Franco will move.

[abradley]

Spain will exhume dictator Francisco Franco's remains on Thursday

Reuters•October 21, 2019

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Spain will exhume dictator Francisco Franco's remains on Thursday
A Spanish Civil Guard officer stands in the closed entrance of the Valle de los Caidos (The Valley of the Fallen), in San Lorenzo de El Escorial
By Clara-Laeila Laudette

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain will on Thursday remove the 1.5-tonne slab which has covered the tomb of dictator Francisco Franco for the past 44 years and fly his remains by helicopter away from a state mausoleum, government sources told reporters on Monday.

The ruling Socialists have long sought to exhume Franco's remains and turn the Valley of the Fallen complex near the capital Madrid into a memorial to the 500,000 people who were killed during the 1936-39 civil war he unleashed.

A crane will lift the slab and, if the original zinc-lined wood coffin is too degraded, the dictator's remains will be transferred into a new coffin, the sources said.

Twenty-two of Franco's descendants will be present for the exhumation, which is set to start at 1030 (0830 GMT) on Thursday, the sources said.

Some of these family members will carry the coffin on their shoulders to an awaiting helicopter - or in the case of bad weather, hearse - which will take it to the Mingorrubio El Pardo cemetery north of Madrid, where Franco will be buried alongside his wife.

A short blessing will take place within the Valley of the Fallen and a full Mass will be held when Franco's remains arrive at the cemetery.

If everything runs according to plan, the whole process should take one hour. The entire operation will cost the Spanish government up to 63,000 euros ($70,000).

The family disputed the exhumation in courts but the Supreme Court rejected their appeal last month.

The funeral home tasked with moving Franco's remains has not been named for its own safety, the sources said, adding that some of the companies involved in the operation had received death threats.

The Valley of the Fallen mausoleum holds the bodies of 34,000 Spaniards who died during the war, including many from the losing Republican side whose bodies were moved there during Franco's rule without the permission of their families.

Neither media nor the public will be allowed to watch the proceedings, in preparation of which the government shut the Valley of the Fallen, which is due to reopen on Oct. 29.

The location of Franco's tomb continues to fracture Spanish opinion with 43% in favor of the move and 32.5% against, according to a poll published by El Mundo earlier this month.

(continued) https://news.yahoo.com/spain-exhume-dictator-francisco-francos-092437185.html

The Socialist have won, thank the lord they didn't win the civil war.

Speaking of Spain, why didn't Franco enter WW2 on Hitler's side, the popular reply is he didn't want to, but what if he did:

 

[Arwon]

About time that ludicrous mausoleum was done away with

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Seems a reasonable idea. Giant monuments to brutal dictators generally stir up ill will.

 

[Zardnaar]

Seems reasonable. Viewpoints change.

 

[innonimatu]

Speaking of Spain, why didn't Franco enter WW2 on Hitler's side, the popular reply is he didn't want to, but what if he did:

Spain would have been rid of that rotten dictator in 1945. But he wasn't that dumb. As will all tintop military dictators his priority was power and clinging to it. Unlike the republicans and socialists who were actually trying to modernize improve the country.

 

[Zardnaar]

Spain would have been rid of that rotten dictator in 1945. But he wasn't that dumb. As will all tintop military dictators his priority was power and clinging to it. Unlike the republicans and socialists who were actually trying to modernize improve the country.

Had the Repubs won they would have been a Stalin puppet and probably gone the same way as Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc and the other Soviet satellites.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Well I hope they do this removal correctly with least amount of complications because a clogged up the toilet is no picnic to deal with.

 

[Ajidica]

We can confirm that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

 

[innonimatu]

Had the Repubs won they would have been a Stalin puppet and probably gone the same way as Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc and the other Soviet satellites.

No they wouldn't, and you have no basis whatsoever to claim that.

One, the republican government was a coalition of all the parties in democratic Spain, not a communist single-party one.

Two, a republican Spain would have been invaded by Germany during WW2, they'd think could not afford to have a hostile country there, as they did not allow those in the Balkans. Partisans would no doubt right off the germans and bleed them very much (Hitler seemed to ape Napoleon a lot...). But the country would in the end be liberated as France was, and that meant allied occupation. It'd be in the "western" zone.

