The Court of First Instance Number 70 of Madrid has ruled in favor of the State in the lawsuit it had with the heirs of Francisco Franco regarding the assets and documents found inside the Pazo de Meirás (Sada, A Coruña). The State, upon the judge’s understanding that the sale of May 24, 1941, was a “simulation” and, therefore, null and void, and that the donation from the Pro Pazo “Junta del Caudillo” Board, formed by prominent men of the regime, in the middle of the War Civilian, to buy and gift the palace “to the Generalissimo of the Armies and Head of the National State” had been done because he was head of the State, not because his name was Francisco Franco. The dictator’s grandchildren appealed the sentence, which is not yet final, and also began another battle in the courts to gain ownership of the assets inside. This new ruling, against which there is an appeal, condemns the Francos to pay costs and denies them ownership of what belongs to the National Heritage (two assets), the Spanish documentary heritage (409), and the Spanish historical heritage (153 ).
In the property, with 40 rooms, two topographers and three historians counted, after spending about 40 hours in the manor, 270 animal skulls. “Roe deer in industrial quantities, but also mountain goats and deer,” explains González Ruibal. Francisco Prado, a specialist in medieval art, also studied the most valuable pieces that the Francos had outside the manor. The State Attorney’s Office provided an inventory with expert technical reports proving with multiple references (graphic, literary, etc.) his incorporation or presence in the Pazo de Meirás “during the period of time in which he was assigned to the public service of covering the needs of summer residence of the Head of State” to demonstrate that these assets are part of that “place of memory” associated with “two historical personalities of great notoriety: the eminent Galician writer Emilia Pardo Bazán, one of the most prominent Spanish representatives of literary naturalism , and the figure of Francisco Franco.”
The dictator’s grandchildren, for their part, initially argued that the State’s claim was “prescribed” and that their possession could not be classified as illegitimate, “since during the last forty years they have shown public ownership of the assets, they have signed agreements with the Xunta de Galicia for the exhibition and public visit, they have held family events covered by the national press, or even the interior of the property has appeared in exclusive magazines and advertorials, without at any time the State having sent any formal communication showing their disagreement.”
The judge has rejected all of the Francos’ arguments and describes as “complex and meticulous” the expert work “of high technical rigor” to document the assets inside the manor, their origin and belonging. “Having verified the nature of the documents by this Judge,” the ruling states, “the conclusion is reached that there are also others that constitute authentic legal or economic documents of extremely high historical and cultural value, which reflect the development of political history, economic and social development of Spain in those decades between 1938 and 1975. We are faced with interesting documents that offer us testimony of the union life of the time, the concerns of the youth adept at a specific political regime, the infrastructures and the industrial fabric and rancher, etc.” And he adds: “As the experts explain, there are also documents that could respond to a private aspect (…) however, the propaganda and institutional function necessary in a dictatorial political regime, with a transcendental presence of the Catholic and ideological component, is perfectly explained. . The photographs that are collected in the detailed report prepared by the State Attorney’s Office respond to these needs.”
The inventory, which was already revealed by EL PAÍS, includes hundreds of documents, books and letters that were in Franco’s library and personal office. They were preserved because Franco wanted it that way, and for that reason they can not only be of great interest to him but also to get, in some way, into his head. The inventory includes, for example, numerous lists of adhesions of former soldiers and Falangists to what he called “the war of liberation”, but also reserved reports on the resistance and writings of institutions and personalities trying to ingratiate themselves with the dictator.
