Francisco Franco ruled all of Spain for more than 36 years, until he died, amid signs of senility, at the age of eighty-two, a reign longer than that of Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin. Eventually he adopted some of the trappings of Spanish royalty: entering and leaving church under a canopy, receiving ambassadors on a raised dais, and having coins struck with his image. To some of his favorites, including generals from the war, Franco passed out titles in royal fashion, creating a string of counts, marquises, and dukes. A few of these new noblemen, in a bizarre twist reminiscent of Catholic sainthood, received their titles posthumously.
His rule was, as George Orwell had observed early on, “an attempt not so much to impose Fascism as to restore feudalism.” The Catholic Church remained immensely powerful, and the position of women was far worse than in Hitler’s Germany. Women were legally considered dependents of their fathers or husbands, whose permission they needed to open a bank account, own property, file a lawsuit, apply for a job, or take a trip away from home. A husband had the right to kill his wife if he caught her committing adultery. Franco’s rule became less murderous and repressive in its later decades; Spain eventually enjoyed an economic rise and eased some of the restrictions on women and cultural expression. But torture was routine, the regime remained a police state, and until 1974, a year before the dictator’s death, it continued to execute prisoners with the garrote.
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