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Fighting for Franco: International Volunteers in Nationalist Spain During the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, by Judith Keene. London and New York: Leicester University Press, 2001. $39.95. Pp. x, 310.
The Spanish Civil War is often interpreted as the "last great cause" of the left, or, alternatively, as a "dress rehearsal" for the second World War, one that pitted fascism against democracy. It has also been suggested (Paul Preston, A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War, 6) that it was the first open battle of communism and capitalism. All of these explanations illuminate the importance of ideology; most of them were expounded upon by those on the left, especially non-Spaniards, in the aftermath of the Republic's defeat in 1939. Yet if the Civil War really did reflect broader international conflict, surely the right must have had similar explanations and reminiscences when the battle was finished. Indeed, both sides had their international volunteers who set off for adventure and ideological strife in sunny Spain. We may more easily remember the Orwells of the fight, but Judith Keene skillfully and insightfully reminds us that the war was not purely one that matched patriotic Spaniards against an awkward amalgam of international "Reds." Many on the right in a variety of European and other countries also joined the battle in Spain, and Keene's Fighting for Franco tells their many stories.
Analysis of the international dimension of the conflict in Spain has rightly focused on the larger foreign contribution to the Spanish Republic, primarily in the form of the International Brigades which totaled some 35,000-40,000 soldiers. On the Nationalist side, the assumption has been that significant foreign involvement was limited to those who were less than volunteers, primarily German, Italian and, to a lesser extent, Portuguese soldiers. These three groups together contributed somewhere between 100,000 and 120,000 soldiers to the Nationalist effort (7). Keene, however, is interested in what she estimates to be the 1,200 or so true volunteers for Franco, a varied group of "pious Catholics, crypto-Nazis, aspiring fascists, old-style conservatives and anti-Semites of every stripe" (2). Difficult to track down in the many national and non-state archives Keene has examined, these individuals and groups nonetheless provide an important insight into the nature of interwar politics and society. The...