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

The repression in nationalist Spain began as soon as an area had been conquered. The first to be killed, apart from those captured in the front line who were frequently shot on the spot, were union leaders and representatives of the republican government, above all civil governors and mayors, but also other officials who had remained loyal. From the start, even republicans who were promised their lives in return for surrendering were killed. Officers who had stayed loyal to the government were also shot or imprisoned. Military custom required that loyalist or neutral regular officers be accorded court martials where possible. On the whole, waverers were imprisoned, while most of those who had continued to serve the government, including seven generals and an admiral, were shot on the grounds of ‘rebellion’. This remarkable reversal of definitions had also occurred in the navy, where nationalists described sailors who followed ministry of marine instructions as ‘mutinous’.

Once the troops had moved on, a second and more intense wave of slaughter would begin, as the Falange, or in some areas the Carlists, carried out a ruthless purge of the civilian population. Their targets included union leaders, government officials, left-of-centre politicians (40 members of the Popular Front in the Cortes were shot),⁴ intellectuals, teachers,⁵ doctors, even the typists working for revolutionary committees; in fact, anyone who was even suspected of having voted for the Popular Front was in danger. In Huesca 100 people accused of being Freemasons were shot when the town’s lodge did not even have a dozen members.⁶

The nationalist counterpart to the checas in republican territory were the local committees, usually consisting of leading right-wingers, such as the major landowner, the local Civil Guard commander, a Falangist and quite often the priest, although some risked their lives trying to prevent massacres. All known or suspected liberals, Masons and leftists were taken before the committee. A few prisoners might try to accuse others in a panic-stricken attempt to save themselves, but otherwise they had either a dazed or a defiant manner. Their wrists were tied behind their backs with cord or wire before they were taken off for execution. In Navarre a priest gave last rites to Basque nationalists en masse in front of an open trench before the volley, but in most places the condemned were taken in batches to the cemetery wall. Those who ‘knew how to die well’ shouted ‘Viva la República!’ or ‘Viva la Libertad!’ in the same way as condemned nationalists called out ‘Viva España!’.

The Falange often resorted to using the local prison as a reserve of victims when their squads could not find anyone outside to execute. In Granada alone, some 2,000 people died in this way. Nobody can tell what proportion of the victims were seized at home or at work, then shot at night lined up in front of car headlights. People lying awake in bed would cross themselves instinctively on hearing shots in the distance. The corpses of these ‘clients’, as they were sometimes called, were left in the open. If they were union members they often had their membership cards pinned to their chest as proof of guilt.

In some areas, as was the case in Seville and Huelva, special lorries were used, known as ‘meat wagons’, to take the corpses to the cemetery.⁷ At times, however, corpses were displayed as a warning, as happened to the body of the mother of the communist leader Saturnino Barnero, which was left for a number of days in the Plaza del Pumarejo in Seville. In Huelva also the body was displayed of a confectioner who had thrown an espadrille at General Sanjurjo after his failed coup in August 1932. The practice of displaying bodies continued for a long time,⁸ until the nationalist authorities had to insist on burial for reasons of public health.

It seemed to make little difference to the Nationalists whether or not there had been open opposition to their forces. In the military centre of Burgos and the Carlist capital of Pamplona they had not been resisted, yet the purge began immediately. In Burgos, the capital of Castille, groups were taken out each night to be shot by the side of the highway. Ruiz Vilaplana, president of the College of Clerks of the Court, recounted in his memoirs that he witnessed 70 people killed in one batch.⁹