SPANISH CIVIL WAR (1936-1939)
The Spanish Civil War began on July 17-18, 1936 as a military coup against the government of the Spanish Republic. While initially a domestic Spanish affair, it soon became an international conflict. Nazi Germany (Hitler) and Fascist Italy (Mussolini) aided Franco’s Nationalists, while the Soviet Union (Stalin) supported the Spanish Republican government through the Popular Front alliance. Defying the policy of neutrality and non-intervention adopted by the western democracies, over 35,000 international volunteers joined the Republican forces as members of the International Brigades. Around 2,800 of these volunteers came from the United States.
The conflict in Spain served as a training ground for some of the military tactics that would become prevalent in World War II. Among them was the aerial attack of cities, immortalized by Pablo Picasso’s painting of the bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica by the Nazi German Condor Legion in 1937. On April 1, 1939 a victorious General Franco declared the end of the war. The war claimed the lives of about 350,000 Spaniards and forced another half a million into exile. Thousands more would die in the postwar repression established by the Franco regime (1939-1975).
Nationalists: Supporters of the military uprising against the Second Republic. They represented conservative and rightwing forces, including the Falange (Spanish Fascist Party), Carlists (ultraconservative monarchists), the Catholic Church and sections of the army. In 1937, Franco merged these groups into a single Falangist party that came to be known as the Movimiento (movement).
Forging a Dictatorship in Spain
Republicans: Supporters of the Spanish Republic. They represented progressive and leftwing forces, including anarchists, communists, socialists, labor unions, and those defining themselves broadly as anti-fascists.
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892-1975). Spanish general. Franco began his military career in Spanish Morocco. By 1926 he was the youngest general in Spain. In 1936, Franco joined the military uprising against the Spanish Republic, leading the rebellion in Morocco. Hitler and Mussolini helped Franco transport the Army of Africa from Morocco to the Iberian Peninsula. During the Spanish Civil War, Franco would continue to receive substantial military aid from both countries. Franco became the leader of the Nationalist forces. After their victory in the Spanish Civil War, he established a dictatorship that lasted until his death in 1975.
Juan Negrín López (1892-1956). Leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). Negrín was Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic from May 1937 until the end of the war in March 1939. After the fall of the Republic, he fled to France. He continued to serve as Prime Minister of the Spanish Republican government in exile until 1945. He died in Paris in 1956.