White Terror (Spain)

White Terror (Francoist Repression)
Part of Spanish Civil War, World War II, and Francoist rule of Spain
Twenty-six republicans executed by Francoists at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War
LocationSpain
Date1936–1947
TargetSpanish Republicans, liberals, leftists, Protestants, intellectuals, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jews, and Basque, Catalan, Andalusian and Galician nationalists
Attack type
Politicide, mass murder, forced labour, human experimentation, war rape, genocide
Deaths160,000–400,000[1]: 110 [2][3]: 8 [4][5]: 900–001 [6]: 202 [7]: 94 [8]
PerpetratorsNationalist faction of Spain and the proceeding government
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In the history of Spain, the White Terror (Spanish: Terror Blanco; also known as the Francoist Repression, la Represión franquista) describes the political repression, including executions and rapes, which were carried out by the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), as well as during the first nine years of the regime of General Francisco Franco.[7]: 89–94  In the 1936–1945 period, Francoist Spain had many officially designated enemies: supporters of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939), liberals, socialists of different stripes, Protestants, intellectuals, homosexual people, Freemasons, Jews, and Basque, Catalan, Andalusian, and Galician nationalists.[9][6]: 52 [10]: 136 

The Francoist Repression was motivated by the right-wing notion of a limpieza social, a cleansing of society. This meant that the killing of people viewed as enemies of the state began immediately upon the Nationalists' capture of a place.[7]: 98  As a response to the similar mass killings of their clergy, religious, and laity during the Republican Red Terror, the Catholic Church in Spain legitimized the killings by the Civil Guard (national police) and the Falange as a defense of Christendom.[7]: 88–89 [11]

Ideologically hardwired into the Francoist regime, repression turned "the whole country into one wide prison", according to Ramón Arnabat,[12] enabled by the ironic trap of turning the tables against the loyalist defenders of the Republic by means of accusing them of "adherence to the rebellion", "aid to the rebellion" or "military rebellion".[12] Throughout Franco's rule (1 October 1936 – 20 November 1975), the Law of Political Responsibilities (Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas), promulgated in 1939, reformed in 1942, and in force until 1966, gave legalistic color of law to the political repression that characterized the defeat and dismantling of the Second Spanish Republic;[13] and served to punish Loyalist Spaniards.[14]

Historians such as Stanley G. Payne consider the White Terror's death toll to be greater than the death toll of the corresponding Red Terror.[15]

  1. ^ Payne, Stanley (2012). The Spanish Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521174701.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference ARMH was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Maestre, Francisco; Casanova, Julián; Mir, Conxita; Gómez, Francisco (2004). Morir, matar, sobrevivir: La violencia en la dictadura de Franco. Grupo Planeta. ISBN 978-8484325062.
  4. ^ Fontana, J. (Ed.). (1986). España bajo el franquismo: coloquio celebrado en la universidad de Valencia, noviembre de 1984. Universidad; Crítica: Departamento de Historia Contemporánea. p. 22
  5. ^ Thomas, Hugh (2001). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0141011615.
  6. ^ a b Preston, Paul (2006). The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, revolution & revenge. Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0007232079.
  7. ^ a b c d Beevor, Antony (2006). The Battle for Spain; The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. ISBN 014303765X.
  8. ^ Michael Richards, A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco's Spain, 1936–1945, Cambridge University Press. 1998. p. 11.
  9. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 21, p. 836.
  10. ^ Graham, Helen (2005). The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192803771.
  11. ^ "El silencio de los obispos: La Iglesia Católica de España y los niños perdidos del franquismo un año después". En el país de los niños perdidos. 22 November 2009. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  12. ^ a b Arnabat Mata 2013, pp. 33–34.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference CH-sa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ "La Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas, un arma más de represión durante el franquismo". Los ojos de Hipatia. 13 February 2013. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  15. ^ Payne, Stanley. "Chapter 26: A History of Spain and Portugal vol. 2". libro.uca.edu. Retrieved 22 August 2020. The toll taken by the respective terrors may never be known exactly. The left slaughtered more in the first months, but the Nationalist repression probably reached its height only after the war had ended, when punishment was exacted and vengeance wreaked on the vanquished left. The White terror may have slain 50,000, perhaps fewer, during the war. The Franco government now gives the names of 61,000 victims of the Red terror, but this is not subject to objective verification. The number of victims of the Nationalist repression, during and after the war, was undoubtedly greater than that.