Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: Eco­nom­i­cal­ly beset Spain has been mak­ing aggres­sive moves toward British-gov­erned Gibral­tar, using that prin­ci­pal­i­ty’s “fis­cal irreg­u­lar­i­ties” as jus­ti­fy­ing Spain’s pos­ture vis a vis the nation’s “EU oblig­a­tions.”

At the same time, Argenti­na is mak­ing angry nois­es again about the Falk­lands Islands, which they claim as their own.

Before delv­ing into the two coun­tries’ coor­di­na­tion of their efforts against Gibral­tar and the Falk­lands, some back­ground dis­cus­sion is in order.

In a pre­vi­ous post, we dis­cussed the “deep fifth column”–a fas­cist con­stel­la­tion exist­ing over decades, root­ed in the fas­cism of World War II and per­pet­u­at­ed by the polit­i­cal iner­tia inher­ent in pow­er­ful political/economic elites.

In the con­text of the “deep fifth col­umn,” we have also spo­ken of the Falange, the inter­na­tion­al fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion based in Spain under Fran­cis­co Fran­co and cat­alyzed as a Ger­man-con­trolled pow­er polit­i­cal enti­ty in the run-up to the Span­ish Civ­il War.

Apply­ing geo-pol­i­tics to their plans for world con­quest, the Nazis saw Spain as the key to their plans for expan­sion. (See excerpts below from the descrip­tion for Falange–the Secret Axis Army in the Amer­i­c­as by Allan Chase, as well as the text excerpts from the book itself.)

As Chase wrote: ” . . . By con­trol­ling Spain, the Nazis felt they could con­trol both Europe and Latin Amer­i­ca. Geo­graph­i­cal­ly dom­i­nat­ing the entrance to the Mediter­ranean Sea from the Atlantic and “flank­ing” France, Spain also wield­ed tremen­dous influ­ence in Latin Amer­i­ca through the strong cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic ties between the Span­ish and Latin Amer­i­can aris­toc­ra­cies. In addi­tion, the pro­found Catholic influ­ence in both Spain and Latin Amer­i­ca, aug­ment­ed Span­ish clout in that part of the world. . . .”

Under Fran­cis­co Fran­co, Spain remained an overt fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship in Europe through 1975. Although Spain was “offi­cial­ly” neu­tral dur­ing World War II, it was, in real­i­ty, an Axis non-com­bat­ant, loy­al to the forces of Hitler and Mus­soli­ni that had ele­vat­ed Fran­co dur­ing the Span­ish Civ­il War.

Pri­or to, and dur­ing, World War II, Argenti­na was a major Reich out­post, with the most direct, pro­found con­nec­tions to the Nazi gov­ern­men­tal struc­ture itself. The rela­tion­ship was so pro­found, that mem­bers of the Argen­tine Nazi Par­ty mem­bers were con­sid­ered as actu­al mem­bers of the NSDAP! (See The Nazis Go Under­ground by Curt Riess and text excerpts below.)

For years, Argenti­na under Juan Per­on and lat­er under the jun­ta dom­i­nat­ed by Argen­tin­ian mem­bers of the P‑2 Lodge, that coun­try was not only overt­ly fas­cist but a major haven for Nazi expa­tri­ates and flight cap­i­tal con­trolled by the Bor­mann net­work.

Both Fran­co’s Spain and its heirs and Argenti­na formed key aspects of what Dan­ish jour­nal­ist Hen­rik Kruger called “The Inter­na­tion­al Fascista.”

