Typology of reasons why a person kills in a war context: The case of rebel/nationalist army combatants in the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

European historiography on wars has embarked on a study of a matter of crucial significance: the involvement of ordinary individuals as perpetrators of mass casualties. This article aims to provide insights and hypotheses concerning the underlying motives behind such actions, focusing on the unique context of the Spanish Civil War. The data utilized for this study are drawn from a sample of 112 oral interviews conducted with former combatants of the Spanish Civil War, all born between 1905 and 1920. During these interviews, 112 men participated a semi structured discussion. Individual perceptions and variables of interest relevant to acts of violence were subjected to qualitative analysis. Our analysis suggests that instances of aggression often arise because of emotional triggers, alignment with fascist ideological convictions, societal pressures and a sense of duty-driven obedience. Our results refute the notion that ideological factors alone suffice as explanations.

Keywords

community violence psychological of violence soldiers Spanish civil war war experience

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alcalde

(2014) Los Excombatientes Franquistas (1936-1965). Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza.

Alexandrova

Haybron

(2016) Is construct validation valid? Philosophy of Science 83(5): 1098–1109.

Alonso

Kramer

Rodrigo

(2019) Fascist Warfare, 1922-1945: Aggression, Occupation, Annihilation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Arendt

(1963) A Report on the Banality of Evil. London: Faber.

Asch

(1955) Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American 193(5): 31–35.

Bartov

(2001) The Eastern Front, 1941-45, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. London: Palgrave McMillan.

Browning

(1998) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Cardona

(1983) El Poder Militar en la España Contemporánea Hasta la Guerra Civil. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores.

Foucault

(2023) Discipline and punish. In Social Theory Re-Wired. London: Routledge.

10.

French

Raven

Cartwright

(1959) The bases of social power. Classics of Organization Theory 7: 311–320.

11.

Fujii

(2009) Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda. Cornell: Cornell University Press.

12.

González-Calleja

(2011) Contrarrevolucionarios. Radicalización violenta de las derechas durante la Segunda República 1931-1936. Madrid: Alianza.

13.

Götz

Mitschke

Eder

(2023) Conflict experience and resolution underlying obedience to authority. Scientific Reports 13(1): 11161.

14.

Granados

(1969) El Cardenal Gomá: Primado de España. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.

15.

Kallis

(2000) The ‘regime-model’ of fascism: A typology. European History Quarterly 30(1): 77–104.

16.

Kallis

(2003) ‘Fascism’, ‘para-fascism’ and ‘fascistization’: On the similarities of three conceptual categories. European History Quarterly 33(2): 219–249.

17.

Kalyvas

(2010) La lógica de la violencia en la guerra civil. Madrid: Ediciones Akal.

18.

Kitchen

Miller

Rowe

(2011) Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

19.

Lanero

(1996) Una milicia de la justicia: la política judicial del franquismo (1936–1945). Madrid: CEPC.

20.

Leader

(2022) Ideology and Mass Killing: The Radicalized Security Politics of Genocides and Deadly Atrocities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

21.

Leese

(2002) Shell Shock. Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldier of the First World War. London: Palgrave McMillan.

22.

Leira-Castiñeira

(2023) Franco’s Soldiers. Recruitment and Combat in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

23.

Levitt

Bamberg

Creswell

, et al. (2018) Journal article reporting standards for qualitative primary, qualitative meta-analytic, and mixed methods research in psychology: The APA publications and communications board task force report. American Psychologist 73(1): 26.

24.

Lyttelton

(1982) Fascism and Violence in Post-War Italy: Political Strategy and Social Conflict. In Social Protest, Violence and Terror in Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

25.

Matthews

(2013) Soldados a la fuerza. Reclutamiento obligatorio a la Guerra Civil española. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.

26.

Milgram

(1974) The dilemma of obedience. The Phi Delta Kappan 55(9): 603–606.

27.

Moscovici

(1988) Notes toward a description of social representations. European Journal of Social Psychology 18(3): 211–250.

28.

Mosse

(1990) Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

29.

Neitzel

Welzer

(2012) Soldados del Tercer Reich: Testimonios de lucha, muerte y crimen. Barcelona: Crítica.

30.

Núñez-Seixas

(2006) ¡Fuera el invasor!: nacionalismos y movilización bélica durante la guerra civil española (1936–1939). Madrid: Marcial Pons.

31.

Nyseth

Uggen

Gasanabo

(2014) Genocide, justice, and Rwanda’s Gacaca courts. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30(3): 333–352.

32.

Perry

(2013) Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments. New York, NY: The New Press.

33.

Prost

(1994) The impact of war on French and German political cultures. The Historical Journal 37(1): 209–217.

34.

Purseigle

(2007) A very French debate: the 1914-1918 war culture. Journal of War & Culture Studies 1(1): 9–14.

35.

Rieber

(1991) The Psychology of War and Peace: The Image of the Enemy. Luxemburg: Springer Science & Business.

36.

Rutherford

(2014) Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry’s War, 1941–1944. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

37.

Schüler-Springorum

(2014) La guerra como aventura: La Legión Cóndor en la Guerra Civil española 1936–1939. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.

38.

Scott

(2003) Los dominados y el arte de la resistencia. Bilbao: Txalaparta.

39.

Sevillano

(2007) Rojos. La representación del enemigo en la Guerra Civil. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.

40.

Shephard

(2001) A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

41.

Sherif

(1936) The Psychology of Social Norms. New York: Harper Collins.

42.

Taylor

Miller

Tallapragada

, et al. (2020) Veterans’ transition out of the military and knowledge of mental health disorders. Journal of Veterans Studies 6(1): 85–95.

43.

Van Gennep

(2008) Los ritos de paso. Madrid: Alianza.

44.

Vincent

(2006) La reafirmación de la masculinidad en la cruzada franquista. Cuadernos de historia contemporánea 28: 135–151.

45.

Williams

(2020) The Complexity of Evil: Perpetration and Genocide. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

46.

Zuckerman

(1979) Sensation seeking and risk taking. In: Emotions in Personality and Psychopathology. Luxemburg: Springer.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.01 MB