The Munich Conspiracy (1962): a historiographic appraisal

Abstract

In June 1962, the 4th Congress of the European Movement was held in the city of Munich. Grasping the opportunity thus presented, a group of Spanish opponents to Franco’s regime attended from Spain and exile to discuss the conditions that Spain would have to meet to join the new European institutions. Baptised the Munich Conspiracy by Franco, this meeting has been studied from various perspectives, ranging from the Franco regime’s foreign policy, through international relations and the Cultural Cold War, to democratic opposition and its alternative to the dictatorship, and has sometimes been considered the antecedent of the Transition. This article aims to gather all these perspectives and offer a synthesis of this important event in Spanish history.