The Civil War

This route takes you deeper into the story of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona, one of the most dramatic and painful chapters in the city's history.

The war started right here, in July 1936, when General Francisco Franco and his officers launched a coup against the elected Republican government. Barcelona fought back hard. Workers and anarchist militias crushed the uprising within days, and the CNT trade union seized control of the city. Factories were run by workers. Trams rolled through these streets painted in revolutionary black and red. For a brief, electric moment, this city became one of the most radical experiments in worker self-management anywhere in Europe.

Then the bombs came. Between 1937 and 1939, Italian and German aircraft carried out 194 bombing raids, deliberately targeting civilians. Citizens dug over 1,400 air raid shelters. In March 1938, three days of relentless attacks killed up to 1,300 people.

On January 26, 1939, Franco's forces marched in. Around 60,000 residents fled north to France as the Republic collapsed. What followed was nearly four decades of dictatorship, lasting until 1975.

The avenues around you look calm now. But the ground beneath has a long memory.