The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

Ideological and religious invocations deliberately tried to make the violence abstract. There was said to have been a sweet-natured youth among Moscardó’s defenders at Toledo, who was called the Angel of the Alcázar because before firing his rifle he used to cry, ‘Kill without hate!’ This depersonalization existed on the republican side as well. David Antona, a CNT leader, said that ‘the bullets which ended the lives of the officers at the Montana barracks did not kill men, they killed a whole social system’. People were encouraged to submerge their identity and individual responsibility into causes with either mystical or superhuman auras. Carlist requetés were told that they would have a year less in purgatory for every red they killed, as if Christendom were still fighting the Moors. It was this dehumanization of the enemy which made the war so terrible, along, of course, with modern weapons and the tactics of terror aimed against civilian populations.

The destruction of Guernica became the internationally recognized symbol of the new horror, yet even more chilling were the motives behind the Nazi campaign in Spain. There has been a great debate over the comparative weight and timing of foreign intervention on either side during the war. But arguing over the exact numbers of aircraft, tanks and military advisers misses the point. So much depended on the standard of training and the quality of the equipment. There can be no doubt, for example, that German pilots and aeroplanes were considerably superior to their Soviet adversaries, a fact re-emphasized with terrifying effect in June 1941 when the Luftwaffe destroyed over 2,000 Soviet aircraft, most of them on the ground, in less than 48 hours. The Italian contribution to Franco’s victory was indeed large, but the haphazard nature of its bombing and its general unreliability rather diminished its military potential.

The Spanish Civil War, as the Nazi government recognized right from the start, offered the perfect testing ground for weaponry and tactics. The Red Army also saw the opportunities, but because of Stalinist military orthodoxy following Marshal Tukhachevsky’s execution, it was unable to take much advantage. The Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion, on the other hand, was meticulous in its reports on the effects of new weapons systems. For example, their squadrons discovered that during an offensive it was very effective to strafe enemy trenches as soon as the artillery bombardment ceased to keep the republicans’ heads down while the nationalist infantry charged the last few hundred metres. Enemy artillery positions were also attacked to prevent counter-battery fire, and bomber squadrons were directed against forming-up areas and rear communications to prevent reinforcements from being brought forward.

When it came to fighter tactics the Luftwaffe Messerschmitt squadrons abandoned the traditional V formation during the air battles over the Ebro. Their aircraft began to fight in double pairs instead, a tactic which RAF Fighter Command was forced to imitate two years later during the Battle of Britain. But perhaps the most important psychological weapon which the Condor Legion tested in Spain was the Junkers 87, or Stuka. During the advance across Aragón in the spring of 1938 the Condor Legion bombed towns and villages–including Albocacer, Ares del Maestre, Benasal and Villar de Canes–then photographed them carefully afterwards, from the air and on the ground, to measure bomb patterns and destruction caused. They were above all interested in assessing the accuracy of Stuka bombing with 500kg bombs. In Benasal, which they hit with nine 500kg bombs, they took many photographs of the large church there, which they had completely gutted. Much of this investigative work was carried out by Major Count Fugger, from an ancient family of Augsburg bankers.²

On the ground the Germans learned important lessons which aided them greatly over the next few years. Their tanks needed to be more heavily armed and concentrated in armoured divisions for ‘Schwerpunkt’ breakthroughs. They also discovered in Spain the accuracy and power of their 88mm anti-aircraft gun when used against tank targets. It was later installed in the much feared Tiger tank. In fact, it was as a result of the war in Spain that the German army saw the need to increase the size and power of its tank force. In Spain, the Soviet tanks deployed there–the T26 and the BT-5–proved more effective than the German Panzer Mark I, while the Italian Fiat-Ansaldo miniature tank looked and performed more like a clockwork toy. Yet the Soviet advisers could not advocate modern armoured tactics after the show trial of Marshal Tukhachevsky, so their tank brigade was often misused, if not squandered.