Dictator Franco killed 4,601 partridges a day

From Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad of today (translated):

Controversial photo of hunting dictator Franco published

Elsewhere on the Internet is also this picture of Franco with a number of shot deer

MADRID – Nearly 35 years after his death, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo has published today a photo of Franco which depicts the dictator’s obsession with hunting well.

The photo from 1959 shows the Generalissimo on a meadow to show off amid no less than 4601 killed partridges.

The Franco regime had the picture seized because it feared image damage for the dictator. Many poor Spaniards were hungry while the General happily was killing thousands of partridges.

That the picture has resurfaced now is due to the work of historian Jose Lopez de la Franca. He was a friend of the photographer of the picture, Eduardo Matos Cuesta, and after Cuesta’s death did research in the archives of the photographer.

Franco was known to like bragging about his hunting talents. “I am the hunting world champion,” he said. Sometimes, the General neglected state affairs for weeks in order to devote himself to his beloved hobby.

A reaction on the Algemeen Dagblad site (translated):

Maniacal killers of animals, a small step to murdering people, yet another example ..