Posted on 04/11/2008 7:42:50 PM PDT by blam
Franco 'collaborated with Nazis' to prove Canary Islands were home to Aryan race
By Fiona Govan in Madrid
Last Updated: 7:12pm BST 11/04/2008
Spanish archaeologists collaborated with the Nazis in their attempts to prove the theory of Aryan supremacy and justify their claims of racial superiority over the Jews, according to a new book.
Spain wanted to promote the idea that the Aryan race could be traced to the Canary Islands, amid claims they were all that remained of the lost continent of Atlantis.
Archaeologists appointed by Franco were asked to look into claims the Canary Islands were the remains of Atlantis
Scientists from the Ahnenerbe, an institute set up by Heinrich Himmler and funded by the SS, planned to travel to the Atlantic islands to carry out research but were forced to postpone the project when war broke out in September 1939.
They appointed archaeologist Julio Martinez Santa Olalla, a friend of the dictator General Franciso Franco, to conduct investigations on their behalf.
The extent of the collaboration between Franco’s archaeologists and those in Nazi Germany has been revealed in a new book by Francisco Gracia Alonso, professor of history at the University of Barcelona.
Prof Gracia reveals the close relationship between Santa Olalla and the Ahnenerbe, which was founded to investigate "the science of ancient intellectual history".
Himmler’s organisation sent German scholars around the world to discover the roots of the Aryan race, leading them to examine Bronze Age carvings in Sweden, forgotten folk customs in Finland and even to Tibet to explore claims that Buddha himself was of Aryan descent.
Its scientists were occupied in searching for such legendary objects as Thor’s Hammer and the Holy Grail but were also responsible for carrying out medical experiments on Jews in concentration camps.
The Ahnenerbe’s findings were used to justify Hitler’s belief that true Germans were descended from an Aryan ideal.
Prof Gracia believes that the Spanish fascists had expressed interest in setting up a similar unit under Franco, following his victory in the Spanish Civil War.
"They wanted to create something similar in Spain in order to maintain control over the ideological basis of the country’s archaeology and prehistory," he said. Jose Luis Arrese, one of Franco’s ministers, had held discussions with Himmler over the matter.
The book has uncovered evidence that Himmler’s unit funded Spanish excavations, providing expensive photographic equipment and lending aircraft to carry out aerial surveys of sites.
Plans were laid for joint excavations of Visigoth sites on mainland Spain and on the Canary Islands where the Nazis hoped to find evidence of an ancestral race of Aryans.
The theory had been a favourite of the first head of the Ahnenerbe, Herman Wirth, who propounded that the islands were remnants of Atlantis.
"An expedition that was supposed to take place in 1939, under the direction of Otto Huth, an Ahnenerbe researcher specializing in ancient spiritual Aryan beliefs, was postponed indefinitely because of World War II," said Prof Gracia.
After that it was left to Santa Olalla to inform the Germans of research carried out by Spanish teams.
"He made several visits to Germany, had his papers published by the Ahnenerbe and toured Nazi Germany giving lecture tours," said Prof Gracia, who added that there was no evidence that he had participated in anything more sinister.
The collaboration came to an abrupt end with the fall of Nazi Germany. Several leading scholars from the Ahnenerbe were sentenced to death in the Nuremberg trials for their part in the Holocaust.
If Franco had lost, Hitler would have invaded Spain after France fell, and probably seized the rest of North Africa
as well.
That would have prolonged WWII by at least another year.
So, in the long run, a neutral Franco in Spain was better for the world (whatever it meant for Spain) than a Republican victory there.
“Franco was a homicidal bum and a Fascist.”
Bull crap.
Whenever anyone thwarts the communist bastards — Nixon, Pinochet, Marcos, and before them, Franco — the world media, the writers of textbooks, all of academia, all leftists everywhere...every lowlife crawling scum on the face of the planet...all go into high gear to tar his name and blacken his reputation.
Everyone who stood in communism’s path and said, “NO” is a hero.
By the way, the killing of communists bent on imposing communism by force of arms is by no rational definition “murder,” regardless of the circumstances or “legality” of the killing.
Franco wrested Spain from the clutches of a Stalinist tyranny and saved her people from Communist slavery.
This just in: Francisco Franco still dead.
SNL bump.
> Everyone who stood in communism’s path and said, “NO” is a hero.
Was Hitler a hero to you, then?
> all go into high gear to tar his name and blacken his reputation.
There is no need to blacken his reputation. He did that by siding with Nazis and Fascists — which all right-minded human beings hate, loathe, despise and fight.
> the killing of communists bent on imposing communism by force of arms is by no rational definition “murder,” regardless of the circumstances or “legality” of the killing.
Killing civilians is always murder, and a War Crime if done by force of arms. Sadly, we never got to see Franco stretch a rope, like we did with most of his Nazi friends. What a pity that was!
Is he still dead?
> So, in the long run, a neutral Franco in Spain was better for the world (whatever it meant for Spain) than a Republican victory there.
Franco sent “volunteer” troops to fight the Soviets on the Eastern Front — hardly a neutral act, no matter what complexion is put on it.
Except that when the time came to stand and fight he chose not to side with the Nazis and fascists. We on the other hand chose to side with the Soviets.
I can't fault Franco for too much. He fought the commies didn't attack his neighbors and never let his own government fall into the same kind of barbarism as Nazi Germany.
At least he still had the ME-109’s used in the Battle for Britain” Movie
barbra ann
“Was Hitler a hero to you, then?”
I am hard put to imagine what sort of ignorance, mental disorder, or plain old stupidity could lead anyone to imagine that Hitler stood in communism’s path and said, “NO.”
> I am hard put to imagine what sort of ignorance, mental disorder, or plain old stupidity could lead anyone to imagine that Hitler stood in communism’s path and said, “NO.”
I guess the Eastern Front didn’t happen then, in your parallel universe.
Wouldn't Sweden, Finland, and Tibet also have been collaborators?
Has the American Liberal Left ever honored ANYONE who opposed Communism?
> Has the American Liberal Left ever honored ANYONE who opposed Communism?
Dunno. They thought JFK was a bit of all right — still do.
He’s still dead.
Nothing new here.
Social scientists and that includes archaeologists skew their “studies” according to the highest bidder.
International pimp Soros has quite a few working for his dismal dangerous goals.
“At least he still had the ME-109’s used in the Battle for Britain” Movie”
And the He-111’s.
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