Three, it might be faintly possible that Spain could evade that bad fate of German occupation. Or, unlikely but more possible, managed to liberate itself, say with the allies landing in France instead of trying to fight through the Pyrenees or bother garbing the economically marginal peninsula, and the partisans defeating the german garrison. In that event Spain might have a socialist government, but it would be a non-aligned one like Tito. Outside direct soviet influence there was no power that the USSR could exercise there.

Finally, Stalin "split the world" with Roosevelt and Churchill, in the process throwing under the bus the italian and greek communists. He'd do the same to the spanish if ever they controlled government by 1945. And, I repeat, there is no basis to believe that.

 

[Imaus]

Had the Repubs won they would have been a Stalin puppet and probably gone the same way as Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc and the other Soviet satellites.

The Repubs had a coup in the end of the war BECAUSE the Soviets were overstepping their bounds. FAI, Julian Besterio, and Colonel Casado all wanted to shake off the Communists and the Soviets. It was not all Priest-shooting and Church burning; the Republicans were composed of many Left of Center to Left elements; and the Soviets often made the most far-left elements fight each other, fight the other Republicans, purge themselves, and conform to their totalitarianism. George Orwell and Hemingway both attested to how far the Soviets were reaching.

There is no inclination that if they won, that Spain would had been a Soviet puppet. Spain keeps to itself, and has distance and the whole Atlantic-port thing on its side for the Soviets to woo them for. It's not like the Soviets could drive tanks down to Madrid like they did to Prague or Budapest.

 

[Zardnaar]

No they wouldn't, and you have no basis whatsoever to claim that.

One, the republican government was a coalition of all the parties in democratic Spain, not a communist single-party one.

Two, a republican Spain would have been invaded by Germany during WW2, they'd think could not afford to have a hostile country there, as they did not allow those in the Balkans. Partisans would no doubt right off the germans and bleed them very much (Hitler seemed to ape Napoleon a lot...). But the country would in the end be liberated as France was, and that meant allied occupation. It'd be in the "western" zone.

Three, it might be faintly possible that Spain could evade that bad fate of German occupation. Or, unlikely but more possible, managed to liberate itself, say with the allies landing in France instead of trying to fight through the Pyrenees or bother garbing the economically marginal peninsula, and the partisans defeating the german garrison. In that event Spain might have a socialist government, but it would be a non-aligned one like Tito. Outside direct soviet influence there was no power that the USSR could exercise there.

Finally, Stalin "split the world" with Roosevelt and Churchill, in the process throwing under the bus the italian and greek communists. He'd do the same to the spanish if ever they controlled government by 1945. And, I repeat, there is no basis to believe that.

If they win they would have looked to Moscow for support. They would have been dependent on them for military toys.

The local Communists would have purged everyone and tried collectivization. Maybe another civil war.

Best case scenario would have been maybe a Yugoslavia type deal which still followed Orthodox communism in regards to state run stuff.

 

[Imaus]

If they win they would have looked to Moscow for support. They would have been dependent on them for military toys.

The local Communists would have purged everyone and tried collectivization.

Best case scenario would have been maybe a Yugoslavia type deal which still followed Orthodox communism in regards to state run stuff.

The Republicans weren't all Communists. Maybe you've forgotten that. It would had taken another Civil War for any of that to happen. In the same vein we could say that the Republicans would had suddenly become Mexico's lapdog, since Mexico gave a major part of support as well.

Best Case Scenario: The Second Spanish Republic continues on as a Leftist Republic full of SocDems, DemSocs, Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists; without ten years of partians in the background, without the squashing of the Basques for decades, without, you know, A FALANGIST SPAIN; which is never preferable to even a Soviet esque Republic. Let us not forget how that Spain supported the genocidal Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, left Western Sahara in shambles, broken until today, attacked the Basques and Catalans and Galicians for decades, and was, oh, once again, Falangist?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If they win they would have looked to Moscow for support. They would have been dependent on them for military toys.

The local Communists would have purged everyone and tried collectivization. Maybe another civil war.

Best case scenario would have been maybe a Yugoslavia type deal which still followed Orthodox communism in regards to state run stuff.

Okay Senator McCarthy, whatever you say.

 

[Zardnaar]

Okay Senator McCarthy, whatever you say.

It's the way Stalin rolled and the post war Soviet satellites where the Communists win.

Mongolia, China, Cambodia, Cuba,Korea etc.

