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“[Franco and a great number of his followers
fought the civil war in the sign of the cross as a struggle to preserve
Western Christendom from atheistic Bolshevism.”
-Donald
S. Detwiler
The
fascist party, called the Falange or the Nationalists, gained power in
Spain during the Spanish
Civil War, which started in 1936 and continued until April of 1939.Through
a coup d’etat of Madrid in June of 1937, they managed to gain complete
control of the beleaguered country within the next two years.Once
the fascist party had seized Madrid, a man named Francisco
Franco seized control of the fascist party, becoming the charismatic
leader that the fascists so desperately needed for their cause.
During
the Civil War, Franco reacted strongly to those who had previously held
control of the country, as well as small fringe groups such as the Basques
or the Catalans, who, although extremely religious could not ally themselves
with Franco on the political side of the spectrum.They
held a block of land in the north of Spain on the Spanish-French border,
and although they tried to argue for provincial separatism and their own
rights were attacked mercilessly by the Nationalist army.More
than 400 of the Basque clergy were either imprisoned or shot and 12,00
of the Catholic Basque peoples were shot.
The
Spanish Civil War was one of the country’s bloodiest periods.Not
even the Inquisition equals the amount of cruelty and barbarity that ran
rampant during and directly after this period during the subsequent purges.Spanish
Fascists often followed the examples of their predecessors, instead of
shooting people; they often chose to exile them to the most remote places
in Spain where they lived in squalor until they died of starvation or disease.