Deputation of Vizcaya Purge File

During the Civil War and under the subsequent dictatorship, the Francoists undertook the systematic repression of everything they considered to be “disaffected from the National Movement” or the “enemy of Spain”. This repression, which began on the same day as the rebellion, took on different forms that corresponded with the needs the rebels had at different times. Physical repression: execution without trial or following show trials, beatings, administering cod liver oil, humiliating women by cutting their hair, or even exile, is the most well-known. Repression also had an economic side: the seizure of property, and an administrative one: purging people from their professions. 

These last were political, designed to eliminate from the public service anyone considered “disaffected”. It was also an exercise in authoritarianism as the rebels, who had military, but no political, legitimacy carried out a process of “reverse justice” that lacked any legal bases against thousands of people who had remained loyal to the democratic authorities of the Second Republic. 

The Francoist “new Spain” demanded that anyone who worked for it share its ideas, which meant that the loyalty of every public servant had to be examined. The purge reached into every branch of the national public service: The Civil Guard, the Border Guards, Customs officers, the post office, education, and government ministries, as well as into the provincial Deputations and municipal governments. These purges were given a kind of legal basis by decrees issued on September 13 and December 3, 1936 and February 10, 1939. 

In the three Basque provinces of Álava, Gipúzkoa and Vizcaya, 15,105 employees purged by the Francoists have been identified. Thousands were dismissed from their jobs, demoted, or fined. In Vizcaya, where the purges have been studied in detail, at least 2,050 people (52.63 per cent of all workers) were fired; 507 (13.03 per cent) were punished in some other way; and 1,092 (28.04 per cent) received no punishment. Almost 500 employees of the Deputation of Vizcaya (42.05 per cent) lost their jobs. In Bilbao, 58.57 per cent of the municipal employees were fired, one of the highest figures in the Basque Country.  

AI