The siege of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War was the scene of the transition from a typically colonial column war to a type of conflict that anticipated the one that would devastate Europe just a few years later. The aim is to show the general imprint of that trial, especially in the tactics of strategic bombing and in the military information services. Most of the works that have dealt with wartime Madrid have focused only on the military aspects of the front or on the persecution and repression that shook the city's underground, especially during the months corresponding to the so-called "Battle of Madrid" (November 1936 - March 1937). And all this in spite of the importance that it maintained throughout the war, for the Republican side even though it had ceased to be their government headquarters.
Once the coup had failed and the different fronts had been stabilized, Madrid disappeared from most of the stories of the civil war, including those that have followed, with greater or worse fortune, from the Transition to the present day. Since then it has become a besieged city of which practically nothing remains standing, the ultimate cause and effect of the need that Francoism had not only to defeat the defence of Madrid, but also to erase the memory of the resistant city and to hide the steps that led to its surrender.