June 23rd, 2020
Headsman
Spanish officer Toribio Martinez Cabrera was executed on this date in 1939 by Franco’s Spain.
An army lifer who had cut his teeth fighting in Cuba against Spain’s imperial dispossession, Martinez Cabrera (English Wikipedia entry | Spanish was one of the few brigadier generals to remain loyal to the Spanish Republic when his brethren launched the Spanish Civil War.
Despite entrusting him with command responsibility, his upper brass demographic profiled as a probable rebel and the Republic remained wary of his act; he was interrogated as a possible double agent after the fascists took Malaga, and defeated an outright treason charge after Franco occupied Gijon in 1937. It seems like he was destined to be shot by someone.
Having the honor of returning to an official capacity in the collapsing remains of the Republic, he supported Segismundo Casado‘s March 1939 coup against the Communist-allied Juan Negrin. The latter could get no negotiated terms from the fascists and so resigned himself, as he later remembered from exile, “to fight on because there was no other choice, even if winning was not possible, then to salvage what we could — and at the very end our self respect … Why go on resisting? Quite simply because we knew what capitulation would mean.” Unfortunately for Martinez Cabrera, Casado’s short-lived junta also got a cold shoulder from Franco and submitted to unconditional surrender.
Although most of its members evacuated abroad as the fascists triumphed, Martinez Cabrera declined to flee. He was shot at Paterna on June 23, 1939.
On this day..
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Shot,Soldiers,Spain,Treason
Tags: 1930s, 1939, june 23, paterna, spanish civil war
November 25th, 2019
Headsman
Spanish trade unionist Manuel Molina Conejero was shot in Paterna on this date in 1939. Expect Spanish-language links throughout this post.
A longtime labor activist and (in 1910) co-founder of the mechanical sawmills union, Molina won election as a deputy of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) in 1936 — the left-wing electoral victory that triggered General Francisco Franco’s rebellion and the start of the Spanish Civil War.
Molina was part of PSOE’s moderate faction, led by Indalecio Prieto, and was appointed civil governor of Valencia when Prieto’s rival Francisco Largo Caballero was forced to resign the presidency during the chaotic Barcelona May Days.
He was arrested by the Francoists upon their victory in the civil war.
There’s a street named for him in his home city.
On this day..
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Activists,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Politicians,Power,Shot,Spain,Treason
Tags: 1930s, 1939, manuel molina, november 25, paterna, socialists, spanish civil war, valencia
July 24th, 2009
Headsman
On this date in 1942, anarchist, trade unionist and anti-fascist Joan Peiro was shot with six others at Paterna, Spain.
Joan (or Juan) Peiro (English Wikipedia page | Spanish) was a Barcelona glassworker of anarcho-syndicalist politics.
As Secretary General of the Confederacion National del Trabajo (CNT) and editor of the anarchist rag Solidaridad Obrera, Peiro mixed it up in the rough-and-tumble interwar political scene, eventually becoming Minister of Industry for Republican Spain — an untoward position to more orthodox anarchists.
When the Spanish Republic lost the Civil War, Peiro fled to France, where he was nabbed and extradited.
The nationalist general Emilio Mola had said before the war’s conclusion,
Whoever is, openly or secretly, a supporter of the Popular Front, must be shot … we must sow terror … eliminating without scruple or hesitation those who do not think as we do. (Source)
In practice, reprisals weren’t that vicious (maybe because Mola himself had died in a plane crash and wasn’t managing them) — but the leadership and intelligentsia who could rally an anti-Franco political bloc were purged ruthlessly.
The imprisoned Peiro was offered — repeatedly — a sellout package to oversee Franco’s house unions, and he repeatedly refused.
He earned martyrdom for his troubles, and after Franco’s death re-entered the public sphere as the sort of bloke to name streets after. (As an anti-Stalinist, Peiro had had all the right enemies.)
Placa Joan Peiro, a major square in Barcelona.The Spanish judiciary, however, has thus far declined (Spanish link) to overturn his sentence.
Peiro is saluted in Catalan here.
On this day..
- 2003: Allen Wayne Janecka, hit man - 2020
- 1833: Anastasio Aquino, Nonualco rebel - 2019
- 1951: Arno Esch, liberal - 2018
- 2010: Michel Germaneau, AQIM hostage - 2017
- 1653: Six beheaded and one hanged for the Swiss Peasant War - 2016
- 1722: Marie-Jeanne Roger, "la Grande-Jeanneton" - 2015
- 2008: Christopher Scott Emmett, jocund - 2014
- 1471: Dmitry Isakevich Boretsky, son of Marfa Boretskaya - 2013
- 1735: Patience Boston, converted - 2012
- 1588: Nicholas Garlick, Robert Ludlam, and Richard Simpson - 2011
- 1892: Ruggles brothers lynched - 2010
- 1794: Not Thomas Paine - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Activists,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Famous,Hanged,History,Intellectuals,Martyrs,Mass Executions,Murder,Politicians,Power,Shot,Spain,Treason,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1940s, 1942, anarchist, anarchists, cnt, confederacion national del trabajo, emilio mola, fascism, francisco franco, joan peiro, joan peiro i belis, juan peiro, july 24, paterna, solidaridad obrera, spanish civil war, world war ii
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