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files, military secrets bring to light decades of espionage Defeated by Franco, the winners of Hitler To the spaniards who liberated Paris
on August 23, 1944, in Toulouse the newly liberated from the nazis, some 7,000 spaniards were shouting: “for Franco!”, “Let Phalanx!”, “Now with the weapons to fight Spain!”. The guerrillas victorious that they were defeating Hitler in the western front they did not understand the meaning of that sacrifice for a cause beyond if the next step was not the liberation of Spain from fascism and the restoration of the Republic. The optimism about the immediate future that is perceived in the circles of the exile became a disappointment. The decision of the Aran Valley, in October 1944 by the partisans of the National Union Española (UNE) was a failure and the Conference of Yalta, in February 1945, it imposed a new reality geo-strategic place in Europe. The pleas for help of the Communist Party of Spain to oust Franco were among the last of the concerns of Stalin. Meanwhile, the Pyrenees were a coming and going of columns guerrilla that went to Spain; of spies, rebels who crossed to France to harass the Spanish civil war exiles; of the collaborationist French Vichy regime and nazis fleeing to save the retaliation of the victors and, if somebody was missing, smugglers of all life… The French authorities there was little they could do other than observe with impotence.
In this context, we developed the fight of the PCE in the south of France during the end of the Second World War and the early years of the post-war european. A time that examines Fernando Hernández Sánchez on The wild frontier. A face of grim of the fight against Franco (Past and Present), published in October. The task of investigation of the recent Spanish history and the communist movement in particular that accomplishes this professor of the Autonomous University of Madrid includes numerous titles such as The collapse of the Republic, in collaboration with Ángel Viñas, War or revolution. The Communist Party of Spain in the Civil War or The years of lead. The reconstruction of the PCE under the first francoism.
The trial of Hernandez Sanchez, scuba dive in the vicissitudes of communism-the Spanish in the south of france when it finishes the race, and represents the necessary complement to his previous work, The years of lead. “Certainly, there is a continuity”, says the author to THE COUNTRY in an email interview. “I saw that the funds accessible in the Spanish archives were insufficient. This led me to search for information in the departmental file French of the pyrenees region. There is remansada an essential part of the history of the trade union and political organisations Spanish during the third quarter of the TWENTIETH century”.
An impeccable work of archival research, of very different origin is what actually characterizes The wild frontier. An example of this wealth of data is the material that Hernández Sánchez obtained from the Office of Strategic Service in the u.s. (OSS), forerunner of the CIA, with a file accessible at a click of a mouse.”
Front page of the newspaper ‘L’humanité’ on the execution of Cristino Garcia.
Since long before the liberation of France, the espionage franco already sent agents to France to act against the groups of Spanish refugees, but in 1945 his presence was perceived by all parties. “Several leaders of the Kripo (criminal police) and the Gestapo, the German were in Spain since the beginning of the Civil War by providing advice to franco’s authorities in the deployment of their repressive forces and espionage,” says Hernández Sánchez. In fact, the author has handled the information from the OSS which is attributed to Heinrich Himmler, the design of the structure that blended the political police, the intelligence services and military information Phalanx. Was missing to establish a relationship with the senior French to convey all the information that it collects on both sides of the border.
it would Not be easy to distinguish if the franco dictatorship was guided more by his clumsiness, or his brutality. In February 1946, Cristino Garcia and nine comrades were shot in the walls of the cemetery of Carabanchel. He was not a franco more. Was the hero of The Madeleine, the head of a detachment of the republican framed in the French Forces of the Interior, with 36 men surrendered to a column of German of more than 1,500 soldiers. The mobilization of the French society resulted in the rupture of relations and the closure of the border.
Cristino Garcia was the hero of The Madeleine, the head of a detachment of the republican framed in the French Forces of the Interior, with 36 men surrendered to a column of German of more than 1,500 soldiers. Casino Siteleri
“In 1946, Franco began to be more sure of their survival that a year ago,” says Hernández Sánchez on the isolation of the last fascist regime in Europe and the diplomatic crisis that lived the French Government and the Spanish. “I was aware that there would be no intervention to overthrow him, the united States would not lead to the UN to the limit, Great Britain only allow their controlled output power, and the senior French sought to lock-in a neighborhood relations stable.”
Post of the Civil Guard in the border on the Bidasoa river, in 1946. The barrier stays down for the rupture of diplomatic relations between France and Spain.
“The beginning of the Cold War meant that the fear of communism is erigiese in the guide for action of the western Governments,” adds Hernández Sánchez. This would bring about fatal consequences for the PCE in France, the weak link in the communist movement and the guest uncomfortable in that country. The PCF was expelled from the new Government that was set up in 1947, and a string of strikes was the response to the harsh economic measures that were taken. According to the author, “some of the informers of the intelligence services had the conviction of being in the presence of a true insurrectionary movement”. The police harassment that were launched by the French authorities on the Spanish communists culminated in September of 1950 and I only left one alternative: termination of political activity, or deportation.
In October of 1994, Françoise Mitterrand and Felipe González traveled to Foix to pay homage to the Spanish guerrillas who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the French. The surviving spaniards of those battles that attended the event was asked to, on the side of the French flag, is honrase to the tricolor republican, but the protocol is imposed that there be the rojigualda. Paradoxes of history. The last work of Hernández Sánchez covers a hole important to have a deeper understanding of the history of the Spanish communist party, an area of research in which the author goes on the road to becoming your main specialist. With its method based on establishing an account, fed by evidence-primary, files up to now little studied, hold to the line that defined Angel Vines “the only principle that should be north and guide any historian worth his salt is the pursuit of truth, elusive, yes, but it is documented”.
The second non-intervention
the consolidation of The new world order agreed upon in the Yalta Conference involved the restoration of order within the borders in the West. ”The adjustments irritants of that new order is moved to Greece and its civil war, and the anti-colonial struggle by the vietnamese and the advances of Mao Tse Tung, in Asia,” explains Fernando Hernández Sánchez. As in 1936, the fear of communism is the compass that guide to western Governments. “The fear of unbalancing the southern flank of european dictates the retraction of the democracies that allows Franco to remain in power”.
“The continuity of a dictatorship, obsolete, and corrupt was less damaging to their strategic interests that a democracy is unpredictable,” continues the author, when describing the geopolitical landscape that imposed the sacrifice of democratic ideas in the interest of preserving stability in the south of Europe. “In any case, if the dictatorship was harmful, it would be only for his own people”, says Hernández Sánchez when he describes what for him was the second non-intervention by the democratic powers.
The PCE and its activity in France will be a secondary victim of the new geopolitics and the distribution of zones of influence. Derivative of the second non-intervention begins a process of criminalization of the Spanish communists, led by the French Administration. Will extend an atmosphere of denial in the media that will become one of a growing xenophobia of the native population. “Spanish’ and ‘violent’ were becoming synonyms in the language of police reports French,” says Hernández Sánchez. The suspicions spread about everyone who had participated in the Resistance in the ranks of the guerrillas. The sympathy towards the spaniards for their dedication in the fight against nazism took a little be forgotten by those who influence the public opinion of the neighboring country.
