On 18 April 1975, Felipe González, Nicolás Redondo and Carlos Pardo, of the PSOE, and of the Social Democratic Party of Federal Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands; SPD), the most famous, Willy Brandt (Antonio Muñoz Sánchez: The German friend. RBA. Barcelona. 2012). Felipe González convinced them that their vision of the transition was in line with the strategy of the Social Democratic Germans and decided to give three types of aid: economic (payment of liberates, premises; important support), pedagogical (courses to educate tables) and diplomatic (influencing the Spanish Government and the Socialist International in favour of the PSOE). The PSOE went, to a large extent, from being a witness in 1975, in two years, in the elections of 15 June 1977, to be the main opposition party – the PSOE 29% of the votes and the PCE 9%.

The Social Democratic Party of Federal Germany rejected Marxism in 1959 and in the 1960s, as did the communist states of the East to the dictatorship of Southern Europe – Greece, Portugal, Spain – abandoned radical opposition and launched a policy of rapprochement, and as was the leader of the Western European Socialist International, its communist strategies were even of major weight in the Communist governments.

The old PSOE militants lived in Toulouse, in Occitania, after losing the war against the Franco rebellion. His boss was Rodolfo Llopis and at first the SPD was related to him, but realizing that his only goal was to demolish Franco, the German Social Democrats took distance and approached the PSI-PSP of Tender Professor Galván. In 1972, when Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra rejected Llopis and his cronies, the Social Democratic Party initially did not give them much thought, but when the Revolution of the Carnations of April 1974 in Portugal turned to the left, abandoning General Spemen, being the Communist Party of Portugal the great socialist party of April 1975, they began their support. The objective of the Social Democratic Germans to put an end to the strength of the Communist Party in the dictatorships of Southern Europe and to promote the Social Democratic parties. Let us remember that they were in the Cold War and that Germany was divided into two. How did Felipe González convince the leaders of the SPD?

In a nutshell, González told them that the situation in Spain and Portugal were two: Spain's socio-political situation was stable, the Spanish economy was strong and the army was loyal to the government. They were told that, after Franco's death, there would be no revolution and that they were not prepared to revolt, that is, a sudden end to the dictatorship they rejected. His wish was that the government of the monarchy should be the one to dismantle the Franco regime and build, together with the opposition, the centralist bourgeois democracy in Spain. Regarding the communists, they were told that the PCE was the main rival party and that it had to be defeated in the transition, and that the consolidation of the structures of their party was going to weaken the party of Santiago Carrillo. They had to be hegemonic on the left. Communists had over 100 liberated, and they only had two. It was also necessary to strengthen UGT in order to weaken CCOO and achieve union hegemony.

The impression he conveyed to the Social Democratic Germans was, fundamentally, that he was a nationalist man – they were right – free from all dogmatism and not Marxist, and that he was called daring to unite the Spanish left, which, as in 1936, would lead to polarisation. Gonzalez did not refer to street mobilizations either, but his intention was to obtain a privileged position in the opposition, above all, from political parties to bourgeois democracy and to prevent social pressure from resorting to radicalisation. The Social Democratic Germans had to help in money, in education and in diplomacy so that the PSOE had a strong Executive Committee, so that not the foundations in the party, but the bosses, and negotiated the transition with the government of the monarchy.

And as we know, Felipe González’s PSOE also achieved its goals. For these reasons, he rejected the Democratic Board, which he believed depended on the Communists, and created the Platform. I would like to stress the general lines of the communication between the Social Democratic Germans and the Spaniards from 1975 to 1977: The objective of the PSOE was not to unite, strengthen and mobilize society to demolish Franco and build a new republic with democratic bases, but to support the reform of King Juan Carlos, proposed by Franco. To begin with, they declared their main rival, the PCE and Carrillo, – it reminds me on another scale, on the national axis, the PNV and the Abertzale left – and they supported the Francoist reformists against the army and the defeated Francoists. That was the decisive factor in the triple support of the powerful German Social Democrat Party SPD: economic, pedagogical and diplomatic.

In the next article, the importance of the 1977 elections.