Spain confirms: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead

Hot Air ^ | Jazz Shaw Posted at 9:21 am on October 24, 2019

[Red Badger]

If the title of this article doesn’t make any sense to you, you probably never watched Saturday Night Live in the seventies. When Chevy Chase used to be the “anchor” for their Weekend Update segment, he would frequently invoke the breaking news that Spanish dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco was “still dead.” Today, Spain is scheduled to confirm this news when the brutal dictator’s remains are removed from the mausoleum at the Valley of the Fallen in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain. Descendants of Franco will transfer the coffin to a private cemetery. (Associated Press)

The body of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco is being exhumed Thursday from the grandiose mausoleum at the Valley of the Fallen before being transferred to a more discreet, private resting place.

The much-criticized operation fulfills a decades-old desire of many in Spain who considered Franco’s mausoleum an affront to his victims and to Spain’s standing as a modern democratic state.

The exhumation and reburial will not put an end to Franco’s legacy on the contemporary Spanish political scene, particularly as it comes just weeks ahead of a Nov. 10 general election that is certain to see Spain’s main parties of the left and right battling it out once again.

The AP link above offers a fairly detailed explanation of who Franco was and why this exhumation is happening. Franco’s tomb has been the subject of a legal battle that’s been making its way through the courts since 2007.

Franco was a brutal dictator who started a civil war to overthrow the democratically elected government of Spain in 1939. He continued to rule until his death in November of 1975. Over the course of the civil war and the decades of oppression that followed, an estimated 100,000 people were killed, many of whom are buried in unmarked graves on the grounds of the Valle de los Caídos where his mausoleum is located.

This has been considered by many as an insult to the memory of all of the fallen who died under Franco’s rule. Following a Supreme Court ruling in September, the order was finally given to remove him from the Valley of the Fallen over the objections of his family.

Surprisingly, Franco retains his fair share of supporters in the country, including the members of some of the more right-leaning political parties. They objected to the exhumation along with his surviving family members. The debate continues to this day. So in some ways, Franco’s civil war never really ended. I suspect that moving his coffin to a less publicly visible location won’t do anything to put the matter to rest.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Not good person.

However the monarchy was saved and communism was defeated. So was he lesser of the evils?

[dfwgator]

For Spain he was as good as they are ever going to get.

[BenLurkin]

As is John McCain

[JonPreston]

I see that communist ghouls are back to grave digging when it comes to virulent anti-communists. America could use the helicopter rides the great Gen. Francisco Franco perfected.

PS: for a historical perspective, look at some of the pictures available on a Google search of the Spanish communists digging up graves of Catholic nuns and priests. This is history repeating itself.

[SauronOfMordor]

It was General Pinochet who did the helicopter rides, not Franco.

[Leaning Right]

> Franco was a brutal dictator who started a civil war to overthrow the democratically elected government of Spain in 1939 <

Huh? The Spanish civil war started in 1936, not 1939. I’ve got a feeling the author’s goal here is to badmouth Franco. The historical facts are secondary.

[SauronOfMordor]

If the Communists had not been stopped from coming to power, the death toll would Have been much higher.

[zeestephen]

The “still dead” joke needs a better explanation.

Franco lingered on his death bed for like an entire year, and Spain was constantly reporting that “Franco is still alive.”

[JonPreston]

oops, you’re right.

[Grimmy]

Not good person.

*************

Good persons don’t save their countries from the sort of hell on earth that the commiescum would have turned it into if the Soviet backed forces had won.

Hard men do.

Franco was a hard man.

[SES1066]

So that we can see what is being discussed ...

The Royal Monastery of El Escorial & Valley of the Fallen.

As for this write-up, one sided and with errors. The Spanish Civil War ran from 1936 to 1939 with Franco leading the Falange Nationalists, a fascist movement supported by Nazi Germany & Fascist Italy, to victory. The Popular Front government elected in 1936 was left-wing, anti Roman Catholic and aiming to break-up the landownership and nationalizing the economy. In the 3 years of very brutal fighting, this side was supported by many volunteer leftist foreign fighters who formed "International Brigades" (U.S. volunteers formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade). This side also had much media support and some varying support from (Communist) Comintern & the Soviet Union.

IMHO, this was a war of the extremists on both sides. Spain was paralyzed by being unable to grow out of her history. Remembering the glory of empire but unable to make the economy work for all. If the Popular Front government had won, my feeling is that there would have also been a brutal dictatorship, just from the left!

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Franco did not take a strong stance against the Nazis in World War II and patriots loyal to him and Spain — who went out of line to help Jews or speak out, often suffered for it.

[Grimmy]

This is Europe.

In Europe, there will always be totalitarians. That’s just how it is. And in that period of time, it was one or the other.

The pretend that there was a middle way is a presentism deceit.

Franco did keep Spain from officially joining the Axis. After the help he received from Germany during the civil war, that was rather unexpected of him.

There’s always hurt in such things. That is an unfortunate fact of life. But when discussing the evils of Franco, what is *always* left out is the utter horror of the communist depravities, organized mass slaughters and massacres. And the horror show the country would have become if the Soviet side had won that war.

Like I said above.

Not a good person. A hard man.

Saints don’t dance in these events.

[Saint Athanasius]

The Spanish Civil War is a little more complex than the author is making it out to be. I for one would have definitely fought for Franco. He wasn’t a fascist.

For those that really don’t know this history, they need to be aware of it because it coming here to the US. Some would argue that it is already here.

This book will be a helpful antidote to the those who have sympathies of the Republican Red Guard of Spain.

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Crusade-Spain-1936/dp/0931888670

[Vermont Lt]

Yes, the SCW was the spring training for the Luftwaffe. They tested out a lot of their new toys, and got some decent experience doing it.

[Vehmgericht]

Typical right wing piker; “an estimated 100,000 people were killed.” Moa, Stalin, PolPot, now they knew how do rack up a death toll.

[Captain Jack Aubrey]

I have been to the valley of the fallen. I have seen Franco‘s grave. I have traveled all around the world. And I will tell you that the valley of the fallen monument is the greatest national monument that I’ve ever seen in any country. It is breathtaking. It is awesome. Look it up on Wikipedia. Look at the pictures. It is not a monument to Franco. it is a monument to the dead of the Spanish Civil War. On both sides. There are 30,000 or more buried there.

I have mixed feelings about this reinterment.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

So is Chevy Chase’s career.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Another book is by Richard? Gladstone, “The Spanish Civil War”..