Spanish prosecutors said on Monday that they have opened an investigation into whether the regime of General Francisco Franco collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War in the deportation of thousands of Spanish exiles in France to Nazi concentration camps.
Following the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, in which Franco’s fascist-aligned nationalists overthrew the Spanish Republic, many Spaniards fled to France. However, after France fell under Nazi occupation in 1940, these exiles found themselves under a new threat.
According to Dolores Delgado, Spain’s prosecutor for human rights and former Attorney General, the investigation aims to ‘clarify the relevant responsibilities and the existence of a possible joint strategy’ between Franco’s regime and the Nazis ‘in the detention and subsequent transfer of thousands of Spaniards exiled in France to different extermination camps’.
Among those camps was Mauthausen in Austria, where many of the republican exiles endured ‘forced labour, torture, disappearance and murder’, the prosecutor’s office stated.
‘The initiation of these proceedings, which seek to clarify these serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed in the context of crimes against humanity, coincides with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen extermination camp,’ the office said.
The probe, focusing on the 4,435 documented deaths, will be led by the human rights and democratic memory division of the prosecutor’s office.
Officials noted that the inquiry coincides with the 80th anniversary of Mauthausen’s liberation (main image – see credit below) and is being conducted under a controversial 2022 democratic memory law. ALSO READ: Senate approves law that bans support for Franco and seeks to bring ‘justice’ to victims.
The law, introduced by Spain’s coalition government, is intended to confront the legacy of the civil war and recognise those who suffered under Franco’s dictatorship, which lasted until his death in 1975. ALSO READ: Initial forensic work begins to exhume bodies of 128 victims of Civil War.
Spain’s right-wing and far-right parties have criticised the law, accusing the socialists and left-wing groups of attempting to reopen historical wounds, and they have pledged to repeal it.
Main image of the first arrival of American soldiers in Mauthausen is a public domain image from Common Wikimedia, credited as being taken by Cpl. Donald R. Ornitz, US Army, on 7 May 1945.
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ALSO READ: Events to mark 50 years since Franco’s death commence, yet his legacy still divides Spain.
🔴 #14HorasRNE | La unidad que dirige Dolores Delgado habla de posible estrategia conjunta entre la dictadura de Franco y el régimen nazi
— Radio 5 (@radio5_rne) May 5, 2025
▪️En el campo de concentración de Mauthausen fue en el que más españoles fueron asesinados
🎙️ Más detalles, @gema_alfaro pic.twitter.com/30mmbwHlFl
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