Spain and Argenti­na are coor­di­nat­ing their efforts and this rais­es a num­ber of inter­est­ing con­sid­er­a­tions, to be weighed against the very real pos­si­bil­i­ty that we are look­ing at a “deep falange” in action:

• Like the oth­er PIIGS coun­tries, Spain has expe­ri­enced grind­ing social con­di­tions as a result of Ger­man-dic­tat­ed EU aus­ter­i­ty in the wake of the col­lapse of Span­ish real estate and the 2008 finan­cial melt­down.
• Pover­ty and depri­va­tion make peo­ple more des­per­ate.
• Mar­i­ano Rajoy him­self has been fend­ing off cor­rup­tion charges.
• Might we be see­ing a “let ’em eat nationalism/fascism/aggression gam­bit by Rajoy?
• Rajoy’s ratio­nal­iza­tion for his actions con­cerns Spain’s “EU oblig­a­tions” with regard to finan­cial irreg­u­lar­i­ties. (See text excerpts below.) Might this be Ger­man-dic­tat­ed? Are we look­ing at a Ger­man hand in the “deep Falange glove,” so to speak?
• Spain and Argenti­na are con­sid­er­ing a coor­di­nat­ed effort on Gib­tal­tar and the Falk­lands. (See text excerpts below.)
• Spain is going to sell Argenti­na some Mirage jets, which might men­ace the Falk­lands. (See text excerpts below.)
• Mar­i­ano Rajoy’s Peo­ple’s Par­ty evolved from Fran­co’s Falange. (See text excerpts below.)
• Rajoy him­self appears to have been influ­enced by his father, a Fran­co jurist. (See text excerpts below.)
• The Peo­ple’s Par­ty does not appear to have com­plete­ly cast off the fas­cist nature of the Falange. (See text excerpts below.)

“Spain Threat­ens Esca­la­tion of Gibral­tar Row” by Damien McEl­roy; The Tele­graph [UK]; 8/4/2013.

EXCERPT: Jose Manuel Gar­cia-Mar­gal­lo, Spain’s for­eign min­is­ter, said a row over fish­ing rights around Gibral­tar would force Madrid into new puni­tive mea­sures.

The Span­ish author­i­ties have already pro­voked the British ter­ri­to­ry by impos­ing cross­ing restric­tions at the bor­der on suc­ces­sive days last week.

After long queues last week, the For­eign Office called in the senior Span­ish diplo­mat in Lon­don who was giv­en a dress­ing down.

In the wake of that meet­ing, Madrid said it would tough­en its stance yet fur­ther.

“The par­ty is over,” Mr Gar­cia-Mar­gal­lo told ABC news­pa­per as he unveiled pro­pos­als for a €50 (£43) bor­der cross­ing fee and tax inves­ti­ga­tions of thou­sands of Gibral­tar­i­ans who own prop­er­ty in Spain.

Mr Gar­cia-Mar­gal­lo said the Span­ish tax author­i­ties would inves­ti­gate prop­er­ty owned by around 6,000 Gibral­tar­i­ans in neigh­bour­ing parts of Spain, as part of its EU oblig­a­tions to con­trol “fis­cal irreg­u­lar­i­ties”.

Spain was also con­sid­er­ing clos­ing air­space to planes head­ing for the air­port in Gibral­tar and chang­ing rules to wring tax­es from online gam­ing com­pa­nies based in Gibral­tar. . . .

Spain to Take ‘All Nec­es­sary Mea­sures’ to Defend Gibral­tar Inter­ests” by Steven Swin­ford and Ben Farmer; The Tele­graph [UK]; 8/9/2013.

EXCERPT: Prime Min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Rajoy said Spain will take “legal and pro­por­tion­al steps” after Britain sent a rapid reac­tion force of war­ships to vis­it the island’s waters.

Mr Rajoy’s com­ments appear to echo the lan­guage of the Unit­ed Nations Char­ter, which uses the phrase “all nec­es­sary mea­sures” to autho­rise the use of mil­i­tary force.

Ten­sion between Britain and Spain over Gibral­tar’s sov­er­eign­ty have inten­si­fied fol­low­ing a row over fish­ing rights and the impo­si­tion of puni­tive bor­der checks.

Britain is send­ing a force of nine ves­sels, led by the heli­copter car­ri­er HMS Illus­tri­ous and includ­ing two frigates, to sail for the Mediter­ranean on Mon­day for the start of a four month deploy­ment. Three of the ships, includ­ing HMS West­min­sters, will actu­al­ly dock in Gibral­tar. . . .

