Eyes of the World Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and the Invention of Modern Photojournalism

by Desconhecido

  The rebels are sometimes called nationalists. That is because the loyalists were allied with groups of people, such as the Basques and Catalans, who wanted greater political and economic independence, and even to use their own languages instead of Spanish. Franco and his allies aimed to keep Spain together with no regional independence. The question of how much Spain needs to remain united and how much autonomy to allow its regions in language and laws is still highly controversial today. Franco’s side was rebelling—as they saw it—to return Spain to its glorious traditions. In that sense you might say they were similar to American Confederate “Rebs,” who were fighting, as they claimed, for the America of the farming and slaveholding founding fathers. To use a more recent parallel, both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic State are rebelling to return women to the home, enforce their view of religious law, and eliminate what they claim are evil outside influences. All of these rebels fight against what they see as an alien, foreign, and modern world to restore a hallowed past. In Spain the call to Catholic tradition explicitly also included condemnation of Jews, communists, and even Freemasons—the secret society interested in progress to which George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart belonged.

  This powerful facist poster claims that communism makes everyone equal—through a firing squad.

  This poster dates from before the war but makes clear who Spain’s extreme conservatives saw as enemies: communists, separatists(such as Catalans and Basques), Freemasons, and Jews.

  FACTIONS WITHIN EACH SIDE

  THE LOYALISTS

  In order to win the election of 1936, the Popular Front patched together groups with wildly different views, hopes, and plans for the future. The heart of the alliance was the unions representing landless peasants and factory workers, some of whom were communists, others socialists, and still others anarchists. They joined with moderate business owners, junior army officers, and intellectuals.

  One crucial split that reverses expectations involved the communists within the Popular Front. When the election took place, there were many who believed in the ideas of communism, but only a small minority of those voters belonged to the PCE (Partido Comunista de España), the Communist Party of Spain, which was allied with the Soviet Union and took its lead from Moscow. The other communists were either skeptical of the Soviets or actually opposed to them. Some followed the ideas of Leon Trotsky—one of the leaders of the 1917 revolution in Russia, who had split with Joseph Stalin and had fled for his life. (See Robert Capa’s photo of Trotsky on page 6). The twist is that the communists allied with Moscow were relative moderates. The Soviets did not want to provoke Germany or alarm England and France by supporting out-and-out revolution in Spain. They wanted Spain to form a moderate Left government and only later become fully communist. The revolutionary communists wanted Spain to become a new kind of nation, a classless utopia, right away. They also did not want the Soviet Union to tell them what to do. In this vision of radical change they were allied with the anarchists, who wanted no central government at all. When the Popular Front won, the PCE was a tiny party. But as the war went on and the Soviets sent men, money, weapons, and spies, the party in Spain grew ever larger and more influential.

  This is the Communist image of unity—workers, farmers, soldiers, and intellectuals joined.

  The UGT was a socialist group, CNT, anarchist—this poster sees the former rivals as powerful allies. They were for a time, but were undermined by the communists. Whether the Spanish Republic could have held together if it had defeated Franco is endlessly debated to this day.

  THE REBELS

  For the duration of the war, Franco managed to quiet the potential rifts within his side. But the rebels were themselves made up of competing and even violently opposed groups. Indeed, some historians think that Franco’s coalition might have fallen apart if the war had dragged on. One cluster of groups wanted Spain to return to being a monarchy. Yet even that cause divided Spaniards. Two different royal families had ruled Spain since the 1800s, and each family had its fervent supporters. Franco often spoke about tradition, but for most of his reign he was not in favor of bringing back a king. He admired Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler (though he played this down after 1943, when he began to sense that Germany would lose the war) and centered power on himself.

  SUPPORT FOR SPAIN FROM OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY

  LEFT: INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES

  After the 1917 revolution in Russia, the communists established the Comintern to organize and lead communist parties around the world. The Comintern was given its marching orders by the Soviets and, in turn, established the “party line”—the strategies and tactics—for allied parties in other lands. The effort to bring volunteers to fight for the Republic in Spain was organized by the Comintern, but that does not mean individuals who went to Spain were necessarily communists or, even if they were, that they agreed with the policies of the Soviets. However, the Soviet Union did attempt to use volunteer organizations to serve its own ends—for example, by infiltrating spies. Just under fifty thousand people from around the world volunteered and were organized into seven different brigades. The largest group came from France; the group from the United States numbered approximately 2,800 people. They became known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

  Women who could not fight came to Spain to volunteer as nurses or to assist with refugees or orphan relief.

  RIGHT

  By pure numbers, more men came to fight for Franco than against him, but the vast majority of those soldiers were sent to Spain by their governments; they had no choice. Still, as outlined below, some fighters did volunteer to fight for Franco.

