War veterans and Fascism during the Franco dictatorship in Spain

Abstract

This article argues that analysis and contextualization of the history of the Francoist veterans of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) leads to an understanding of Franco’s dictatorship as a fascist regime typical of the late 1930s and early 1940s. It reveals the congruence of the regime with the phenomenon of neo-fascism during the Cold War era. Drawing on a large range of archival and published sources, this article examines the history of the main Francoist veterans’ organization, the Delegacion Nacional de Excombatientes (DNE) of the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las JONS (FET-JONS), between 1939 and 1959. The evolution of the Francoist veterans’ organizational structures and political discourses can be understood as part of a process of fascistization and defascistization, which provides rare insights into the overall relationship between fascism and war.