by Paul Preston
Before anything could be done, Gonzalo completely lost his mind. After lunch, at four o’clock on the sultry afternoon of Friday 28 August 1964, his younger son Agustín went into the Conde’s room to look for some papers. When his father complained of sore feet, Agustín knelt and started to massage them. Don Gonzalo began to abuse his son, pulled out a rusty Colt revolver that he had hidden and shot Agustín without warning. Badly wounded in the chest, Agustín staggered out of the room. His brother Gonzalo, alerted by the sound of gunfire, ran into the room and the Conde shot him full in the chest and in the arm. Stepping over his elder son’s corpse, he then set off in search of Agustín in order to finish him off. He found him lying dead at the door of the kitchen. His wife then came out of her room. When she saw him glaring at her while he calmly reloaded his pistol over the body of his son, she locked herself in another room. Since the farm labourers stood back, frightened by the sight of Gonzalo waving his revolver threateningly, she was obliged to escape through a window. The Civil Guard was called by the estate workers and they ordered Gonzalo to throw down his gun and come out with his hands in the air, which, his fury spent, he did.
After surrendering, he sat outside the house for more than three hours, still in his pyjamas, quietly awaiting the investigating judge from Salamanca. His wife, beside herself with grief and rage, screamed at him ‘Assassin! Murderer!’ Until calmed down by the farm workers, she shouted to the Civil Guards, ‘Kill him, he’s a savage!’ He was arrested and taken to Salamanca by the Civil Guard. They travelled in a car with reporters from the local newspaper, La Gaceta Regional. The journalists who interviewed him recounted that, en route, he chatted amiably to the driver. He spoke about various cars that he had had at different times, about the traffic system in France and about the poor state of the roads. He explained: ‘I’m talking to put what has happened out of my mind.’ When he was told that he was being taken to a psychiatric clinic, he said that psychiatrists are not usually in their right minds and added, ‘I called the ones that visited me village quacks and they got angry with me.’20 Detained in the provincial psychiatric hospital in Salamanca, he apparently entertained himself by loudly insulting the nuns who staffed it.21 His daughter-in-law, Concepción Lodeiro, and granddaughter, Marianela de Aguilera Lodeiro, escaped the carnage because they had gone to Lugo to make the arrangements for Marianela’s wedding. The wife and three children of Agustín were in southern Spain. Gonzalo never stood trial and died in the hospital nearly eight months later on 15 May 1965.22
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has been many years in the making. The gratuitous cruelty that it recounts ensured that it would be an extremely painful book to write. It was also methodologically difficult because of the sheer scale of a subject covering the different kinds of repression in both zones during the war and in all of Spain afterwards. In fact, it could not have been written without the pioneering efforts of numerous Spanish historians. Their published work is referred to fully in the Notes.
Moreover, in addition to being able to read their books and articles, with many of these historians I had the pleasure and privilege of discussing detailed issues regarding the places and the topics on which they are the experts. Their readiness to share with me ideas and material was one of the most heartening and memorable features of a difficult task. Their names are listed in the Spanish edition of this book.
For a historian living in London, keeping up with the avalanche of information in some way or other related to the various aspects of the subject is a particularly difficult problem. In this regard, I owe special thanks to Javier Díaz and Sussana Anglés i Querol of Mas de las Matas, Teruel. Everyone who works on the question of repression and historical memory is in their debt for the astonishing daily updates on publications and events that they send out from La Librería de Cazarabet and through their bulletin El Sueño Igualitario.
I must make particular mention of a group of friends and colleagues with all of whom I have had frequent and fruitful conversations over many years. I am immensely grateful for their help and their friendship: Fernando Arcas Cubero (Málaga), Montse Armengou i Martín (Barcelona), Nicolás Belmonte (Valencia), Julián Casanova (Zaragoza), Ángela Cenarro (Zaragoza), Ian Gibson (Madrid), María Jesús González (Santander), Angela Jackson (Marçà, Tarragona), Rebecca Jinks (London), Father Josep Massot i Muntaner (Baleares), Antonio Miguez Macho (Santiago de Compostela), Father Hilari Raguer (Barcelona), Ángel Viñas (Brussels) and Boris Volodarsky (Vienna).
I must also thank my colleagues in the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Studies in the London School of Economics: Peter Anderson, Jerry Blaney, Ana de Miguel, Susana Grau, Didac Gutiérrez Peris and Rúben Serem. In all kinds of ways, their support permitted me to make progress on the book while still meeting the heavy demands of university teaching and administration.
With two friends, the interchange of ideas and material has been almost daily. I have learned an enormous amount from them and I am deeply grateful for their friendship and for sharing with me their encyclopaedic knowledge: Francisco Espinosa Maestre (Seville) and José Luis Ledesma (Zaragoza).
