The Spanish Holocaust (civil war)

[many a good man]

Certain right wing traits seem to be universal and consistent across time and geography.

...

Díaz Criado and Fresquet Llopis were just two of the many psychopaths who took advantage of the chaos unleashed by the Civil War between 1936 and 1939 to vent their murderous instincts. Of the half a million deaths in the Civil War, around 200,000 were civilians, all murdered far from the battlefields. Until recently, most Spaniards accepted the "both sides committed atrocities" version of events.

But while terrible acts were indeed committed by both sides, there is now a huge body of evidence that Franco's forces were responsible for a far greater number of civilian deaths. Around 50,000 supporters and suspected sympathizers of the nationalist cause were murdered in Republican-held areas, while three times that number were put to death in Franco-controlled zones. This figure excludes the unknown numbers killed in the bombing campaigns against Republican cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. Nor does it include the many thousands of refugees who died in bombing attacks as they fled Francoist advances, nor the tens of thousands of refugees and prisoners who later died from disease and malnutrition.

Similarly, while the vast majority of the war crimes in Republican strongholds were committed in the first five months of the war, until the government was able to re-establish control, Franco's forces implemented a systematic policy of terror that continued throughout - and lasted long after - the conflict. Franco believed that it was necessary to break the spirit of the civilian population by liquidating any potential threat or opposition, however slight. The Republican authorities faced the challenge of reining in anarchists, communists and other extremists who wanted to settle old scores, and who took advantage of the power vacuum created by Franco's uprising to do so.

British historian Paul Preston's new book, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination during the Civil War and After (or, El holocausto español. Odio y exterminio en la Guerra Civil y después), came out in Spanish in January, and will be published in English on May 5. It provides a definitive account of the murders and massacres of civilians that took place during and after the Spanish Civil War, which remains a sensitive and controversial topic three-quarters of a century after it began.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/The/Spanish/holocaust/elpepueng/20110404elpeng_4/Ten