The republican repression in Madrid (1936–1939) was a series of measures applied against presumed enemies of the Second Spanish Republic. Repressive actions were organised by state services, party militias and hybrid structures. Some activities were carried out as part of legal procedures and might have involved various judiciary, but others remained on the verge of legal framework or clearly beyond it. Legally sanctioned repressive actions included execution, expropriations, fines, dismissal, jail, relocation, forced labour or loss of civil rights. Extrajudicial violence included execution, rape, mutilation, torture, humiliation, incarceration, destruction or takeover of property. The climax of repressions took place in 1936, but they continued during the following years. Their total scale remains unclear; fragmentary figures indicate that one institution detained at least 18,000 people in 1936. The number of the executed is disputed; two personal lists produced contain around 9,000 and around 11,500 names. Historians do not agree on most issues related to the Spanish Civil War repressions, including the ones of Madrid in 1936-1939.
Organization framework
At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War there were three policing formations operational in Madrid, all reporting to Minister of Interior: Guardia Civil, Guardia de Asalto and the police. Guardia Civil was initially targeted for major purge and reform,Gerald Blaney Jr., La historiografía sobre la Guardia Civil. Crítica y propuestas de investigación, [in:] Politica y sociedad 42/3 (2005), pp. 31–44 but in late August 1936 it was declared to be dissolved and replaced by a new service, Guardia Nacional Republicana (GNR). Recruitment to GNR commenced soon, yet the Guard did not play major role in implementation of repressive measures; starting late 1936 it was already marked for merger into a new general public order formation.Julius Ruiz, The ‘Red Terror’ and the Spanish Civil War. Revolutionary violence in Madrid, Cambridge 2014, , pp. 86–87 Guardia de Asalto continued to operate, yet its Madrid units were deployed on the front against the rebels and were scarcely involved in the city. The police, and especially its investigative branch Cuerpo de Investigación y Vigilancia (CIV), from the onset underwent major change. Supervised by Dirección General de Seguridad (DGS), a security office within the Ministry of Interior, the change consisted of massive purges on one hand and massive new recruitment on the other.following 1936 purges the CIV was only in 26% composed of former policemen; 30% were industry workers and 24% service workers, Ruiz 2014, p. 90 Staffed with new militant members coming from revolutionary parties, some CIV units like Brigada Atadell, Brigada de Amanacer or Los Linces de la República became instrumental in implementing the Republican order.Ruiz 2014, pp. 92–98
Outbreak of hostilities and especially the decision to hand weapons to civilians, mostly party and trade union members, produced rapid emergence of armed militias, usually though not always affiliated to political organizations.Sara Izquierdo Alvarez, Las checas del Madrid Republicano: un ejemplo de investigación interdisciplinar, [in:] Aportes 79 (2012), p. 79 During first months of the war they by far eclipsed state formations in terms of shaping the public order ambience in Madrid, yet due to their makeshift organization, ephemeral nature and improvised modus operandi this vast force evades systematic structural description. These groups are best known because of detention and interrogation posts operated, commonly known as checas;the name was then applied to all detention posts, also these operated by state police their number is currently calculated at around 350,there were 276 checas in the very city and 64 in its immediate vicinity, Izquierdo Alvarez 2012, pp. 82, 86 some 4 per every square kilometer and one per every 3,000 people;Izquierdo Alvarez 2012, p. 85 the majority disappeared by early 1937.Izquierdo Alvarez 2012, pp. 79–80. Most of the checas were abandoned in November, when the Nationalist troops were approaching the city, Izquierdo Alvarez 2012, p. 88 Though there are rare accounts of conflict between militias and official public order units,see e.g. there is an account of a police detachment preventing execution of religious from raided convent, Ruiz 2014, p. 71 in general the latter avoided challenging the former. Both developed sort of operational symbiosis, e.g. militias used official police records to identify and locate suspects, at times handed over detainees to DGS or – far more frequently – took them over from prisons, arrests or police stations. It is suspected that on exception basis frontline military units might have also participated in action against presumed anti-Republican conspiracy.this is the case of 36. Brigada Mixta, believed to be involved in a scam known as Túnel de Usera in October 1937