“Gibral­tar: Spain con­sid­ers joint Diplo­mat­ic Offen­sive with Argentin­­­a over Falk­land Islands” by Fiona Gov­an; The Tele­graph [UK]; 8/11/2013.

EXCERPT: Span­ish for­eign min­is­ter Jose Manuel Gar­cia-Mar­gal­lo will use a trip to Buenos Aires next month to raise the pos­si­bil­i­ty of forg­ing a joint diplo­mat­ic offen­sive with the South Amer­i­can coun­try over the dis­put­ed ter­ri­to­ries, sources told Spain’s El Pais news­pa­per.

Spain’s for­eign min­istry was also dis­cussing whether to take its com­plaints over Gibral­tar to the Unit­ed Nations, the news­pa­per report­ed on Sun­day.

The sources did not spec­i­fy whether Spain would ask the UN to back a request for Britain to give up sov­er­eign­ty or just adhere to cer­tain agree­ments.

It could take its peti­tion to the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil or take up the mat­ter with the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly.

Spain is also con­sid­er­ing the option of denounc­ing Gibral­tar to the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in the Hague for its “ille­gal occu­pa­tion” of the isth­mus — the strip of land con­nect­ing the penin­su­la to the main­land that was not includ­ed in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. . . .

“Falk­lands Alert as Argenti­na Strikes £145 Mil­lion Deal for 20 Mirage War­planes” by Nick Dor­man ; The Mir­ror [UK]; 8/4/2013.

EXCERPT: Argenti­na has launched a new round of sabre-rat­tling against Britain by buy­ing a squadron of war­planes to be based with­in strik­ing dis­tance of the Falk­lands, the Sun­day Peo­ple has revealed.

Pres­i­dent Cristi­na de Kirch­n­er – who wants the UK to hand over the dis­put­ed islands – per­son­al­ly agreed the £145million deal to buy 20 sec­ond-hand Mirage F1 jets from Spain.

The 1,453mph air­craft car­ry a fear­some array of weapon­ry includ­ing smart bombs.

Argentina’s move could force the Min­istry of Defence to bol­ster Britain’s pres­ence in the south Atlantic, even though its bud­get is to be slashed by £875million in 2015.

Senior offi­cers believe Argenti­na could now begin a cam­paign of ­“pester patrols” – flights towards the Falk­lands to test RAF respons­es.

Kirch­n­er is thought to be try­ing to boost her nation’s mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ty in a show of strength before elec­tions which are due in 2015.

But last night a senior RAF source said: “If the Argen­tines start play­ing games and esca­late the ten­sion, we will see more RAF air­craft being deployed to the Falk­lands.” . . . .

The Nazis Go Under­ground by Curt Riess; Dou­ble­day, Doran and Com­pa­ny, LCCN 44007162; pp. 143–144.

EXCERPT: . . . . All of the more than 200,000 Argen­tine Nazis are mem­bers, not of an Argen­tine sub­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Nazi par­ty, but of the Ger­man par­ty itself, and hold mem­ber­ship cards signed by Robert Ley, leader of the Ger­man Work­ers’ Front— which means, quite obvi­ous­ly, that Berlin con­sid­ered, and still con­sid­ers, Argenti­na not so much an inde­pen­dent for­eign coun­try as a Ger­man Gau. . . .

. . . . Main points of sup­port in the long-range Nazi strat­e­gy in Argenti­na are the count­less Ger­man schools there. These schools have the same rights and priv­i­leges as Argentina’s. In them the chil­dren of Ger­man immi­grants not only learn the Ger­man lan­guage but are taught Hit­lerism pure and sim­ple. The books used in these schools are “donat­ed” by the Ger­man Embassy. Hitler’s pic­ture hangs in every class­room. “Heil Hitler” is the oblig­a­tory greet­ing. The pupils are for­bid­den to speak to Jews. They are told that the Ger­mans belong to a race supe­ri­or to oth­er races; that they have been cho­sen to dom­i­nate oth­er nations; that the Nation­al Social­ist cul­ture is supe­ri­or to all oth­er cul­tures; that democ­ra­cy is a lie; that—and this may be the most impor­tant of all—every Ger­man must stick to the Nation­al Social­ist idea “whether it wins or los­es.”

