Spain's Exhumation of Dictator Franco Seeks to Repair the Past
- Sanchez government orders body removed from civil war memorial
- Franco’s tomb is a pilgrimage destination for his followers
Photographer: Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images
This article is for subscribers only.
Speaking at the 1959 inauguration of the monument he’d commissioned to commemorate the victims of the civil war, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco left little doubt that it was really built to celebrate his victory.
His vanquished enemies had been obliged to “bite the dust of defeat,” Franco said then, according to Paul Preston’s biography of the general who ruled Spain for 36 years after defeating Republican forces in the 1936-1939 conflict, a precursor to World War II.