Suchergebnisse

"This book deals with one of most controversial issues of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): the "Red Terror." Approximately 50,000 Spaniards were extrajudically executed in Republican Spain following the failure of the military rebellion in July 1936. This mass killing of "fascists" seriously undermined attempts by the legally constituted Republican government to present itself in foreign quarters as fighting a war for democracy. This study, based on a wealth of scholarship and archival sources, challenges the common view that executions were the work of criminal or anarchist "uncontrollables." Its focus is on Madrid, which witnessed at least 8,000 executions in 1936. It shows that the terror was organized and was carried out with the complicity of the police, and argues that terror was seen as integral to the antifascist war effort. Indeed, the elimination of the internal enemy - the "Fifth Column" - was regarded as important as the war on the front line"--

This article examines the repression following General Franco's unconditional victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). It argues that the surrender of the Republic did not alter the Franco regime's determination to punish its ideological enemies. The repression was based on a cruel irony: the defeated republicans were responsible for the civil war and thus guilty of the crime of 'military rebellion'. Nevertheless, although thousands were punished, the article challenges claims that the post-war repression implemented a programme of ideological extermination.

AbstractThis article examines the use of forced labour in Republican Spain during the civil war. Although much has recently been written on Francoist camps, very little research has been undertaken on their Republican counterparts. As a consequence the significance of Republican camps has not been recognised. Although some historians argue that the Republicans used forced labour only in a desperate attempt to avoid military defeat, this article demonstrates that labour camps were an integral aspect of Republican 'popular justice'. Work, it was argued, would redeem 'fascists' by allowing them to contribute to the economic reconstruction and transformation of Spain.

The issue of repression remains one of the most controversial issues arising from the Spanish Civil War and General Franco's unconditional victory in 1939. This article discusses the (mainly Spanish) historiography of both Francoist and Republican political violence, and questions the widely held belief that a `pact of forgetfulness' characterized Spanish historians' treatment of the subject following the death of Franco in November 1975. It argues that the dominant characteristic of repression historiography has been the persistence of contemporary Republican explanations, in particular the alleged contrast between Francoist `plans of extermination' and Republican `uncontrollable' violence. The article rejects such interpretations, and points to new trends in research.

During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39, an estimated 50,000 executions took place in the Republican zone. Of these, around 9000 were killed in the Spanish capital. Explanations of Republican violence still tend to assume that it was the work of 'uncontrollables' and frequently cite Agapito García Atadell as an example. Atadell led a brigade of 48 men that spread terror in Madrid during the summer of 1936 before he attempted to escape for Cuba that October. However, he was captured in the Nationalist-held Canaries and executed in July 1937. This article considers whether Atadell was really an 'uncontrollable'. It shows not only that Atadell was a significant figure in Madrid's Socialist movement before the Civil War but also that his brigade was the result of an initiative by the Socialist Party bureaucracy in early August 1936 to reinforce the police with loyal Republicans. This does not imply the existence of a Republican 'programme of terror'. It suggests that the brigade operated autonomously in its pursuit of dangerous 'internal enemies'. It also argues that the brigade was widely perceived to be efficiently defending the Republic against the 'Fifth Column' and that Atadell's departure did not harm the career prospects of many of his subordinates in the reorganized Republican police after 1936.

This article considers whether the Franco regime pursued a genocidal policy against Republicans after the formal ending of hostilities on 1 April 1939. In post-war Spain, the primary mechanism for punishing Republicans was military tribunals. Francoist military justice was based on the assumption that responsibility for the civil war lay with the Republic: defendants were tried for the crime of 'military rebellion'. This was, as Ramón Serrano Suñer admitted his memoirs, 'turning justice on its head'. But although it was extremely harsh, post-war military justice was never exterminatory. The article stresses that the institutionalisation of military justice from 1937, following the arbitrary murders of 1936, contributed to a relative decline in executions. Although the regime's determination to punish Republicans for 'military rebellion' inevitably led to the initiation of tens of thousands of post-war military investigations, only a minority of cases ended in execution. This was especially the case from January 1940, when the higher military authorities ended the autonomy of military tribunals over sentencing. This reassertion of central control in January 1940 was part of a wider policy to ease the self-inflicted problem of prison overcrowding; successive parole decrees led to a substantial and permanent decrease in the number of inmates by 1945. Allied victory in the Second World War did not mark the beginning but the end of the process of bringing to a close mass military justice.