Franco and the Nationalists Are Often Remembered

AP Photo by MISSARIES from Gen. Francisco to bases in southern Spain. The trimotor Franco and the Nationalists are often Franco met with German leader Ju 52s were stripped bare inside and the remembered as the villains. In actuality, it Adolf Hitler just before mid- soldiers sat on the floor in back, their was a brutal war with atrocities common Enight on July 26, 1936, part rifles between their knees. Each aircraft on both sides. However, intellectuals, way through the Wagner festival at made as many as four flights a day, car- authors, and journalists from all over the Bayreuth, Germany. Hitler, always stirred rying up to 40 passengers instead of the world flocked to the cause of Franco’s by Wagnerian opera, was in a buoyant official maximum of 17. By October, the opponents, called the Republicans or the mood after a performance of “Siegfried” Germans had established air superior- Popular Front, who finally lost after a when he received the visitors that night. ity over the Strait of Gibraltar and the three-year struggle. Franco, leader of the rebel faction— transfer of men and materiel continued “The Spanish civil war remains one called the Nationalists—in the Spanish by sea transport. of the few modern conflicts whose his- civil war needed Hitler’s help. The best That was only the beginning of Ger- tory had been written more effectively of Franco’s forces were in Spanish Mo- man assistance, which culminated in by the losers than by the winners,” said rocco and he wanted German aircraft to the deployment of the Condor Legion historian Antony Beevor. fly them to the fighting front in Spain. and the rotation of Luftwaffe aircrews In the 1930s, a loose coalition of Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe, through the Spanish Civil War from 1936 Communists, Socialists, and anarchists, was in Bayreuth that night and opposed to 1939, serving as a dress rehearsal for supported by labor unions and tenant such involvement, but when the ebul- blitzkrieg in World War II. farmers, gained control of Spain, tradi- lient Hitler said yes, Goering switched The popular assumption is that Ger- tionally a monarchy in which conserva- to enthusiasm for the project. many was drawn into Spain by the tives, large landowners, the military, and Franco’s request was for 10 transport opportunity for testing and training for the Catholic Church had been dominant. aircraft plus infantry weapons and anti- the Luftwaffe, but that was secondary. The coalition soon moved into the orbit aircraft guns. Hitler gave him more than Hitler’s real reasons were strategic. of the Soviet Union. he asked for, sending 20 Lufthansa Ju The Condor Legion supported a fascist The civil war began in July 1936 when 52 airliners—repainted to disguise their takeover of Spain, established a military senior army officers in cooperation with origin—and six He 51 biplane fighters. challenge on the flank of France, opened the fascist Falange party and other groups It was the first big military airlift in access to seaports on the Atlantic, and rose in revolt against the left-wing gov- history. Over the next three months, the distracted Europe from Germany’s own ernment of the new republic. They called Germans flew 13,500 Nationalist troops preparations for war. on Franco, the most decorated officer in 84 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2013 were attracted by a salary of $1,500 a month plus a $1,000 bonus for every Nationalist aircraft shot down. History and literature have roman- ticized the Republicans. The leading example is Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The For Whom the Bell Tolls, published in 1940 and celebrating the service of a young American in the International Brigades. Hemingway held court for writers and war correspondents at the Hotel Florida in Madrid and spent time with the Republican Army in the field. Condor He used Robert Merriman, commander of the Lincoln Battalion, as the prototype for his fictional hero, Robert Jordan. The Condor Legion lived up to its reputation for wanton slaughter, but moral high ground was hard to find in the conflict. In his authoritative history Legion of the war, Hugh Thomas estimates the total loss of life at 500,000—of which more than a fourth were murders and executions, 75,000 of them by the By John T. Correll Nationalists and 55,000 by the Re- publicans. The offenses committed by In the Spanish Civil War, the Luftwaffe the Nationalists are better known, but even the supporters of the Republicans practiced for World War II. recoiled from their vendetta against Catholics, who were identified with the right wing and opposed to social reform. In the summer of 1936 alone, 13 bishops, 4,184 priests, and 283 nuns were hunted down and killed. the Spanish Army, to lead the revolution. Some 32,000 ideologues