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White Terror (Francoist Repression) | |
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Part of Spanish Civil War, World War II, and Francoist rule of Spain | |
Location | Spain |
Date | 1936–1947 |
Target | Spanish 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 |
Deaths | 160,000–400,000[1]: 110 [2][3]: 8 [4][5]: 900–001 [6]: 202 [7]: 94 [8] |
Perpetrators | Nationalist faction of Spain and the proceeding government |
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Francoism |
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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]
ARMH
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).CH-sa
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).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.