These schools have been in oper­a­tion for ten years now. They num­ber among their for­mer pupils a great many of the most active Nazi agents in South Amer­i­ca today. And the teach­ers do not restrict their activ­i­ties to Ger­man schools. They also teach for­eign lan­guages in Argen­tine state schools, and thus com­mand an influence over the cul­tur­al life of the nation from which the Nazis have profit­ed and from which the Nazi under­ground will profit. All these Nazi teach­ers must, in fact, be regard­ed as full-fledged agents. So effec­tive has been their influence that some of the wealth­i­est and most promi­nent cit­i­zens of Argenti­na have for some time been send­ing their chil­dren to Ger­man schools because, they say, the lat­ter are so much bet­ter than the state schools. . . .

“The Span­ish Gov­ern­men­t’s Del­e­gate in Cat­alo­nia Pays Trib­ute to Hitler’s Sol­diers”; Cata­lan News Agency; 5/17/2013.

EXCERPT: María de los Llanos de Luna, from the People’s Par­ty (PP), gave a diplo­ma of hon­our to a broth­er­hood of sol­diers and sup­port­ers of the ‘Divisón Azul’, a divi­sion of Span­ish vol­un­teers who fought in the Nazi army on the East­ern Front dur­ing the Sec­ond World War. De Luna is the top rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Span­ish Gov­ern­ment in Cat­alo­nia and she is known for her Span­ish nation­al­ism and anti-Cata­lan iden­ti­ty stance.

The ‘Blaue Divi­sion’, the 250. Infan­terie-Divi­sion of Nazi Germany’s Wehrma­cht, rep­re­sents the main col­lab­o­ra­tion between Franco’s dic­ta­tor­ship and Adolph Hitler, as well as the Con­dor Divi­sion – which bombed Gerni­ka – and the arrest of Catalonia’s Pres­i­dent Lluís Com­pa­nys by the Gestapo. The 12 mem­bers of the broth­er­hood who attend­ed the diplo­ma cer­e­mo­ny were wear­ing the Falange uni­form, which was the only par­ty allowed dur­ing Franco’s Fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship, cre­at­ed before the Span­ish Civ­il War. This Fas­cist par­ty is still legal in Spain. . . .

. . . . The cer­e­mo­ny was com­mem­o­rat­ing the 169th anniver­sary of the Guardia Civ­il (the Span­ish Gen­darmerie) and took place in one of its bar­racks in Greater Barcelona (in Sant Andreu de la Bar­ca). The anniver­sary of the cre­ation of the Guardia Civ­il, which has his­tor­i­cal­ly been a corps linked to Span­ish cen­tral­ist pow­er and the impo­si­tion of order – some­times bru­tal­ly – had not been cel­e­brat­ed in Cat­alo­nia for many years. How­ev­er, De Luna decid­ed to com­mem­o­rate this anniver­sary again in 2013, half a year after 1.5 mil­lion cit­i­zens peace­ful­ly and demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly demon­strat­ed in Barcelona’s streets ask­ing for Catalonia’s inde­pen­dence from Spain. . . .

. . . . The Left-Wing Cata­lan Inde­pen­dence Par­ty denounced the fact that the Span­ish Gov­ern­ment has giv­en a €3,500 sub­sidy to this Fas­cist broth­er­hood this year. Alfred Bosch, ERC’s Spokesper­son in the Span­ish Par­lia­ment, asked for a law ban­ning the cel­e­bra­tion of any event recog­nis­ing peo­ple linked to the Nazi regime. . . .

“Peo­ple’s Par­ty”; Wikipedia.

