"Gypsies act in Europe as an absolutely strange and parasitic race, just like the Jews." And precisely the latter is "one of the most terrible peoples of all time." They are not phrases taken from the German propaganda of the 30s and 40s, but from the books published by the Burgos doctor Misael Bañuelos, one of the greatest exponents of the intellectual approach of the Spanish extreme right to Nazism in those years, the moment of the birth of the state. Francoist and in which the postulates of National Socialism enjoyed great influence.
The philologist Marco da Costa has explored the weight of this ideology in the Spain of the Republic, the Civil War and the 1940s, the latter moment in which the spread of National Socialism with autochthonous rims began to beat a retreat parallel to the German defeats in World War. In his book Nazi Spain (Taurus), Da Costa explains how this ideology penetrated the country, who its main promoters were, and what differentiated Nazism from Falangism and other local ultra-conservative tendencies.
Although Italian fascism was the reference model for the Spanish ultra-right, the attraction of Nazism was indisputable from the first good electoral results of the National Socialists in 1930. The right-wing press and a well-nourished production of books introduced public opinion in the country the supposed achievements of Nazi Germany and, with them, its ideology. Authors such as Ramiro Ledesma -who came to comb his hair like Hitler and grow his mustache in the style of the führer- or the first editions of Mein Kampf (My battle in that first broadcast), helped to spread this ideology in Spain.
When the Civil War broke out, German influence on the national side was not merely that of an ally providing military support, but National Socialist ideology seeped into the very foundation of the construction of the new state. As Da Costa points out in the book, the Falangist intelligentsia saw “the opportunity to transform society in all its aspects, defenestrating at the same time the stagnant liberal regime”, for which other regimes were necessary to imitate. Names such as Pedro Laín Entralgo, the Zaragoza academic Luis Legaz -influenced by Carl Schmitt, author of the configuration of the Nazi state-, Juan Beneyto or José Pemartín were some of the most notable in this field.
Another of the aspects in which Nazism influenced was the Jewish question. But in the case of Spain, despite the proclamations, anti-Semitism was more a rhetorical matter than an effective persecution. “It was more environmental anti-Semism than anything else, in large part, obviously, because there were no Jews in Spain,” explains Da Costa.
In reality, the most extreme postulates of German National Socialism had little chance of taking root in Spain, due to the atheistic nature of German ideology that clashed with the autochthonous Catholic tradition. For this reason, the eugenics defended by Vallejo-Nájera was not in favor of the extermination of dissent and for that same reason the final solution for the Jews was not shared either, at least officially, by the regime and its intellectuals. It is because of this Catholic component that in Spain in the late 1930s and early 1940s there were many Nazis who in fact were not so Nazis.
“In reality –explains Da Costa-, although the National Socialist ideology began to penetrate Spain at the time of the Republic, there were few authentic Nazis in Spain; Many intellectuals, journalists and writers signed up for these theses out of opportunism, as they hoped to participate in the benefits of the new European order after a supposed German victory in the World War. Most were more philo-Germanic than philo-Nazis.
When things began to go wrong for the Nazis in the World War, the regime began to turn, from an approach close to National Socialism based on a totalitarian state towards another more indigenous and more typical of an authoritarian state in the style of Salazar's Portugal. "Unlike Hitler or Mussolini - points out Da Costa - Franco was not an ideologue, which allowed him to adapt to new times without too many problems". With him, many intellectuals changed orientation and, in an exercise of hypocrisy, even went so far as to proclaim themselves pioneers in disagreeing with Nazism.
In this context, in the following years there was an intense production of what the author calls “dememorial literature”, that is, memories of prominent intellectuals who, after having embraced National Socialism, either turned down their iron or simply forgot such an approach. Very few maintained a position close to Nazism after the war – Romano Brunet's fierce anti-Semitism was already an exception then. Times had definitely changed.
By the way, Misael Bañuelos currently gives his name to a street, a square and an assembly hall of the University Hospital of Valladolid.
