The Spanish Civil War historian who demolished Francoist myths with archival evidence
There is not a single conservative or neo-Francoist historian who does not manipulate the evidence; what they sell are bold-faced lies.
A historian, economist and diplomat who has systematically dismantled Francoist historical narratives through archival research on the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. Beginning with his investigation of Nazi Germany's financing of Franco's rising while a graduate student in Bonn, he demolished the myth of the 'Moscow Gold' in 1976 and went on to show, in a four-volume Republic series, how arms embargoes and international diplomacy decided the war. When the Royal Academy of History published a national biographical dictionary in 2011 that failed even to call Franco a dictator, Viñas rallied thirty historians and produced a 976-page counter-dictionary, En el combate por la Historia (2012), a watershed in Spain's 'history wars'.
Career Timeline
- 1968Joined Corps of Spanish State Economists and Trade Experts, first in class
- 1971–1973Commercial counsellor, Spanish Embassy, Bonn
- 1974Published La Alemania nazi y el 18 de julio; PhD
- 1976Published El oro español en la Guerra Civil, debunking the Moscow Gold myth
- 1982Professor of Applied Economics, Complutense University; adviser to Foreign Minister
- 1986–2005EU Commission posts including Director for Asia and Latin America; EU Ambassador to the UN
- 2006–2009Tetralogy on the Republic: La soledad, El escudo, El honor, El desplome
- 2012Edited En el combate por la Historia, answer to the Royal Academy's biographical dictionary