from 54 Imported Airpower The Popular Front had posted Franco countries joined the International Bri- Most foreign nations followed a policy to a command in the Canary Islands to gades, organized from Moscow by of nonintervention. In the United States, keep him out of the way, but he flew the Comintern, the international arm the Neutrality Act of 1935 made it illegal to Spanish Morocco to take charge of of the Communist Party. About 2,400 to sell or transport arms to belligerents. the Army of Africa, 30,000 strong. It volunteers from the United States went In January 1937 Congress specifically included the Spanish Foreign Legion, to Spain with the Abraham Lincoln prohibited shipment of arms to Spain regarded as Spain’s best troops, and Battalion. The Popular Front also by a vote of 81-to-zero in the Senate other experienced units. hired foreign mercenary pilots, but and 406-to-one in the House. First Lady The armed forces were divided, with unlike the politically motivated In- Eleanor Roosevelt, a fervent admirer of part of the army and most of the navy ternational Brigades, the mercenaries the Popular Front, tried without suc- remaining loyal to the government. In all, counting the frontier guards and national police, the Nationalist forces had about 130,000 men, compared to 50,000 for the Republicans. The Republicans kept most of the military aircraft, but they National Archives photo were obsolete and essentially worthless. Both sides had large political militias. Above left: German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, flanked by Maj. Gen. Wolfram von Richthofen, the last commander of the Condor Legion, salutes German troops as they return to Berlin after bolstering fascist dictator Gen. Fran- cisco Franco’s troops in Spain. Right: Ju 87s such as these flew their first operational missions with the Condor Legion in 1938. AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2013 85 man aircraft. Many Luftwaffe records pilots from the USSR. The Polikarpov were lost or destroyed during World War I-15 biplane and I-16 monoplane were II, but the best estimate is that Germany superior to the He 51s and on a par with deployed about 800 aircraft of all types, the agile Italian Fiat CR.2s. The Russian Image viaWikipedia including trainers and liaison aircraft, airmen gave their best performance in to Spain. March 1937 when their fighters and Concurrent with the airlift in July, the Tupolev SB-2 bombers wreaked havoc Luftwaffe dispatched six He 51 fighters on an Italian army corps strung out on to Spain to protect the air transport force. the road near Guadalajara. “It was the The German pilots were forbidden to fly first time in history that airpower had operational missions other than escort stopped a major ground offensive,” said for the airlifters, but after the poorly Carl Posey in Air & Space magazine. trained Spanish pilots crashed three of The Republican advantage in the air the airplanes, the Germans took over did not last long, though. The Luftwaffe the flying. The three remaining He 51s had already decided to withdraw first- engaged the hodgepodge Republican air line fighters and bombers from units at force in late August and shot down the home and send some of its best combat old Breguets and Nieuports with ease. aircraft to Spain. The Only Condor in Spain The June 1939 issue of The Eagle, In October 1936, three months into Germany’s Air Ministry-published the war, the Germans upgraded their magazine, blared, “Condor Legion to involvement to the Condor Legion, a the Front!” and was subtitled, “German volunteers fought for Spain.” composite force named for the great bird of the Andes. There were no condors in Spain, but the linkage carried over in cess to persuade her husband to get the The Ju 52 transports were reconfigured the German mind from South America embargo lifted. and pressed into service as bombers. where Lufthansa operated a subsidiary Three nations were direct participants: The Nationalists quickly gained con- airline, Sindicato Condor. The force the Soviet Union on the side of the trol of a third of Spain, holding all of in Spain was designated a legion to Republicans, and Germany and Italy the northwest except for the Basque preserve the fiction that its members in aid of the Nationalists. Their most provinces along the Bay of Biscay. The were volunteers. significant contributions were airpower. government held most of the south and The Legion consisted of a bomber The USSR provided pilots and about east, and the capital at Madrid in the group and a fighter group, plus reconnais- 1,000 airplanes. Italy sent more than middle of the country. sance, anti-aircraft, and support units, 600 airplanes and a substantial ground The situation changed with the arrival and a ground component with tanks force.

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