yesterday i did an oral zoom presentation for my “total war” class. it was about nationalist and republican massacres during the spanish civil war. the comments that my professor made after we finished incredibly angered me. +

+ the context: my part of the presentation, the massacres and violence carried out by the nationalists, argued that the nationalists had a systematic wish to exterminate the enemy, which can be seen in quotes by nationalist leaders such as franco, mola, and queipo de llano. +

+ when we finished the presentation, my german professor started comparing the numbers of casualties of the spanish civil war, particularly those killed by the nationalists, to the casualties of the second world war.. how is that, in any way shape or form, comparable? +

+ i told him that, imo, comparing conflicts is extremely problematic. he went on to say stuff like “if they wanted to exterminate the enemy, why didnt they kill more? why didnt they do like the nazis with the jews?”, again comparing two completely different events +

+ and asking me questions that can only be answered with hypothesis. maybe franco just didnt have enough resources? maybe at the end of the day he didnt care about physically killing them but to morally destroy them and destroy their politics? +

+ he exterminated them, just not physically. he subjugated them to 40 years of violent and bloody and repressive dictatorship. however, my professor just didnt care that much, he just wanted to compare the spanish civil war to the second world war. +

+ and to finish the class off, he asked us if “the spanish civil war was just a warm up to the second world war or it was an important conflict on its own?”. it’s a question that i cant even express how disrespectful and dismissive is. it banalises the conflict. +

+ there is no doubt that some, like hitler, used the spanish civil war as a training ground and weapon testing place, but to claim that the whole conflict was just a warm up for WWII is incredibly disrespectful and, if we pay attention to early 1900s spanish history, just wrong.+

+ two of my classmates, also german, agreed with the professor that it was just a warm up and i didnt even have time to reply or debate because the professor finished the class...+

+ i know this is the longest thread ever and it’s all over the place but im just tired and angry about how much the spanish civil war is dismissed by other european historians. it’s frustrating and i will change that.