Episode 19 with Joshua Goode

The SS commando Otto Skorzeny was the most notorious Nazi to hid out in Spain after the Second World War.  Yet, far from staying hidden, Skorzeny made frequent appearances in the Spanish media through the Franco period.  In this episode, part of our series on Nazis in Spain, Prof. Joshua Goode of Claremont Graduate University explores how Skorzeny was able to reinvent himself to stay in the public eye as the Franco regime evolved.  In so doing, Goode challenges the view that after the World War II the Franco regime always hid its previous connections to the Nazis.  He also considers how the Francoist portrayal of Nazism shaped Spain’s incomplete confrontation with the Holocaust in recent decades.

The Episode

The Guest

Joshua Goode is associate professor of cultural studies and history at Claremont Graduate University. His research specializations are in Modern Spain; 19th- and 20th-century Europe; genocide and racial thought; museums and commemoration; and memory. Goode received his MA and PhD in History from UCLA. He has received awards and grants from UCLA, a Fulbright Fellowship (1995–1996) and the Fletcher Jones Faculty Research Award. He has a forthcoming article, “Does Past Convivencia Promise Future Tolerance? Contemporary Spanish Attitudes Toward Immigration,” which will appear in the academic journal Social History.

Suggested Reading

• Baer, Alejandro.   “The Voids of Sepharad: The Memory of the Holocaust in Spain” in Daniela Flesler, Tabea Alexa Linhard and Adrián Pérez Melgoa, eds., Revisiting Jewish Spain in the Modern Era.  London: Routledge, 2013.
• Cantorera, Joan.  La Huella en la Bota.  Madrid: Planeta, 2010.
• Collado Seidel, Carlos.  España, Refugio Nazi.  Madrid: Planeta, 2005. 
• Gómez López-Quiñones, Antonio and Susanne Zepp, eds.  The Holocaust in Spanish Memory. Historical Perceptions and Cultural Discourse.  Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätverlag GMBH, 2010.    
• Goñi, Uki.  The Real Odessa: Smuggling Nazis to Perón’s Argentina.  New York: Granta, 2002.    
• Messenger, David.  Hunting Nazis in Franco’s Spain.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014.    
• Miguez Macho, Antonio.  The Genocidal Genealogy of Francoism.  Brighton UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2016.    
• Richards, Michael.  After the Civil War: Making Memory and Re-Making Spain since 1936.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 
• Steinacher, Gerald.  Nazis on the Run.  Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Walters, Guy.  Hunting Evil.  New York: Broadway Books, 2010.