Abandoned Civil War Shelters of Spain

During the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939—an event which took the lives of more than a million people—the Nazis together with Fascist Italy used Spain as their training ground before Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland. The German Luftwaffe bombed civilians and military personnel without mercy, including the 1937 Nationalist bombing of the city of Guernica, which soon became a symbol of civilian suffering during Spain’s three-plus years of civil war.

Unknown Number of Shelters

While an exact tally of air raid shelters built during Spain’s war with itself, a handful of cities have researched the total number of shelters with a high degree of accuracy, in an effort to shed light on the immensity of the fears and subsequent underground industry of an entire generation of Spaniards. One such place is the southern coastal city of Almeria, which suffered 52 bombings from both air and sea, with a total of 854 bombs dropped on her then population of some 40,000 civilians. Desperate for protection, city leaders levied a special tax of 1% on all purchases, for the construction of a nearly three-mile long system of tunnels designed by local architect Guillermo Rubio.

A Stunning Example

Considered the most important and well-preserved bomb shelter networks in all of Europe, los refugios de la guerra civil has been made into a museum intended to educate people about the atrocities of war. During its construction, political parties, unions, businesses and volunteer labor managed to build the city’s labyrinth of tunnels in just 16 months, replete with nurseries, a surgical suite and massive food storage facilities built directly beneath grocery stores. Rediscovered by chance in 2001, during the construction of a parking garage, Almeria’s extraordinary system of tunnels originally included 67 entrance points into a tunnel network built in zigzag patterns, which insured that if a bomb were to penetrate the tunnel system, shrapnel damage would be localized.

Barcelona’s Many Shelters

Other known shelter systems include Barcelona’s staggering 1,322 shelters, which were built through collective actions by citizens and businessmen—many with entrances beneath private homes or factories. While some 50 shelters have been rediscovered in Valencia, many cities across Spain have little idea how many shelters exist beneath their streets, making abandoned civil war shelters of Spain, a telling glimpse into the horrors of war.