The Spanish Civil War began 90 years ago: Hemingway, Orwell and Brandt went to war

In the bitter colonial war that the conquerors waged against local insurgents, General Francisco Franco stood out for his particular toughness. He was an enemy of democracy and was one of the conspirators who staged a coup against the Popular Front government in Madrid on July 17, 1936. But how were they supposed to get their 40,000-man troops into Spain?

Mannesmann-Mann Bernhardt solved the problem. The journalist Paul Ingendaay, a “FAZ” correspondent in Madrid for many years and an excellent storyteller, calls the entrepreneur an “invisible cog” in the war machine that started in Morocco in the summer of 1936 in his book “Decision in Spain”.

Johannes Bernhardt, a former Freikorps fighter and NSDAP member since 1933, does what characterizes a capable manager: use networks, organize profits. He ensures that Franco’s fascists are supported by Nazi Germany.

In a letter, Franco had asked for ten aircraft, five fighter pilots and weapons to get his soldiers safely to Andalusia. But the German Foreign Ministry, concerned about maritime trade, brusquely rejected the request. That’s why Bernhardt flies to Berlin with Franco’s letter. Rudolf Hess, deputy of the Führer, immediately sent him on to Bayreuth.

Adolf Hitler is staying there to relax from his official business in a performance of “Siegfried” at the Wagner Festival. He still has time to talk to Reinhardt. That same night, Air Force Chief Hermann Göring and War Minister Werner von Blomberg joined them. They’ll sort things out.

Franco receives twenty Junkers Ju 52 aircraft, six Heinkel 51 fighter bombers and other material. Twice the requested amount. This generosity, says Ingendaay, shows that “Hitler is serious.” The “brotherhood in arms” with Franco’s insurgents becomes a test run for the Second World War. It is the largest airlift of all time, without which the coup would probably have quickly collapsed.

Göring gives the German intervention the name “Operation Feuerzauber”. A joke that alludes to the title of the third act of Wagner’s opera “Walküre”. In 1946, Göring told the Nuremberg Military Tribunal that he had sent “a number of test squads of my fighters, bombers and anti-aircraft guns” to Spain to test their capabilities “in live fire”.

In April 1937, the “Condor Legion” reduced the small Basque town of Guernica to rubble and ashes. The German “test” soldiers throw incendiary and fragmentation bombs and shoot fleeing children, women and men with their on-board weapons.

A beacon of what lies ahead for the world. Pablo Picasso is shocked in his exile and paints his monumental anti-war painting “Guernica” for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris World Exhibition, which opened just a few weeks later. It was not well received there; the painting was considered too gray and abstract.

Ingendaay’s book is a multi-perspective panorama of a war that was waged with great brutality by both sides. In 135 chronological episodes, he lets prominent contemporary witnesses who accompanied the fight as journalists, photographers or writers have their say.

Ingendaay assembles – similar to Florian Illies in his bestseller “1913” – a large-scale historical report from the memories of his protagonists. So close to the action that you almost have the impression of actually being there.

But Ingendaay maintains the balance between epic and feature-length tone, always going into depth. On the Spanish cultural, literary and mental history, on the causes of the conflict going back to the 18th century.

The wealth of large landowners was enormous, while farmers and agricultural workers had to struggle for daily survival. Not even half of them could read or write. And the Catholic Church supported the system.

The conditions that Ingendaay describes are almost medieval. When the Popular Front, determined to radically change, won the elections in February 1936, the mood became explosive. The “africanistas,” as the Spanish soldiers in Morocco are called, want to save “civilization.” And the Republicans underestimate their opponents.

Democracy in danger

Democracy is at risk across Europe at this time, and volunteers from many countries are flocking to Spain to join the International Brigades. Among them are communists like Arthur Koestler, Egon Erwin Kisch, Gustav Regler and Bodo Uhse, who want to fight for the republic in one way or another. But also anarchists like Simone Weil.

The French philosopher traveled to Barcelona in August 1936 and reached the Aragonese front with the column of the legendary revolutionary Buenaventura Durruti. A photo shows her wearing the militia’s blue overalls with a rifle slung over her shoulder. However, she is so short-sighted that she probably wouldn’t hit anyone with the weapon. After an accident she returns to Paris.

“A human life counts for nothing in Spain,” writes Weil there. This became apparent when Franco’s troops conquered the eastern Spanish city of Badajoz in August 1936. Ingendaay summarizes what happens afterwards: “looting, rape, slaughter”. The Falangists have been shooting groups of leftists in the bullring for days. To music and in front of 3000 spectators. Exactly how many people die is still unclear. Estimates put the number of victims at 4,000.

Ernest Hemingway stays at the Hotel Florida in Madrid in March 1937. The luxury hostel, where many international journalists and military personnel live, is considered the capital’s most important news exchange. Hemingway is rich and famous. For each report he receives $1,000, an immense sum.

Hemingway in the luxury hotel

Hemingway can afford to march into the Soviet delegation at the Gaylord Hotel, past the guards, to get first-hand information from party leaders. He actually doesn’t think much of communism, “because I only believe in one thing: freedom.” In his novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” published in 1940, he describes the fight of the International Brigades with sympathy.

George Orwell, more left-liberal than left-wing, undergoes military training in the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona in early 1937. The British writer quickly arrives at the front and becomes the leader of a 12-man fighting force. Then he begins to doubt the war and his ability to tell “right from wrong.”

Back in Barcelona he gets involved in clashes between communist groups. Soviet political commissars acted mercilessly against Trotskyists and other dissidents in Stalinist “purges.” Some disappear forever. Orwell flees to Paris and later writes his anti-totalitarian novels “Animal Farm” and “1984”.

In a losing battle

The Spanish Civil War ends in March 1939. Franco’s army, supported by Hitler and Mussolini, conquers Madrid and Barcelona. Paul Ingendaay speaks of a “heroic defeat” for the Republicans. His book follows the stories of the losers. Lots of enthusiasts, adventurers and fighters in a losing battle. Many are Jews who fled the Nazis.

Erika and Klaus Mann write texts for exile newspapers such as the “Pariser Tageblatt”. They bring their father, who is preparing to move to California in his Swiss exile villa, a record with fight songs by Ernst Busch.

The actor sings for the republic at campfires, in schools and on radio stations. The Mann family listens spellbound to the recordings. “The children’s great impression of the Spanish front,” Thomas Mann then wrote in his diary.

Robert Capa takes the most famous war photo of the 20th century. It shows a Republican soldier whose rifle falls from his hand the second he dies. His lover Gerda Taro, born in Stuttgart in 1901 and also a photo reporter, dies in a German air raid. And Willy Brandt comes to Barcelona from Norway to establish contacts with Spanish comrades for his socialist workers’ party.

Six months after the end of the Spanish Civil War, the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. An even greater looting, raping, slaughter begins.