The return of the documentation to the Catalan autonomous government was subject to much polemic in the 1990s and early 2000s,[1] as well as numerous acts of violence at the moment of their physical transfer.
"[5] The original decree was supplemented by successive decrees, such as that of April 20, 1937, which set up a counter-propaganda unit, the Oficina de Investigación y Propaganda Anticomunista (OIPA), and of May 29, 1937, which created the Delegación Nacional de Asuntos Especiales, charged with "recompiling documentation regarding sects operating in the country... in order to set up an Archive with which to establish, uncover and sanction the enemies of the Patria.
In 1944, given the overlapping functions of the two bodies, they were brought together under the Delegación Nacional de Servicios Documentales, belonging to the Presidencia del Gobierno.
With the death of Franco, the dictatorship's Document Services was suppressed by the Royal Decree 276/1977[7] and in 1979 the collection was transferred to the newly created Ministry of Culture[8] whose National Historic Archive set up a dedicated department.
[9] A committee of experts, comprising among others, the former director-general of Unesco, Federico Mayor Zaragoza (spokesman), Columbia University Professor of History Edward Malefakis, and Juan Pablo Fusi, declared in 2004, by a majority of 14 of its 17 members (with three abstentions), that it was "just and legitimate" that the documents be returned to the autonomous government.