The Spanish Government's Delegate in Catalonia pays tribute to Hitler's soldiers

Barcelona (ACN).- María de los Llanos de Luna, from the People’s Party (PP), gave a diploma of honour to a brotherhood of soldiers and supporters of the ‘Divisón Azul’, a division of Spanish volunteers who fought in the Nazi army on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. De Luna is the top representative of the Spanish Government in Catalonia and she is known for her Spanish nationalism and anti-Catalan identity stance. The ‘Blaue Division’, the 250. Infanterie-Division of Nazi Germany’s Wehrmacht, represents the main collaboration between Franco’s dictatorship and Adolph Hitler, as well as the Condor Division – which bombed Gernika – and the arrest of Catalonia’s President Lluís Companys by the Gestapo. The 12 members of the brotherhood who attended the diploma ceremony were wearing the Falange uniform, which was the only party allowed during Franco’s Fascist dictatorship, created before the Spanish Civil War. This Fascist party is still legal in Spain. The news has outraged the rest of the Catalan political parties, who asked for De Luna’s immediate resignation on Thursday. Neither the PP nor the Spanish Government have commented on the news or the resignation demands yet. Furthermore, in the last few months, but significantly in the last few weeks, several members of the PP – including the party’s Secretary General – have compared citizen protests against house evictions and Catalan nationalist claims to the Nazi regime. The PP was founded by Manuel Fraga, who had occupied several key ministerial positions in Franco governments, such as Minister for Home Affairs, in charge of the police corps in a military Fascist dictatorship. The ceremony where the diploma was presented took place last Saturday but the controversy popped up on Thursday, when it was reported by the digital magazine La Directa and journalist Bertran Cazorla.

A ceremony within the Guardia Civil barracks

The ceremony was commemorating the 169^th anniversary of the Guardia Civil (the Spanish Gendarmerie) and took place in one of its barracks in Greater Barcelona (in Sant Andreu de la Barca). The anniversary of the creation of the Guardia Civil, which has historically been a corps linked to Spanish centralist power and the imposition of order – sometimes brutally – had not been celebrated in Catalonia for many years. However, De Luna decided to commemorate this anniversary again in 2013, half a year after 1.5 million citizens peacefully and democratically demonstrated in Barcelona’s streets asking for Catalonia’s independence from Spain.

The Guardia Civil stated that the ‘Hermandad de Combatientes de la División Azul’ (The Brotherhood of Fighters from the Blue Division) is a legal association and that they were honoured for “historical and cultural” reasons and not ideological ones. The Guardia Civil also stated that during the ceremony, pilots from the Spanish Republican Army were also honoured. They added that it was “random” that De Luna gave a diploma to the Fascist brotherhood and emphasised she also gave other diplomas to other associations.

Catalan parties ask for De Luna’s resignation

The Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) – which runs the Catalan Government – demanded the “immediate removal” of De Luna “for a matter of respect and consideration towards the victims of the Holocaust and the Nazi barbarity”. “It is the drop that fills up the glass of her lamentable work”, stated Jordi Turull, CiU’s Spokesperson. Turull also asked for totally stopping the comparisons of democratic claims to the Nazis made by several PP leaders. The Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party denounced the fact that the Spanish Government has given a €3,500 subsidy to this Fascist brotherhood this year. Alfred Bosch, ERC’s Spokesperson in the Spanish Parliament, asked for a law banning the celebration of any event recognising people linked to the Nazi regime. The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) asked for De Luna’s “immediate resignation” or, if she refuses, her immediate removal by the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is also the leader of the People’s Party (PP). “It is a great attack” against the democratic memory and “the dignity of the victims of the Nazi and Fascist barbarity”, added the PSC. The Catalan Green Socialist and Communist Coalition (ICV-EUiA) asked Mariano Rajoy to “immediately” fire María de los Llanos De Luna. They also emphasised that the PP’s Secretary General and De Luna herself had compared house eviction protests to the Nazi regime. The anti-Catalan nationalism and populist party Ciutadans (C’s) asked De Luna for an “explanation” for a “totally unfortunate” event. This brotherhood “should have never participated in such an event honouring the Guardia Civil” stated C’s. Finally the radical left-wing and independence party CUP stated that De Luna’s participation is “an insult” to the victims of the Nazi and Franco dictatorships.