Awar of principle or a dress rehearsal by the totalitarian powers? A struggle between democracy and fascism, or an avoidable and ghastly mess? No civil war in the 20th century, not even ex-Yugoslavia's, divided Europe in quite the same way as Spain's. At its outbreak in 1936, defending the Spanish republic denned choices for a generation; and when it ended three years later in victory for General Franco's Nacionales, Spain was politically frozen for almost 40 years. In the dictator's lifetime, the war was virtually untouchable as a public topic in Spain. And when he died in 1975, most Spaniards preferred entrenching democracy to settling old scores or exhuming the past.
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