Heroic Spain

Heroic Spain is a feature-length documentary produced in 1938 by Hispano Film Produktion (Berlin) in collaboration with the official Francoist party FET y de las JONS. Like all those by Hispano Film, The project, had the support of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda led by Joseph Goebbels. It premiered in Seville in June 1938 and became the most widely distributed Francoist propaganda documentary both within Spain and abroad.

Johann W. Ther, producer and founder of Hispano Film was involved in the production along with two delegates of FET y de las JONS in Berlin: Joaquín Reig Gozalbes, who directed and narrated the documentary, and José Pizarro, who wrote the texts.

The film presented itself as an objective and comprehensive analytical vision of the war, explaining its causes, development, and historical significance. It began by showcasing the National-Catholic essence of Spain and its glorious imperial past. It then denounced how the establishment of the Republic betrayed those core values and how the electoral victory of the Popular Front, which the film described as fraudulent, opened the door to a Soviet-inspired communist revolution that broke out in June 1936.

In a clear distortion of the historical sequence of events, the heroes who led the uprising of July 18, 1936, are portrayed as rising up against the preceding revolutionary chaos. This act of national self defense would give rise to a conflict between the Red Army, controlled by international communism, and the Nationalist Army, led by General Franco. The documentary reviews the main milestones of the war for the Francoist side up to the spring of 1938: the liberation of the Alcázar of Toledo, the Madrid front, the fall of Málaga, and the Northern campaign. At the end of the film, the Falangists take center stage as their social organizations lead the country’s reconstruction, and their political rhetoric is presented as the voice that will guide Spain’s future, preserving the Spanish people’s ties to their roots.

Structured as a compilation documentary, Heroic Spain included film footage from a variety of sources, ranging from newsreels from several countries to reports produced by the Francoist side: such as The Reconquest of Málaga, The Vizcaya Front, and July 18, as well as those produced by the Republican side, such as Mateo Santos’ Report on the Revolutionary Movement in Barcelona.

MNM