In August 1936 the DGS in agreement with major parties decided to set up a new body, Comité Provincial de Investigación Pública (CPIP).Fernando Jiménez Herrera, El Comité Provincial de Investigación Pública a través de la documentación custoriada en el archivo general militar de Madrid, [in:] Hispania Nova 12 (2014), p. 5 [sequential page, there is no original pagination] A paid policing serviceJiménez Herrera 2014, p.8 managed by a board consisting of party delegates,Jiménez Herrera 2014, p. 5. Detailed social analysis of members of public order structures is not available. In case of CPIP all were males, mostly between 25 and 45 years. Usually they were former service employees with many industry men as well; there were also single writers, periodistas, teachers, or painters, Jiménez Herrera 2014, p. 28 CPIP was to thwart anti-Republican plots and to arrest individuals involved. In theory they were to be passed to DGS for further investigation; in practice CPIP's internal filtering body, set up to process detainees, was entitled to administer executions.Jiménez Herrera 2014, p. 17, Ruiz 2014, pp. 263-266. It is not clear whether CPIP and its filtering bodies, named "tribunales", should be considered part of the police system or part of the judiciary. CPIP was set up by Ministry of Interior and was subordinate to its office DGS, not to Ministry of Justice During some 100 days of its existence CPIP was the key law-enforcement agency before a dissolution decree was issued early November 1936,Jiménez Herrera 2014, p.18 though few units continued to operate some time afterwards.Jiménez Herrera 2014, pp. 23-25 Another new body, by far less important, was Inspección General de Milicias (IGM).at one point there were 1,004 men employed in IGM, Ruiz 2014, p. 101 Created also in August 1936 it was an army branch, supposed to co-ordinate logistics and financing of party militias, though it operated also its own Sección de Investigación; IGM was dissolved in November 1936.Ruiz 2014, p. 101 In September 1936 Ministry of Interior set up its own unit designed to co-ordinate militia activities, Milicias de Vigilancia de la Retaguardia (MVR), a hybrid between state policing force and party militias; initially scarcely active, later MVR recruited men from dissolved CPIPexact reason for dissolution of CPIP is not clear and all related theories are speculative, Jiménez Herrera 2014, p. 10 and gained momentum; some of its sections became very active before MVR, including the militia units still operational, was dissolved in December 1936.at one point there were 1,378 men registered in MVR, Ruiz 2014, pp. 180-182, 268
In December 1936 it was made public that all policing formations - Guardia de Asalto, GNR, CIV, MVR, IGM – would merge in a new service, Cuerpo de Seguridad (CS). Of its two branches, Grupo Uniformado and Grupo Civil, the latter included Sección de Investigaciones Especiales; this plain clothes investigation service became the backbone of policing structures managed by the Ministry of Interior.Ruiz 2014, pp. 294-295 However, the same minister in June 1937 carved out from DGS a unit named Departamento Especial de Información de Estado (DEDIDE), basically a counter-intelligence agency, which also in Madrid ran its own network of operatives and premises.Ruiz 2014, p. 321 Two months later, in August 1937, the Ministry of War declared setting up a new organization, supposed to gather all espionage, counter-espionage and information activities: Servicio de Investigación Militar (SIM).Ruiz 2014, p. 298 From that moment onwards SIM became the key state instrument in fighting presumed conspiracy. In March 1938 it incorporated the dissolved DEDIDE.Ruiz 2014, p. 322 The army intelligence units like Section Two of the General Staff, later known as Servicio de Información del Estado Mayor (SIEM), continued to operate independently,Ruiz 2014, p. 285 yet except late 1936/early 1937, when military counter-espionage Special Services remained fairly active, they did not contribute to public order system in Madrid.for organigram see Javier Cervera, Madrid en guerra, Madrid 1998, , p. 428
Modus operandi
Units forming the Republican realm of public order relied on various methods in their pursuit of suspects.brief discussion of modus operandi in Cervera 1998, pp. 60-68; discussion of who could have been considered a suspect Cervera 1998, pp. 130-148 The most popular one was response to tips and denunciations, either from individuals co-operating with the security, most prominently porters of the UGT union of porters, or madrileños who were not related to the policing network. Another method was the systematic search, usually based on files held by prewar offices like police departments, or papers obtained from raiding premises of right-wing parties or institutions.Izquierdo Alvarez 2012, p. 79 One more method was street vigilance and monitoring, related to key objects or the black market. Finally, certain units specialized in setting up traps, like the false embassy of Siam or the so-called Túnel de Usera.process flow graph with organigram in Izquierdo Alvarez 2012, p. 89, see also annexes in Ruiz 2014