Republican General. Born in 1883 and died in Madrid in 1962.
He entered military school at the age of 15 and in 1911 he was a cavalry captain in the reserve. During the Republic he ed his retirement under the Azaña Law, but when the Civil War broke out, he returned to active service, remaining loyal to the Republican Government. Initially a Communist sympathiser, he took part in the defence of Madrid and later in the Santander campaign, where he was promoted to colonel. On 21 June 1937, two days after the fall of Bilbao, General Gamir Ulíbarri was appointed Chief of the Northern Army, replacing him in command of the Basque Army Corps, a post he had held until then, Colonel Vidal Munárriz. Some time later, on 28 July, he was replaced in turn by Colonel Adolfo Prada, who thus took command of the Basque Army Corps. On 6 August, General Gamir issued an order reorganising the Army of the North, which was structured into four Army Corps: the XIV, formerly I or Euzkadi; the XV, formerly II or Santander, and the XVI and XVII, created on the basis of the original Asturias or III. The XIV Army Corps, that is, the Basque Corps, was commanded by Prada, with Major Ernesto de la Fuente as Chief of Staff, and was made up of the 48th, 49th, 50th and 51st Divisions (formerly the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th).
Prada took part in the retreat from Santander, which culminated in the fall of the city. Faced with this defeat, the Provincial Council of Asturias proclaimed itself the "Sovereign Council of Asturias and León" and one of the first things it did was to replace General Gamir Ulíbarri - who was blamed for the loss of Santander - with Colonel Prada, who appointed Captain Ciutat, a communist, as Chief of Staff, in an attempt to reorganise and regroup what was left of the Northern Army. Of the Basque Army Corps - the XIVth - commanded until then by Prada himself, only the 50th and 48th Divisions remained, as the others had surrendered at Santoña. Nevertheless, this Army Corps was reorganised with the rest of the previous Divisions and some fresh troops, with only two Divisions, "A" and "B", under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Galán. Prada tried to stop Franco's offensives but was unable to do anything in the end.
After the flight of the "Sovereign Council", he managed to escape the repression by leaving Gijón by plane at the last minute and once again placed himself at the disposal of the Republican Government. In his "Report" on his performance as commander of the Republican Army in the North, he states that:
"The struggle in the North was a prolonged agony in an effort which, because of its unevenness, can justly be described as heroic; more than 100,000 wounded and nearly 30,000 dead is an exemplary balance in an army which at its peak, when the general mobilisation of Euzkadi reached 70,000 infantrymen".
Subsequently, Prada was appointed Chief of the Republican Army of Andalusia, distancing himself from the communists with whom he had actively collaborated in the North and, finally, of the Army of the Centre, where, under the orders of Segismundo Casado, he took part in the surrender of the Spanish capital to the Francoists. Taken prisoner at the end of the war, he was tried and sentenced, being released a few years later and joining the clandestine political life, forming part of the AFARE (Agrupación de Fuerzas Armadas Republicanas Españolas). He died in Madrid when he was almost eighty years old.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)