Institute of Advanced Studies

Franco, franquistas and Francoism; General Francisco Franco: Europe's most durable dictator

Abstract: The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Norman Gilroy described Franco as "a man who seemed to be raised up by Almighty God, a military genius the like of whom has rarely been seen in the history of the world" (Freeman's Journal 9 March 1939); Hitler told Mussolini, after negotiating with Franco at Hendaye in October 1940, that "rather than go through that again, I would prefer to have three or four teeth taken out" (Von Hassell Diaries 1938-1944, 144); and Paul Preston begins his biography of Franco by quoting a folk observation about Spaniards from the caudillo's home province, that "if you meet a gallego on a staircase, it is impossible to deduce if he is going up or down" (in, Franco, xix).

The lecture examined the often-contradictory views of Franco in order to understand how it was that from 1937, when he outmanoeuvred the group of Spanish generals leading the Nationalist uprising, until his death, in his bed, in November 1975, Franco was able to transform Spain into a military dictatorship that outlasted the regimes of all his peers in the pantheon of inter-war dictators.

 

Biographical note: Judith Keene is an Associate Professor in the History Department at The University of Sydney where she teaches and writes about European history and European cinema. As well as contemporary Spanish history she has a great interest in traitors and prisoners in wartime, especially those during World War Two and the Korean War. Her book Fighting For Franco: International Volunteers in Nationalist Spain During the Spanish Civil War 1936-39, (2002) examines European fascists who joined Franco in his self-proclaimed crusade to extirpate republicans, Bolsheviks and the trappings of democracy in Spain. La Ultima Milla a Huesca: Una Enfermera Australiana en la Guerra Civil Espanola, with Victor Pardo Lancina (2006) traces the experiences of an Australian nurse in an anarchist area in the Spanish civil war. The book was presented to every household in the comarcas around Huesca by the local mayors to mark the seventieth anniversary of the civil war.

The lecture was hosted and sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the History Discipline at UWA and formed part of the Dictators lecture series.

- 29 August 2007