The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA) was one of the large mass organizations of the Spanish Second Republic but, incomprehensibly, especially German research has largely ignored it up to now. In Spain, it was not until the polemic times of the
Second Republic that an explicitly denominational party such as this came into being. The party developed from a defense alliance of the monarchy-conformous but legalistic circles, a fact which placed it between the conservative republicans and the monarchists, who were ready to revolt. At the same time it shared in the attraction which fascism and national socialism had for the entire Spanish right wing. In this conflict the concept of catholicism as it had developed in the 19th century had a central function for the CEDA. Some fundamental approaches in the party and ist positioning in the spectrum of political parties could be derived from it. Simultaneously, ist new interpretation explains to which degree the party shared in the development of the Franquist national catholicism and why the masses were so unanimous in their support of this Spanish version of modern totalitarism.