Had they won who has the supply line to Moscow for new tanks, planes,guns etc.

I don't think it would have been to long before the Communists end up on top. Who used the North Vietnamese as an example when a superpower decides to supply weaponary?

 

[Arwon]

You're also fairly likely to see Marshall Plan influences in a post-WW2 republican Spain, and yeah, as noted the political situation on the Republican side was way way more fluid and complex than "Soviet satellite after USSR occupation".

If Yugoslavia (or, hell, Finland) didn't end up in the Warsaw Pact and Soviet puppet camp despite geographical proximity, there's absolutely no way Spain would have.

(Plus the counterfactual where the Republic wins is almost certainly also one where it wasn't just the USSR involved internationally on their side)

 

[Zardnaar]

You're also fairly likely to see Marshall Plan influences in a post-WW2 republican Spain, and yeah, as noted the political situation on the Republican side was way way more fluid and complex than "Soviet satellite after USSR occupation".

If Yugoslavia (or, hell, Finland) didn't end up in the Warsaw Pact and Soviet puppet camp despite geographical proximity, there's absolutely no way Spain would have.

Tito still drive his country into the ground he was just independent of Stalin. Yugoslavia still had similar problems to all the other communist countries. Still second world.

Finland cut a deal was never occupied nor had much in the way of native Communists that got power. The Finnish communist party was a puppet in in the USSR.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Really gross how op prefers the fact that fascists won

 

[abradley]

Really gross how op prefers the fact that fascists won

I'd rather have had a government modeled on the USA but that wasn't in the cards, so my druthers was Fascist (non -Jew killing).

 

[innonimatu]

Tito still drive his country into the ground he was just independent of Stalin. Yugoslavia still had similar problems to all the other communist countries. Still second world.

Finland cut a deal was never occupied nor had much in the way of native Communists that got power. The Finnish communist party was a puppet in in the USSR.

He did not, for all his faults, and there are. Considering where Yugoslavia was coming from, and the resources it had available, Tito's arrangements achieved surprising peace and prosperity. And the latent problems did not have to result in the civil war that broke it apart violently.

Hint: the more prosperous western countries were bigger, heavily supported by the major winner of WW2 and by far the wealthiest country in the world, and to the end still could scrape together more intellectual capital and imperial resources to rebuild with, of which Yugoslavia (and many other extremely damaged central european countries after WW2) had little. It was not a level playing field. The UK was scarcely damaged by the war on its territory, and had an empire to exploit for some time still. The french shamelessly exploited (and exploit) Africa for resources. The dutch suffered a severe setback after WW2, but had the good luck of natural gas at a critical time, and a central position to benefit from trade. Likewise in part with the belgians.
The italians and the germans are the only remarkable cases of rapid prosperity from ruin. It can be argued that they could still build on the know-how that remained, the tradition of industry and science was strong in Germany and northern Italy. But the US also helped a lot. Checking the other allies in Germany and then subsidizing it, lending also to Italy in order to block the red threat there that would grow if the country did not prosper under the western alliance.

Tito's Yugoslavia benefited also from its "neutral" position, it could more easily trade with east and west, even sometimes get support from both. And that showed. But there were limits, it never managed to become as prosperous as the larger western countries. Prosperous enough that they'd like to see it brown apart though, rather than deal with it as a near-peer inside an enlarging EU. Or a competitor locking that enlargement. The history of cross-border political meddling in the 20th century is interesting, you should study it! Everyone was doing it.

Whatever the government, Spain's chances of rapidly becoming prosperous were likewise limited, the Yugoslavia comparison is a good one. IMO a socialist "neutral" Spain would probably be more open that francoist Spain was, ans benefit from that. It had gone through a civil war and it was a country severely lacking in resources and know-how to catch up rapidly. A republican social-democratic Spain certainly would, and be drawn into the ECC before it was. Back when the EEC was actually advantageous to a country in its position.

 

[Zardnaar]

Really gross how op prefers the fact that fascists won

Franco was more right wing authoritarian and the regime died with him.

Spain would be worse off IMHO had the Commies win. Franco didn't drive Spain into the ground.

Even now Russia is still poor and the poorest parts of Europe are ex Soviet Republics, was Moldova might be Ukraine now. Throw in Bulgaria, Romania etc.