The 1939 Madrid Victory Parade (Spanish: desfile de la Victoria de Madrid de 1939) was held in Madrid on 19 May 1939, over a month after the victory of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). It was the first of a yearly series, named Día de la Victoria (Victory Day), held on 1 April until 1976, the year after Francisco Franco's death.
The parade was commanded by General Andrés Saliquet, Commander of the Madrid Military Region, and was presided by the Franco.
More than 120,000 men and 1,000 vehicles took part in the parade, including small contingents of the German Condor Legion, the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie and the Portuguese Viriatos. The forces went along Paseo de la Castellana, the main Madrid avenue, in a North to South direction and in total spent around 4 hours in marching past the full path. Around 400,000 people attended the event.
The environment was spectacularly fitted out with countless patriotic, triumphal and Franco's Cult of personality slogans.
See also[edit]
Sources[edit]
- Casanova, Julián (2010). The Spanish Republic and Civil War. Cambridge, England; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-73780-7.
- Payne, Stanley G. (2008). Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II. Connecticut, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12282-4.
- Payne, Stanley G. (2011). Spain: A Unique History. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299250249.
- Payne, Stanley G. (2012). The Spanish Civil War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-17470-1.
- Preston, Paul (1996) [1986]. A Concise history of the Spanish Civil War. London: Fontana. ISBN 978-0-00-686373-1. OCLC 231702516.
- Thomas, Hugh (1961). The Spanish Civil War (1 ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
- Westwell, Ian (2004). Condor Legion: The Wehrmacht's Training Ground. Spearhead. Vol. 15. Ian Allan publishing. ISBN 978-0-7110-3043-5.