Tiempos de guerra: una visión de España desde la perspectiva de la diplomacia checoslovaca de 1936 a 1945

Resum

This thesis examines the activity of Czechoslovak diplomacy in Spain during the Civil War and the Second World War. Despite the fact that the Czechoslovak Re-public had served as a political model for the Spanish Second Republic, the Czecho-slovak government joined the non-intervention agreement from the outset of the Civil War, complied fully with the arms embargo and prevented young people from joining the International Brigades in the fight for the Republic. The disappearance of interwar Czechoslovakia in 1939 did not put an end to the presence of Czechoslo-vak diplomats in Spain. The London-based Czechoslovak Government in Exile opened an office in Madrid during the Second World War, as the Iberian Peninsula became a main escape route for refugees fleeing Nazi occupied Europe.This thesis explains the security and foreign policy concerns that led Czech-oslovakia to follow the Western powers in their non-intervention policy in Spain. It describes the activity of the Czechoslovak diplomats in Spain: their political reports, the humanitarian asylum they offered to over two hundred refugees in Madrid and their contacts with members of the International Brigades and the staff of the Komenský field hospital, the main humanitarian Czechoslovak contribution to alle-viate the suffering of the war...