When the first government of Francisco Franco was formed in 1938, the Ministry of National Defense was established under the then commander of the Army of the North [es], Fidel Dávila Arrondo.

[2] It was disestablished on 8 August 1939, after the end of the Civil War, when the ministries of Army, Navy and Air were created in the second government of Francisco Franco.

[5] The Ministry became a slow organism, without even a standardized and unified administrative criterion due to the internal contradictions of its different departments and the multiple competencies that each of them had.

[6] Thus, the Ministry became the exponent of a bureaucratic office where it was possible to obtain a position or administrative charges depending on the services provided to the regime,[7] or to the rampant nepotism that prevailed within the Army.

[12] The Carabineros were integrated into the Civil Guard in 1940 and disappeared, while the new Armed Police Corps, created in 1941, was also subject to the Army in some areas.