  MOROCCO—One more twist in Spain had to do with Morocco. Throughout the twentieth century, Spain had fought to maintain control of its colony in Morocco (often losing badly to local forces). As a commander in Morocco, Franco was more successful than his predecessors and managed to inspire fear and even admiration in his enemies. While the rebels claimed to be fighting for a purely Catholic Spain, Franco brought over Muslim soldiers from Morocco to aid his troops. Thus the seventy to eighty thousand Moroccans were helping their conqueror create a nation in which they would be ruled as subjects and have no independence. They were well trained and effective fighters.

  GERMANY—Hitler sent five thousand men, including the air force’s Condor Legion, to support Franco. The Condor Legion conducted some of the most devastating bombing attacks in the war, including the destruction of Guernica.

  ITALY—Mussolini sent approximately seventy thousand men to fight in Spain.

  PORTUGAL—Spain’s neighbor was ruled by conservatives who favored Franco. Some twenty thousand Portuguese were sent to support the fight against the Republic.

  IRELAND—Eoin O’Duffy, an Irish fascist, organized a group of seven hundred men to come to Spain to fight. Some shared O’Duffy’s politics; others believed they were defending the Catholic Church.

  OTHERS—Tiny numbers of White Russians (Russians who had fought against the Soviets in the 1917 revolution) and fascists from France, Romania, and England, as well as at least one from the United States, came to Spain to side with Franco. They had no influence on the outcome of the war. However, some Franco supporters did influence public views of the conflict through their positions as titled English aristocrats or as writers for Catholic publications in England and the United States. A few women also came to do the same kind of nursing and family support for Franco as women on the left did for the Republic.

  TIME LINE

  1929

  Stock market crashes

  1930

  Nazis win 18.3 percent of German vote, up from 2.6 percent in 1928

  1931

  King Alfonso XIII abdicates; Spain becomes a republic; reforms begin

  1932

  Japan occupies Manchuria

  Famine, created by Stalin’s policies, begins in Ukraine; between six million and seven million will die

  Nazi Party wins 37.3 per
cent of July vote, largest total by any party in Germany

  Communist Party runs James Ford as its U.S. vice presidential candidate, the first African American to be nominated

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president of the United States

  1933

  JANUARY

  Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany

  André Friedmann flees Berlin; Gerta Pohorylle leaves Leipzig for Paris

  NOVEMBER

  Conservatives win Spanish elections, end reforms

  1934

  FALL

  André and Gerta meet in Paris

  OCTOBER

  Strike by miners in Spain is crushed by government

  DECEMBER

  An international conference of fascists meets in Switzerland, drawing representatives from seventeen countries

  There are 1,856 work stoppages in the United States, the most since World War I

  1935

  MAY

  Despite 24 African Americans lynched in 1933 and 15 lynched in 1934, the U.S. Senate blocks anti-lynching bill; 18 African Americans will be lynched by the end of 1935

  1935

  SUMMER

  Communist Party in the United States suggests Popular Front alliance with the Socialist Party; socialists decline

  André and Gerta fall in love

  SEPTEMBER

  SEPT. 30: POUM is founded in Spain

  OCTOBER

  OCT. 3: Italy invades Ethiopia

  1936

  FEBRUARY

  Popular Front is elected in Spain

  SPRING

  André becomes Robert Capa; Gerta becomes Gerda Taro

  Chim leaves France to report on the new government in Spain

  Capa photographs the Popular Front campaign in France

  MAY

  Popular Front elected in France

  JULY

  JULY 17: Generals begin revolt against Spanish government

  JULY 19: Madrid and Barcelona defeat forces allied with rebel generals

  AUGUST

  Capa and Taro fly to Spain

  Trials, false confessions, and executions of former Soviet leaders begin

  France decides on nonintervention policy in Spain

  AUG. 14: Rebel forces capture Badajoz and massacre eighteen hundred people

  AUG. 18: Poet Federico García Lorca is arrested and subsequently murdered

  AUG. 19: Britain makes sending arms to Spain illegal

  SEPTEMBER

  Capa photographs The Falling Soldier

  SEPT. 27: General Francisco Franco’s forces end loyalist siege of the Alcázar in Toledo

  OCTOBER

  Stalin sends arms and advisers to Spain

  OCT. 25: Spanish gold is shipped to Soviet Union

  International Brigades begin training in Spain

  NOVEMBER

  NOV. 6: Spanish government moves from Madrid to Valencia

  NOV. 7: Battle for Madrid begins

  NOV. 8: International Brigades arrive in Madrid

  NOV. 15: German Condor Legion starts flying missions in Spain

  NOV. 18: Capa arrives in Madrid

  NOV. 23: Franco ends attack on Madrid

  DECEMBER

  Communists begin push to remove POUM from power in the Catalan government of Barcelona

