERSHIP of Franco. However painful, Civil War secret's will only advance the healing process and allow Spain the ability to move on and get out of the back seat of the euro train (by which Sr. Franco left España.

Cristobo,

You don't find Auschwitz morally worse than the bombing of Dresden? You'd compare the murder of 6,000,000 Jews to the prosecution of war, bombing a city that was a leader in munition and arms manufacturing? Apparently you and I step to the tune of different drummers. I find what the Nazis did an outrage against humanity, not prosecution of war.

Fernando,

When was the last time you saw a homage to Adolph Hitler in Germany? A statue? Yet Spain considers the Franco monmuments "art?" It's time to pull down all the reminders from that past.

Until you face the reality that the man had tens of thousands of people slaughtered like diseased sheep, and bury the remains of these poor souls properly, you're just trying to sweep his dirt under the rug.

Wolf

200 000 victims? VACUUM BOMBS? Was that really necessary? Dresden was not only one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, it was a hospital-city, receiving refugees from the East, wounded people and civilians. Red crosses were painted on the roofs.
The war was mostly won by then, I wonder if the allies bombed Dresden just "to test" new weapons, as it appears to be the case in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In any case, the bombing of civilian aims was a widely spread tactic in the allied side, things like the "tapestry bombing". The aim it was supposed to be reducing the moral of the enemy. When allied pilots fell to ground, they often were lynched by people. Horrible, of course, but I can hardly blame them.
Hitler (and others) was a racist and commited terrible crimes, but I wonder why should I think that he was worse than, say, Stalin, who was supposed to be one of the "good guys".
Why have they filmed so many movies, tv series, and so on, about Auschwitz, while no one has ever said a word on the massacres of Germans (millions) in Silesia and Czech Republic, short after the war? Why is it so hard to accept that all the victims are the same, that no one is entitled to blame, to say "I am only a victim, you are only a criminal?"
As to Franquist monuments, in Catalonia they have found the perfect solution: they maintain many of them, along with a plate which reminds the historical meaning of them, for example "this bridge was built by forced Republican prisioners".

Cristobo,

Only someone who wants to see a picture through a different perspective than what really existed has the willingness to refer to Nagasaki and Hiroshima as being other than what it was. The bombing of those two cities was done to save millions of lives on both sides, that would have been lost, had the allies invaded Japan. You better read your history a lot better, even the Japanese version now cedes that the loss of life would have been over 5,000,000 more, had we not done what we did. Your statement is totally without merit.

An interesting side-note on the bombing of Dresden. Hitler ordered the hospitals placed directly beside munitions and arms plants with the intent of causing us to bomb them as well. Yet you fail to identify that fact, because it doesn't fit into your narrow view of how you want to see history. Then there was the anti-aircraft fire - blistering, according to accounts. Hundreds upon hundreds of Allied airmen died in the attacks, including my great-uncle, who was on his 23rd mission. He would have come home to his wife and two kids if the bombing didn't have to take place.

Lynching Allied airmen. Wonderful. The same people who said, "We knew nothing about it!," when they were confronted with what the Third Reich was doing to the Jewish population of Europe. I can hardly feel sorry for people like that. Hitler carried on a campaign to destroy London and its inhabitants years earlier. But you failed to mention that also. Your "one sided view" of history is alarming. Apparently you've never bothered to take the time to read about all sides of issues. Can you explain why?

Where did you get this "mis-guided" concept that everyone thought Stalin was a good guy? Really now. You obviously haven't read up on the subject to much. He was an ally in defeating Germany, not a buddy of the US or Great Britain. You better open a few books and get your facts straight.

I could care less how Spain handles the monuments to a dictator. It's their business. Personally, keeping the info that these monuments were built by slave labor is an important statement, and may very well be enough. But the business of properly burying those who were senselessly slaughtered on both sides of the revolution belongs to those who are alive today, regardless of which side you stand on. Nothing will convince me differently.

Wolf

Toddy, do I really have to explain where I stand?

I think that our current model of state is the best we have had in our whole history. Much better than the Franco's dictatorship, and better than the corrupted II República. The main reasons for this thought is that the current model of state was born with the aportations of every political force in Spain, and we have achieved a state in which liberties are respected and we can live reasonably well.

I think that the crimes commited by the Franco regime should be condemned (authors can't be prosecuted because these crimes were commited at the beginning of the dictatorship and they are probably dead).

What I wanted to state is that things in real life are not just good or bad, and that even in the worst dictatorships we can find some good events. Of course as a whole, I don't know any dictatorship which can be qualified as "good".

Comparing Franco (or the fascist portuguese dictator) with Hitler or Mussolini is void. They are similarities, but I find that no matter how assasins they all were, it is not the same to systematicly kill millions of jews, gypsies and other ethnias attending precisely their ethnia, than prosecuting the political oposition as Franco did (it is said that the total number of deaths during the war and post-war was around 200,000). Even between the evil there are scales.

As for the bombing of Dresden and other german cities I fully agree with Cristobo. No matter that we all agree that the allies were the good guys and the axis the bad guys. The allies also commited errors and unjustified assasinations.

I have visited Germany and most of the monuments were harrased, was it necessary? What for the 2 million german women forced by russian troops? What for the massive german assasinations after the end of the war? Some of them were unjustified and weren't consequence of a court's decission.

War is always dirty. With the time wounds heal, and I agree with you all that the way is to investigate what happend and uncover the truth no matter how painful it is.

Fernando

Cristobo, Fernando,

In retrospect, I agree with both of you, that the bombing of Dresden was wrong. Yet, I have to understand how the British Air Wing, and the people in Churchill's cabinet, felt that it wasn't any worse than what happened when the Germans bombed London. Right or wrong, it was a decision that I don't think they took lightly.

According to many historians, the reason the bombing was carried out was to destroy German morale, and put an end to the war as soon as possible. Whether or not we agree with that is our own point of view. After all, it wasn't the Allies who declared war on the rest of Europe, was it?

I wonder how many lives that it saved, since the war wound down very fast after those raids. I wonder if it did save a lot of lives. I don't know for sure, but neither does anyone else.

Wolf