N. 8 (2015)

During WWII, the Nazi-leadership inevitably used the services of ‘foreigners’ for its expansionist ambitions. Insofar as they supplied their services voluntarily, there are huge questions about the extent to which these grassroots level participants shared the same imperialist outlook as the leadership, and how the larger ideological aims of the Nazi-regime applied and were reconfigured at a local level. This article explores the Dutch contribution to the Nazi policy of Germanization in occupied Eastern Europe. It analyses the motives, experiences and expectations among the Dutch volunteers and supervisors.

Although most were favoring the establishment of a Greater Germanic Reich, they also had clear national goals: their work would help to restore Dutch grandeur by acquiring extra markets and territories. This article shows that these two aims were essentially incompatible and seriously complicated German-Dutch collaboration.

Collaboration; Germanization; The Netherlands; National-socialist expansionism

Ossorio y Gallardo in Argentina: ambassador or publicist?

Antonio López García

With the Civil War clearly favouring the rebels side, the Southamerican public opinion was inclined to the same side in what political propaganda and diplomacy refered. It was a situation that needed to be reconducted, and for that mission Argentina was a key element. Ossorio y Gallardo gathered the conditions which made him the suitable man in the Republican Government eyes. However, it happened to be too late.

Ossorio y Gallardo; Spanish Civil War; Republican diplomacy; Public opinion; Argentina

Local elections in Catalonia 1934

Raimon Soler

On January 14, 1934, municipal elections were held in Catalonia, which would became crucial for the further development of the events during that year. They had to replace all Catalan councils emerged from the elections of April 12 and were developed in a context of great political and social tension. In addition, for the first time in the history of our country women could participate equally with men in the election of councils. However, historiography has tended to ignore them, even to marginalize these elections, which represented a breaking point between right-wing and left-wing. This article aims to fill this gap and provide an overview of these elections.

Local elections; Second Republic; Catalonia; electoral processes; politics

The unavoidable happened. Israeli Labour, the Socialist International and the Arab-Israeli conflict

Víctor Amado Castro

This article discusses what the position of the Socialist International was and how it was adopted in the Arab-Israeli conflict between 1947 and 1983. The Labour Party of Israel was supported politically by this international organization, as the representative of socialist Zionism and the State of Israel, totally and uncritically until certain time. This support, as the Israeli Labour what the sole representative of the Middle East in the Socialist International, modeled vision and determined the position of the IS toward so-called Arab-Israeli conflict. As of a certain point in time that began to forge from 1967, that support was growing progressively, more nuanced and critical about the policies on the conflict that various governments of Israel had adopted. However, and although this confrontation continues up to the present, the Socialist International has never questioned and has always supported the existence of a democratic Jewish state of Israel.

Israeli Labour; Socialist International; PLO; Israel; Middle East

Barcelona, social movements and the transition to democracy: Gramscian hegemony, Spanish benchmark and Catalan break

Marc Andreu Acebal

The civic movement forged in neighborhoods during the Franco dictatorship in Spain, in sixties was led by opposition militants (basically Communist and Christian activists base). Its structure in Catalonia was a series of neighborhood committees and associations. From 1972 onwards, it was organized in Barcelona

around a legal federation (FAVB) which was largely middle class and initially linked to the local Francoist establishment. However, it was quickly taken over by the urban and Catalanist left which enabled it to become a key part of the fight against Francoism and the struggle for democracy. This popular movement achieved numerous victories in Barcelona in terms of urban, social and cultural issues. Internal changes in the FAVB and their relationship with the local authority, but especially the appointment of Barcelona as Olympic 1992, imposed a change of scale and urban city model. This marked the end of this cultural hegemony and a democratic socialist idea of a city which, however, maintains its influence over the end of the street consensus forged during the transition.

Barcelona; social movements; Francoism; Spanish transition; neighborhood associations

Look at the present in historical terms

Jaume Suau i Puig, Francesc Veiga Rodríguez

This is a dialogue between two of the most recognized specialists in the History of the Present in our country, Jaume Suau i Francesc Veiga. Questioned about whether it is possible to set a start date for this immediate story, both reflect on epistemological and approach issues that they place not so much on the need for this date, but in one of its main objectives: the reconnection of Current History and long-term history, namely the classical history taught at universities. Perhaps this date, which sets a cycle closure, could be around thirty years, those that would constitute a generation which we can analyse as educated and rational people. On the other hand, the historian who is interested in the present does not compartmentalize his analysis in specific dates, but cares about significant facts to the extent that they highlight problems, processes and trends, in the scenario he lives directly. The historian of the present tries to understand this dynamic scenario. And he does so through a critical reading grammar based on the application of historical reasoning in today’s world.

history of the present; chronologies; today’s world; conflicts; new sources