  Italian soldiers land in Spain

  1937

  FEBRUARY

  FEB. 6: Franco attacks in the Jarama valley; International Brigades fight back

  FEB. 7: Málaga is attacked and falls

  Capa and Taro are back in Spain, head to Málaga

  Chim documents the Basque country

  Capa and Taro return to Madrid

  MARCH

  Taro is on her own in Spain

  MAR. 18: Loyalists bomb Italian forces near Brihuega, forcing their retreat

  APRIL

  APR. 26: Guernica is bombed by Condor Legion

  MAY

  MAY 1: United States makes sending arms to Spain illegal

  Capa goes to Bilbao; Taro heads to Valencia

  MAY 3–6: POUM and communists fight over telephone exchange in Barcelona

  MAY 25: After a three-week delay, International Exposition opens in Paris; only the German and Soviet pavilions are ready in time for originally scheduled opening

  JUNE

  POUM is declared illegal, and arrests begin

  Capa and Taro photograph the Segovia and Córdoba fronts

  JUNE 19: Bilbao falls

  Picasso completes Guernica; painting is installed at Spanish pavilion in Paris

  JULY

  JULY 4: International Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture opens in Valencia; Capa and Taro cover it

  Capa returns to Paris; Taro remains

  JULY 5: Congress of Writers moves to Madrid

  JULY 6: Battle of Brunete begins; Oliver Law leads troops, then is killed

  JULY 7: Japan invades China

  JULY 14: Taro goes to Paris for a brief trip, then returns to photograph Brunete

  JULY 25: Taro is run over by loyalist tank, dies next day

  AUGUST

  AUG. 24: Loyalists begin attack on Franco’s forces in Aragon

  OCTOBER

  OCT. 28: Spanish government moves from Valencia to Barcelona

  DECEMBER

  Capa covers the Battle of Teruel

  1938

  JANUARY

  JAN. 8: Loyalist forces capture rebel garrison in Teruel

  JAN. 21: Capa sails for China

  FEBRUARY

  FEB. 22: Rebels retake Teruel

  MARCH

  MAR. 12: Germans “annex” Austria

  MAR. 16–18: Italian aircraft bomb Barcelona

  JULY

  JULY 26: Battle of the Ebro begins

  SEPTEMBER

  SEPT. 22: Capa returns to Paris

  SEPTEMBER

  SEPT. 30: Munich Agreement gives Hitler control over part of Czechoslovakia

  OCTOBER

  OCT. 25: Capa and Chim photograph the farewell to the International Brigades

  NOVEMBER

  Capa photographs the Battle of the Ebro, travels with Hemingway and other journalists

  NOV. 16: Government forces retreat from the Ebro

  DECEMBER

  DEC. 23: Franco’s forces begin attack on Catalonia

  1939

  JANUARY

  Capa photographs Barcelona and massive exodus of refugees

  JAN. 20–26: Franco bombs Barcelona, and his forces enter the city

  MARCH

  MAR. 28: Franco’s forces enter Madrid

  Capa photographs temporary refugee camps on the beaches in France

  APRIL

  APR. 1: Franco wins; the United States joins Britain and France in recognizing Franco as leader of Spain

  MAY

  Chim leaves Europe on assignment to Mexico

  AUGUST

  AUG. 23: Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact is signed

  SEPTEMBER

  SEPT. 1: Hitler invades Poland; World War II begins

  SEPT. 19: Capa files for a visa to the United States through Chile

  OCTOBER

  OCT. 15: Capa sails for the United States

  1940

  Hitler invades countries across Europe, including France

  1941

  JUNE

  JUNE 22: Germans break nonaggression pact, invade Soviet Union

  DECEMBER

  DEC. 7: Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; United States enters war

  1942

  JANUARY

  JAN. 20: Nazis implement “Final Solution,” the extermination of Jews across Europe

  1943

  SEPTEMBER

  SEPT. 3: Allies invade Italy

  1944

  JUNE

  JUNE 6: D-Day; Allies land in Normandy, France; Capa is the only photographer to land with the first wave of the invasion

  1945

  MAY

  MAY 7: Germany surrenders


  AUGUST

  AUG. 6: United States drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan; drops another three days later on Nagasaki

  SEPTEMBER

  SEPT. 2: Japan formally surrenders

  1946

  FEBRUARY

  FEB. 1: United Nations meets for the first time

  1947

  Magnum founded

  1954

  MAY

  MAY 7: Vietnamese rebels defeat French at Dien Bien Phu