Religious Forerunners of Conscientious Objection During the Spanish Civil War and Early Francoism, 1936–59

Abstract

This article examines the early conscientious objection to military service by Jehovah’s Witnesses in Spain during the Civil War (1936–9) and the first two decades of Franco’s dictatorship (1939–59). While previous scholarship has primarily focused on secular and political forms of objection arising in the 1970s, this study foregrounds an earlier, religiously motivated resistance that has remained largely undocumented. Drawing on military records, oral testimonies, and denominational religious publications, the article reconstructs the moral reasoning, legal consequences, and lived experiences of ten Jehovah’s Witness objectors. It identifies two key phases: isolated wartime refusals under conditions of extreme repression, including the execution of one objector, and a renewed pattern of objection in the 1950s, marked by imprisonment, psychiatric diagnoses and chained sentencing. The analysis is further situated within a comparative international perspective, contrasting the Spanish case with other national experiences in both democratic and authoritarian contexts. The findings demonstrate that religious conscience played a significant role in shaping early conscientious objection and non-violent dissent in Spain. The study contributes to the historiography of civil resistance, religious persecution and human rights under authoritarian regimes, calling for broader integration of religious actors into the analysis of pacifist movements in twentieth-century Europe.