Finally, I must thank Linda Palfreeman for her painstaking and insightful reading of the text. I have benefited too from the perceptive comments of Helen Graham, Lala Isla and my wife, Gabrielle, over the many years during which I have been working on the book. However, only Gabrielle knows what the emotional cost has been of daily immersion in this chronicle of inhumanity. Without her understanding and support, the task would have been so much more difficult. Accordingly, the book is dedicated to her.
Photographic Insert
Franco in Seville with the brutal leader of the ‘Column of Death’, Colonel Juan Yagüe, prior to its march on Madrid.
Yagüe’s artillery chief, the landowner from Carmona, Luis Alarcón de la Lastra.
General Emilio Mola, the implacable director of the military coup.
General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano making one of his incendiary radio broadcasts.
Gonzalo de Aguilera, the landowner and army officer who justified rebel policies of extermination to the foreign press. He later lost his mind and murdered his own sons.
Virgilio Leret, the first Republican officer to be shot by the rebels, seen here with his wife, the feminist, Carlota O’Neill, who was imprisoned and separated from their daughters, Carlota and Mariela.
Amparo Barayón, murdered because she was a feminist and married to the left-wing novelist Ramón Sender.
A Coruña, Anniversary of the foundation of the Second Republic, 14 April 1936. From right to left, the Civil Governor, Francisco Pérez Carballo, his wife, the feminist Juana Capdevielle Sanmartín, the head of the Galician military region, General Enrique Salcedo Molinuevo, the Mayor Alfredo Suárez Ferrín. In the second row, with beard, the Military Governor, General Rogelio Caridad Pita. All five were executed by the military rebels.
José González Barrero, Mayor of Zafra, was imprisoned in May 1934 on trumped-up charges and is seen here in Alicante jail. He was murdered in April 1939.
Modesto José Lorenzana Macarro, Mayor of Fuente de Cantos, was fraudulently removed in June 1934 and murdered in September 1936.
Ricardo Zabalza, secretary general of the FNTT and Civil Governor of Valencia during the war, seen here with his wife Obdulia Bermejo, to whom he was introduced by Margarita Nelken. Zabalza was executed in February 1940.
Mourning women after Castejón’s purge of the Triana district of Seville, 21 July 1936.
Queipo de Llano (foreground) inspects the 5º Bandera of the Legion in Seville on 2 August 1936. From right to left, (by car) Major José Cuesta Monereo who planned the coup in the city, (in shirt-sleeves) Major Antonio Castejón Espinosa who led the columns that brutally purged the towns and villages of the province and Captain Manuel Díaz Criado, who organized the repression in the city.
The landowner and aristocrat, Rafael de Medina Villalonga, in white, leads the column that has captured the town of Tocina, 4 August 1
936.
Trucks taking miners captured in the ambush at La Pañoleta for execution.
Utrera, 26 July 1936. Townsfolk taken prisoner by the column of the Legion which captured the town.
Lorca’s gravediggers – all were left-wing prisoners obliged under threat of death to dig graves, including that of Lorca. Among them is Antonio Mendoza Lafuente (3rd from right, 2nd row), president of a Masonic lodge in Granada.
Regulares examine their plunder.
After a village falls, the column moves on with stolen sewing machines, household goods and animals.
A firing squad prepares to execute townspeople in Llerena.
Calle Carnicerías (Butchery Street) in Talavera de la Reina. This photo which records a massacre committed by Franco’s columns was published by his propaganda services as a non-existent Republican atrocity in Talavera la Real.
Mass grave near Toledo.
Pascual Fresquet (centre left) with his ‘death brigade’ in Caspe.
The seizure of the Iglesia del Carmen in Madrid by militiamen.
Arms and uniforms of the Falange found by militiamen in the offices of the monarchist newspaper ABC.
Aurelio Fernández, head of the Patrulles de Control in Barcelona.
Juan García Oliver, anarchist Minister of Justice in Largo Caballero’s cabinet.
Ángel Pedrero García, head of the SIM of the Centre zone, seen here in Francoist captivity shortly before his execution.
The Brigada García Atadell outside their Madrid headquarters, the Rincón Palace. Agapito García Atadell, centre with glasses.
Santiago Carrillo – addressing a meeting in the Madrid bullring, 5 April 1936.
Melchor Rodríguez, the anarchist ‘red angel’ who saved the lives of many right-wing prisoners, in October 1937 with his daughter and his wife who was injured in a rebel bombing raid.
The wounded Pablo Yagüe receives visitors including José Cazorla, far left, and General Miaja, far right.
The cameraman Roman Karmen and the Pravda correspondent Mikhail Koltsov who acted as messengers for General Gorev during the siege of Madrid.
Andreu Nin (head of the POUM) and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko (Russian Consul.)
Josif Grigulevich, (NKVD assassin, organizer of the Republic’s crack security squads, the Brigadas Especiales, and almost certainly the murderer of Andreu Nin), Roman Karmen, then two of the NKVD staff, Lev Vasilevsky and then his boss, Grigory Sergeievich Syroyezhkin. Madrid, October 1936.