EXCERPT: The Peo­ple’s Par­ty was a re-foun­da­tion in 1989 of the Peo­ple’s Alliance (Span­ish: Alian­za Pop­u­lar, AP), a par­ty led and found­ed by Manuel Fra­ga Irib­arne, a for­mer Min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or and Min­is­ter of Tourism dur­ing Fran­cis­co Fran­co’s dic­ta­tor­ship. The new par­ty com­bined the con­ser­v­a­tive AP with sev­er­al small Chris­t­ian demo­c­ra­t­ic and lib­er­al par­ties (the par­ty call this fusion of views Reformist cen­tre). In 2002, Manuel Fra­ga received the hon­orary title of “Found­ing Chair­man”. . . .

. . . . The par­ty has its roots in the Peo­ple’s Alliance found­ed in 9 Octo­ber 1976 by for­mer Fran­coist min­is­ter Manuel Fra­ga. Although Fra­ga was a mem­ber of the reformist fac­tion of the Fran­co regime, he sup­port­ed an extreme­ly grad­ual tran­si­tion to democ­ra­cy. How­ev­er, he bad­ly under­es­ti­mat­ed the pub­lic’s dis­taste for Fran­co­ism. Addi­tion­al­ly, while he attempt­ed to con­vey a reformist image, the large num­ber of for­mer Fran­coists in the par­ty led the pub­lic to per­ceive it as both reac­tionary and author­i­tar­i­an. . . .

“Mar­i­ano Rajoy”; Wikipedia.

EXCERPT: . . . . While on the cam­paign trail in 2011, Rajoy pub­lished an auto­bi­og­ra­phy, En Con­fi­an­za (In Con­fi­dence), in which he recalled his stu­dious and qui­et youth, fol­low­ing a father who was climb­ing the ranks of Fran­cis­co Fran­co’s judi­cia­ry. . . .

Falange–The Secret Axis Army in the Amer­i­c­as by Allan Chase; (Book descrip­tion and text excerpts)

EXCERPT: In 1936, Reichs­mar­shall Her­mann Goering—one of Hitler’s top aides and the head of the Luftwaffe—observed that “Spain is the key to two con­ti­nents.” Goer­ing was enun­ci­at­ing a key prin­ci­pal of Ger­man and Nazi geopol­i­tics. By con­trol­ling Spain, the Nazis felt they could con­trol both Europe and Latin Amer­i­ca. Geo­graph­i­cal­ly dom­i­nat­ing the entrance to the Mediter­ranean Sea from the Atlantic and “flank­ing” France, Spain also wield­ed tremen­dous influ­ence in Latin Amer­i­ca through the strong cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic ties between the Span­ish and Latin Amer­i­can aris­toc­ra­cies. In addi­tion, the pro­found Catholic influ­ence in both Spain and Latin Amer­i­ca, aug­ment­ed Span­ish clout in that part of the world. (In FTR#532, we exam­ined the Vatican’s involve­ment with fas­cism. The Vatican/Fascist axis was anoth­er major con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the influ­ence of the Falange through­out the Span­ish-speak­ing world.)

In order to uti­lize Span’s geopo­lit­i­cal influ­ence as a tool for Nazi impe­r­i­al designs, the Third Reich turned to Gen­er­al Wil­helm von Fau­pel and his Ibero-Amer­i­can Insti­tute. Von Fau­pel was a bit­ter oppo­nent of the Weimar Repub­lic, and read­i­ly accept­ed the Nazis as the anti­dote to Ger­man democ­ra­cy. Known as an “I.G. Gen­er­al” for his links to the I.G. Far­ben com­pa­ny, von Fau­pel also main­tained close ties to the pow­er­ful Thyssen inter­ests which, like Far­ben, were the pow­ers that backed Hitler. (The Bush fam­i­ly were also close­ly linked to the Thyssens.) Dur­ing the 1920’s, von Fau­pel had served as a gen­er­al staff advis­er to the Argen­tine, Brazil­ian and Peru­vian mil­i­tary estab­lish­ments and was famed through­out Latin Amer­i­ca for his skills as an offi­cer. Because of his Latin Amer­i­can ties and his links to the cor­po­rate inter­ests that backed Hitler, von Fau­pel became the Reich’s point man for the fas­cist takeover of Spain and sub­se­quent con­struc­tion of a Fifth Col­umn through­out the Span­ish-speak­ing world.

