Oliveros’s background

A professor of law at the Complutense University of Madrid, Dr Wenceslao González Oliveros was a senior player in the Francoist dictatorship. After the fall of Barcelona in January 1939, he had been appointed civil governor by the minister for the interior, Serrano Súñer (General Franco’s brother-in-law), to suppress any opposition to the dictatorship. He was also charged with suppressing the Catalan language and its culture. During World War II he was appointed president of the National Tribunal of Political Responsibilities that was responsible for the arrest of thousands of suspected opponents of the regime. Furthermore, he was vice-president of the National Tribunal for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism that Súñer and Franco had established to ‘cleanse’ the nation of dangerous elements. After the war he had been appointed president of the Council of National Education and had continued the process of brainwashing the Spanish people through teaching and propaganda. It was only through such methods that the regime could pass on its legacy to the next generation that had not been active participants in the Civil War.