Madrid is not the tomb of fascism
- Madrid, 1939. Before the city fell into the hands of the Francoists, it was considered the capital against global fascism, thanks to the propaganda of the republican government and the famous anti-fascist intellectuals who passed there during the war. The winners thought of changing the capital to Seville, Salamanca or Burgos to get rid of its taste in Madrid. But they decided to change Madrid itself. Historian Pablo del Hierro has just met in Madrid, a (neo-)fascist metropolis ("Madrid, metropoli (neo)fascist", Critic, 2023).
As a young woman from Madrid, Del Hierro saw the influence of the extreme right in the city as young. Among other things, the Atlético de Madrid was in the football field when the fascist fans of its endearing band killed Aitor Zabaleta. “That stayed in my head and, although it is not the only reason, it is one of the things that has led me to write the book.”
As soon as they took Madrid, the Francoists began to change the image of the city: they changed the names of the streets, made a strong repression in some neighborhoods, started some urban project, invited personalities from Italy of Mussolini and from Hitler’s Germany…
At the end of World War II, Madrid became the ratlines station, the refuge of the criminal wars that were fleeing. They were fairly informal structures made up of important members of fascist regimes, such as those that helped the head of the secret services of Mario Roatta Mussolini to reach Madrid. Louis Darquier de Pelleix, in charge of the expulsion of the Jews from France, also hid in Madrid with his help, as did others who collaborated with the Third Reich. It's hard to know exactly how many they were, but Iron thinks they were at least a few hundred.
The comfort of the cold war
While the Cold War is coming, the fascists hiding in Madrid were meant to survive, but from 1949 they began to rebuild their economic and political activity.
Thus, Italian General Gastone Gambara would be the main intermediary of the wheat trade between Argentina and Spain. Former SS colonel Otto Skorzeny created companies dedicated to imports and exports, even during his stay in Markina-Xemein with the production of weapons, and tried to organize armies in secret. The Belgian León Degrelle spent 50 years in Madrid after an emergency landing at the Concha de San Sebastian in 1945 and had relations with the neo-fascist groups of the 1960s and 1970s. On the other hand, several South American dictators ended up in Madrid around the extreme right network: Marcos Pérez Jiménez, Fulgencio Batista, Ramfis Trujillo…
At the end of World War II, Madrid became the ratlines station, the refuge of the criminal wars that were fleeing
New fascists 70
A while later, a new generation of far-right militants gained strength in the city in the 1970s. These young people, who did not experience the Spanish Civil War of 1936, were critical of the Franco regime and believed that it was necessary to act beyond speeches, violence. The Young Europe of Vicente Talón and the New Force of Blas Piñares were mainly organized. This led to enormous spiral violence. In Madrid, two neo-fascist organizations competed to show which was more radical.”
Thus, an environment conducive to a coup was being promoted. But when the 1981 coup failed and in 1982 the PSOE won the elections, they had to go back. Here ends the road that Pablo del Hierro takes, but not the extreme right. “It’s still to know what the VOX has taken in Madrid from the extreme right-wing voices they had for decades.” 40 years ago they had to go back and think about new strategies, but Madrid was not the burial of fascism.
Ethiopia, 24 November 1974. Lucy's skeleton was found in Hadar, one of the oldest traces of human ancestors. The Australian hominid of Australopithecus afarensis is between 3.2 and 3.5 million years old.
So they considered it the ancestor of species, the mother of all of us. In... [+]
A group of archaeologists from the University of Berkeley, California, USA. That is, men didn't launch the lances to hunt mammoths and other great mammals. That was the most widespread hypothesis so far, the technique we've seen in movies, video games ...
But the study, published... [+]
Zamora, late 10th century. On the banks of the Douro River and outside the city walls the church of Santiago de los Caballeros was built. The inside capitals of the church depict varied scenes with sexual content: an orgy, a naked woman holding the penis of a man… in the... [+]
Born 7 November 1924. A group of anarchists broke into Bera this morning to protest against the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and to begin the revolution in the Spanish state.
Last October, the composition of the Central Board was announced between the displaced from Spain... [+]
Washington (EE.UU. ), 1807. The US Constitution banned transatlantic slave trade. This does not mean that slavery has been abolished, but that the main source of the slaves has been interrupted. Thus, slave women became the only way to “produce” new slaves.
So in 1845, in... [+]
A group of interdisciplinary researchers from the Free University of Berlin and the Zuse Institute have developed a complex mathematical model to better understand how Romanization spread in North Africa.
According to a study published in the journal Plos One, the model has... [+]
Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States launched an atomic bomb causing tens of thousands of deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; although there are no precise figures, the most cautious estimates indicate that at least 210,000 people died at the end of that year. But in... [+]
While working at a site in the Roman era of Normandy, several archaeology students have recently made a curious discovery: inside a clay pot they found a small glass jar, of which women used to bring perfume in the 19th century.
And inside the jar was a little papelite with a... [+]
Born 2 October 1968. A few months earlier, the student movement started on June 22 organized a rally in the Plaza de las Tres Cultura, in the Nonoalco-Tlatelolco unit of the city. The students gathered by the Mexican army and the paramilitary group Olympia Battalion were... [+]
A team of researchers led by the Japanese archaeologist Masato Sakai of the University of Yamagata has discovered numerous geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert (Peru). In total, 303 geoglyphs have been found, almost twice as many geoglyphs as previously known. To do so, researchers... [+]
On the northern coast of Peru, in the deposit of Diamarca, mochica culture (c. 330-H. C. 800) have found a trunk room. This culture is known for its impressive architecture, vast religious imaginary and colorful walls full of details.
The room found confirms these... [+]
Tijarafe (Canary Islands), mid-14th century. When the first Catholic monks came to the area of the island of La Palma, the Awares, the local Aborigines, saw that they worshipped the sun, the moon and the stars.
And this has been confirmed by the archaeological campaigns carried... [+]
Maule, 1892. Eight women from the Salazar Valley headed home from the capital of Zuberoa, but on the way, in Larrain, they were shocked by the snow and all were killed by the cold. Of the eight, seven names have come: Felicia Juanko, Felipce Landa, Dolores Arbe, Justa Larrea,... [+]
The University of Nottingham has changed its name to the Master in Studies on Anglo-Saxons and Vikings: Medieval Higher Studies of England. The Anglo-Saxon England Journal of the University of Cambridge had also been previously renamed: It's the Early Medieval England Journal... [+]