Oldal 94 [94]
A TIME OF WARS AND COMMON TOTALITARIAN PROJECTS
Just as with Fascism in Italy during its early years, Nazism was supported
and internalised by some of the German intellectual elites of the time.
These elites saw in the initial projection of their political, social and artistic
ideas, suggestive elements, due to the fact that they were transgressive and
revolutionary. Later, however, this way of conceiving the world incorporated
increasingly more abominable and dismal elements.
In Spain, after the military coup of July 1936, the uprising against the
2nd Republic sought international references that gave meaning to the
transgression that had been perpetrated. It was from then on, and until the
beginning of the decline of the Nazi-fascist powers during World War II,
when Francoist propaganda used Germany and Italy as central references, and
granted them the status of avant-garde movements. And this despite the fact
that these avant-garde movements embodied ideals that were antagonistic
to other values that Francoism held dear, and which had notable political
support in Vitoria, as was the case of Carlism?.
The analysis of Alava’s press and of the speeches made by local authorities
in those years has allowed us to outline the main characteristic features of
this conception of Germany and of Italy that Francoism wanted to convey.
An attempt was made, in a schematic way, to try to convince the population
that the Franco regime did not walk alone, but had as a shining beacon two
powers that were the leaders of the civilized world, that is, Nazi Germany and
fascist Italy.
The symbolism of these countries heavily influenced local celebrations.
Meanwhile, the press emphasised the great events related to these countries
— from Hitler and Mussolini’s birthdays to the commemorations of their
political successes — and even for the German case, it created exclusive
sections designed to exalt their political, territorial, artistic and technological
achievements.
Soon, during the transition between the end of the Civil War and the
outbreak of World War II, this praise of Germany expressed by local
newspapers was toned down, lost part of its military component and acquired
a different guise: that of a Francoist state which, after having won its war,
maintained Germany as its reference and as a vanguard, encouraged the
consumption of German products among the population, and forecast a
victory of the Axis in the Second Great War, outlining the position that Spain
would occupy in a post-war Europe governed by Germany.
The propaganda machine, discursive and iconographic, nevertheless had a
relative influence on Vitoria’s inhabitants. This was so with regard to Germany
and Italy, but also with regard to popular adherence to Franco’s regime. The
3 Virginia Lopez de Maturana: La reinvencion de una ciudad. Poder y politica simbélica en
Vitoria durante el franquismo (1936-1975), Bilbao, Basque Country University Press, 2014.
+ 93 +