Vittorio Vidali, pseudonym Carlos Contreras, a member of the NKVD Administration for Special Tasks (assassination, terror, sabotage and abductions) also involved in the execution of right-wing prisoners, with the journalist Claud Cockburn.
Refugees flee from Queipo’s repression in Málaga towards Almería.
Exhaustion overcomes the refugees from Málaga on the road to Almería.
The Regulares enter northern Catalonia, January 1939.
Republican prisoners packed into the fortress of Montjuich in Barcelona, February 1939.
No military threat from those making the long trek to the French border.
A crowd of Spanish women and children refugees cross the border into France at Le Perthus.
Recently arrived at Argelès, women await classification.
The male refugees are detained at Argelès – the only facility being barbed wire.
Prisoners carry rocks up the staircase at the Mauthausen-Gusen death camp near Linz.
A beaming Franco welcomes Himmler to Madrid. On the right, in black uniform, Ramón Serrano Suñer, centre Moscardó with dark glasses.
Antonio Vallejo-Nájera, head of Franco’s psychiatric services. He conducted experiments on prisoners to identify the ‘red gene’.
Himmler visits the psycho-technic checa of Alfonso Laurencic in Barcelona.
Drawings made by Simon Manfield during the excavation at Valdedios, Asturias, summer 2003.
GLOSSARY
Acción Popular (briefly known as Acción Nacional): ‘an organization for social defence’ created in 1931 by Ángel Herrera Oria, the editor of El Debate, in response to the coming of the Second Republic. It would be the nucleus of the CEDA (q.v.)
Africanistas: Spanish army officers experienced in, and often brutalized by, the colonial war in Morocco
Agrupación Nacional de Propietarios de Fincas Rústicas: National Association of Rural Estate-Owners
alcalde: mayor
ANCP: Asociación Católica Nacional de Propagandistas – an elite Jesuit-influenced organization of about five hundred prominent and talented Catholic rightists with influence in the press, the judiciary and the professions
Ayuntamiento: town council and also the town hall
bracero: unskilled agricultural labourer hired by the day
cacique: a powerful rural boss, usually a landowner but sometimes a money-lender or both
Casa del Pueblo: the main gathering place for the local left wing, sometimes a kind of club, sometimes the headquarters of parties and unions
casino: the main gathering place for the local right wing
Caudillo: literally bandit chieftain, more usually military leader, became Franco’s title, the equivalent of Hitler’s ‘Führer’ or Mussolini’s ‘Duce’
CCMA: Comitè Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya – Central Anti-Fascist Militia Committee, the executive body created on 20 July 1936 to combine the Generalitat (q.v.) and representatives of all the democratic and left-wing forces in Catalonia. It never functioned efficiently and within months the Generalitat had re-established its power
CEDA: Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas – Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-Wing Groups, the principal mass party of the right, created in 1933, led by José María Gil Robles
checas: autonomous police forces and detention centres created in July 1936 in the Republican zone by working-class unions and parties
Civil Governor: the principal authority in any province, appointed by the Ministry of the Interior
CNCA: Confederación Nacional Católico-Agraria – National Catholic Agrarian Confederation, conservative association of smallholders created in 1917. It provided mass support for the CEDA
CNT: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo – National Confederation of Labour, anarcho-syndicalist trade union founded in 1910
CPIP: Comité Provincial de Investigación Pública – Provincial Committee of Public Investigation, created in August 1936 by the Republican Ministry of the Interior in an attempt to control the checas (q.v.) of the left-wing parties and trade unions
DEDIDE: Departamento Especial de Información del Estado – State Special Intelligence Department, created in June 1937 to centralize the Republican security and counter-espionage services
DERD: Delegación del Estado para la Recuperación de Documentos – State Delegation for the Recovery of Documents, the Francoist entity created in April 1938 to classify captured documentation from left-wing and liberal political parties, organizations and individuals in order to facilitate their location and punishment
DGS: Dirección General de Seguridad – General Directorate of Security, the national headquarters of the police and security forces
DRV: Derecha Regional Valenciana – the right-wing group of the Valencian region, one of the principal component groups that made up the CEDA (q.v.)
ERC: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya – the Republican Left of Catalonia, the principal Catalan nationalist party, led by Lluís Companys
FAI: Federación Anarquista Ibérica – Iberian Anarchist Federation, the activist or terrorist wing of the anarchist movement founded in 1927
Falange Española: Spanish fascist party founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in October 1933
FE de las JONS: Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista – the Spanish fascist party created by the merger in February 1934 of the Falange and the JONS (q.v.)
FJS: Federación de Juventudes Socialistas – the youth moveme
nt of the Socialist Party, PSOE (q.v.)
FNTT: Federación Nacional de Trabajadores de la Tierra – the Socialist landworkers’ union affiliated to the UGT (q.v.)
