ple, the middle class being practically non-existent.
20th century
In the early decades of the century the first hotels were built: the Mall, which opened in 1918, and the Miramar, which opened its doors in 1934. During the Second Republic, Marbella experienced major social changes driven by the mobilisation of contentious political parties. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, Marbella and Casare suffered more anticlerical violence than the rest of the western part of Málaga province. Several religious buildings in the city were burned the day after the failed uprising that led to the Civil War, including the Church of St. Mary of the Incarnation and the Church of San Pedro Alcantara, of which only the walls were left standing. Marbella was seized by the Nationalists with the aid of troops from Fascist Italy during the first months of the war, and became a haven for such prominent Nazis as Léon Degrelle and Wolfgang Jugler, and a favored getaway for the leisure and business of Phalangist personalities like Jose Antonio Giron de Velasco and Jose Banús, personal friends of the dictator Francisco Franco, who were later responsible for the launching of urban development in Marbella in the 1960s. This urban expansion involved not only outsiders, but also local authorities and Nationalist leaders who had returned from exile, growth that came with the almost total opposition of the Republicans.
After World War II, Marbella was a small jasmine-lined village with only 900 inhabitants. Ricardo Soriano, Marquis of Ivanrey, moved to Marbella and popularised it among his rich and famous friends. In 1943 he had acquired a country estate located between Marbella and San Pedro called El Rodeo, and later built a resort there called Venta y Albergues El Rodeo, beginning the development of tourism in Marbella. His nephew, Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, acquired another estate, Finca Santa Margarita, which
