The Military Trials

The role of military justice in the planning of the execution of the coup had a lot to do with the goal of getting civil society to play a role in identifying and punishing the enemy. By accusing people of being “rebels”, they were able to transform what had been authority in “rebel”. The judges, with their ability to model and change the new reality that emerged with the coup, were also a key resource in promoting widespread social participation. The trails were orchestrated by investigators and prosecutors who were directed by the commanders of the military divisions who were in complete control of military justice.

The timing and features of these proceedings well illustrate the role of military legal jurisdiction  in the violent logic of the coup. The vast majority of the accused faced charges of rebellion. The trials paralleled the development of the coup and became fewer in number as the war went on the rebels consolidated their rearguard. Those executed following a death sentence represented only one third of those killed in Galicia between 1936 and 1939. Death sentences were not the most numerous, but the quickest to be passed, the product of court filings carried out quickly and dynamically, with a large number of cases, high levels of social participation and through collective denunciations.

The trials were widely-publicized public events. Proceedings were moved from the barracks, where they were usually held, to important sites of civil power or justice, like the main courthouse of A Coruña and the Deputation of Pontevedra. There were a very large number of cases, and many court martials took place on the same day in different places.

These trials left a rich documentary legacy that includes a variety of information.  It is available to be consulted in the various military agencies that were responsible for the trials: the documentation of Territorial Military Court 4 based in A Coruña is held in the Intermediate Military Archive of the Northwest in Ferrol. It constitutes much of the 7,600 linear metres of documents and 57,000 files.

CLS