In 1934, von Fau­pel assumed con­trol of the Ibero-Amer­i­can Insti­tute, an aca­d­e­m­ic think tank orig­i­nal­ly found­ed as a legit­i­mate schol­ar­ly insti­tu­tion. Under von Fau­pel, the orga­ni­za­tion became a front for orga­niz­ing the Nazi infil­tra­tion and con­quest of Spain. Reject­ing roy­al­ist and Catholic sec­tar­i­an right­ist par­ties, von Fau­pel and the Nazis set­tled on the Falange as their cho­sen vehi­cle for gain­ing dom­i­nance over Spain. After arrang­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Gen­er­al Jose San­jur­jo (a roy­al­ist rival for the lead­er­ship of Spain after the over­throw of the Repub­li­can gov­ern­ment), the Ger­mans and their Ital­ian allies installed Fran­co as head of the fas­cist Falange.

” . . . Gen­er­al Jose San­jur­jo, wear­ing a pea­cock­’s dream of a
uni­form-the Lon­don-made gift of Adolf Hitler-board­ed
a Junkers plane in Lis­bon and ordered his pilot, Cap­tain
Ansal­do, to take off for a secret land­ing field in Spain. But
on July 17 the old gen­er­al was actu­al­ly head­ed fo: anoth­er
land­ing field his Nazi com­rades had cho­sen with­out his
knowl­edge.

A few remarks he had let slip to inti­mate friends in Esto­ril
ear­li­er that year had, unknown to San­jur­jo, reached cer­tain
Berlin ears. On April I 3, 1936, for instance, San­jur­jo had
com­plained, “They want me to start a rev­o­lu­tion to serve
the bankers and the spec­u­la­tors, but I won’t do it.” Two
weeks after say­ing this, he made anoth­er trip to Berlin. He
remained in Ger­many for only a few days, and on his return
he went to work in earnest on his plans for the pend­ing
revolt. What hap­pened in Berlin while San­jur­jo con­ferred
with von Fau­pel is of lit­tle moment now. His fate had already
been sealed before the vis­it.

Very short­ly after San­jur­jo’s plane took off from Lis­bon,
a Ger­man time bomb plant­ed in the bag­gage com­part­ment
explod­ed. The blaz­ing frag­ments of the Junkers mono­plane
became the pyre of the Anoint­ed Chief of the Span­ish Rev­o­lu­tion.
Jose San­jur­jo had the dubi­ous hon­or of being the
first of the Nazis’ mil­lion vic­tims of the Span­ish War. . . .”

Falange; pp.20–21.

Von Fau­pel then pro­ceed­ed to direct the con­struc­tion of the “Falange Exte­ri­or” as the fas­cist Fifth Col­umn move­ment through­out the Span­ish-speak­ing world (includ­ing the Philip­pines).

Author Chase describes the Falange Exte­ri­or on page 31 of Falange:

“. . . . On the sur­face, von Fau­pel had—in the Falange Exterior—delivered to the Third Reich a remark­able net­work, extend­ing from Havana to Buenos Aires, from Lima to Mani­la. This net­work, accord­ing to its cre­ator, was capa­ble of con­cert­ed espi­onage, polit­i­cal diver­sion, arms smug­gling, and any­thing that any oth­er Fifth Col­umn in his­to­ry had accom­plished. It remained only for the Wehrma­cht to give von Faupel’s instru­ment the tests which would deter­mine whether the Aus­lands Falange had been worth all the trou­ble its orga­ni­za­tion had entailed. The answer was soon pro­vid­ed by a num­ber of Falangists—among them one Jose del Cas­tano. . . .”