Preceded by Francesc Macia Preceded by Francesc Macia
In 1931 Name Lluis Companys Education University of Barcelona | Succeeded by Josep Irla Preceded by New title Role Spanish Political leader | |
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Succeeded by Himself, as President of the Generalitat de Catalunya Succeeded by Joan Casanovas i Maristany Died October 15, 1940, Montjuic, Barcelona, Spain Spouse Carme Ballester (m. 1936–1940), Merce Mico (m. 1910–1936) Children Maria de l'Alba, Lluis Companys i Mico Parents Maria Lluisa de Jover, Josep Companys Similar People Francesc Macia i Llussa, Francisco Franco, Manuel Azana, Carme Ballester, Josep Tarradellas i Joan | ||
Lluis Companys i Jover ([ʎuˈis kumˈpans]) (El Tarros, Spain, June 21, 1882 – Montjuic Castle in Barcelona, Spain, October 15, 1940) was the President of Catalonia (Spain), from 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War.
Contents
- Early life
- Proclamation of the Republic
- Proclamation of the Catalan State
- Civil War
- Exile and execution
- References
He was a lawyer and leader of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) political party. Exiled after the war, he was captured and handed over by the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, to the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco, who had him executed by firing squad in 1940. Companys is the only incumbent democratically elected president in European history to have been executed, and seventy-five years later the council of war which sentenced him is still in force.
Early life
Born in El Tarros, on June 21, 1882 into a peasant family with aristocratic roots, he was the second brother of ten. His parents were Josep Companys and Maria Lluisa de Jover. His parent sent him to Barcelona in order to study at the boarding school of Liceu Poliglot. Later, after obtaining his degree in law from the University of Barcelona, where he met Francesc Layret, Companys participated in the political life of Catalonia from a young age. In 1906, as a result of the military attack to the writings of Catalan newspapers Cu-Cut! and La Veu de Catalunya, and after the passing of the Ley de Jurisdicciones ("Law of Jurisdictions"), which made speech against Spain and its symbols a criminal offense, he participated in the creation of Solidaritat Catalana.
Later, he became affiliated with the ephemeral Unio Federal Nacionalista Republicana, where he was president of the youth section. He was investigated for his intense youth activities and was jailed fifteen times, being classified after the Tragic Week of Barcelona as a "dangerous individual" in police records.
With Francesc Layret, Companys represented the left-wing labor faction of the Partit Republica Catala (Catalan Republican Party), to which he was elected councilor of Barcelona in 1916. In November 1920, he was arrested together with Salvador Segui (known as El Noi del Sucre), Marti Barrera and other trade unionists and he was deported to the Castell de la Mola in Mahon, Menorca. Shortly afterward, Layret was assassinated while preparing his defense.
Despite having been deported, Companys was elected deputy of Sabadell in the 1920 Spanish legislative elections, taking the place of Layret, who was to have taken that seat prior to his assassination. This gave him parliamentary immunity, which secured his release from prison.
Companys was one of the founders of the Unio de Rabassaires in 1922, where he worked as lawyer and director of the magazine La Terra during the years of the regime of Primo de Rivera.
Detained again, he was unable to attend the Conferencia de Izquierdas (Conference of Leftists) held from March 12 to March 19, 1931 that produced the ERC political party; however, he was elected as an executive member of that party, representing the Partit Republica Catala. Thanks to the bonds between the Spanish labor movement and the Spanish union movement, the election of Companys to this position gave the ERC great prestige amongst left-wing public opinion whereas it had prior been considered a party of the small progressive bourgeoisie.
Proclamation of the Republic
In the 1931 Spanish Local elections ERC won a surprise victory in Barcelona. After knowing the results, Companys, who was elected a city representative, and other ERC candidates together with the Party's leader Francesc Macia, decided to take over by surprise the office of Mayor and assaulted the City Hall. At gunpoint, the transitional Mayor was deposed and Companys was proclaimed new Mayor. Subsequently, he hung a tricolour Spanish Republican Flag from the City Hall's balcony and proclaimed the Republic. Shortly after, Francesc Macia proclaimed the Catalan State within the "Federation of Iberian Republics", a project that was later abandoned after gaining the promise of regional devolution and the restitution of the Catalan Generalitat (as a regional government) from the new Republican government.
After controlling the Barcelona City Hall, Macia ordered Companys to take the office of "Gobernador Civil" of the Barcelona province (provincial political authority, which at that time held considerable powers, policing included), which had been controlled by radicals during the process of the Republic proclamation. Macia probably wanted a less public office for Companys, whom he thought of as a political rival. Compays run as a Barcelona provincial candidate in the December 1931 Spanish Legislative Elections. After gaining a seat he led the ERC representation and the Catalan minority group in the new Republican Parliament. He described his political objectives in Madrid as: "We, the Catalan Members of the Parliament, have come here not only to defend our regional constitution "Estatuto, Spanish original", and the fraternal and democratic understanding of the members of Parliament; but, also to participate in matters that affect the greatness of Spain: the Constitution, the agrarian reforms and social legislation." In 1932 Companys was elected Speaker of the regional Catalan Parliament.
Proclamation of the Catalan State
After the death of Francesc Macia in 1933, at that time presiding over the Catalan government (Generalitat), Companys was elected the successor President of the Generalitat by the Catalan Parliament. In October 6, 1934, Companys led a Catalan Nationalist uprising not supported by the center and conservatives Catalan representatives, against the center and right-wing republican government, and proclaimed the Catalan State (Estat Catala) within the "Spanish Federal Republic", an action by which he was arrested and sentenced to thirty years in prison. This action was an attempt of Coup d'Etat as Companys revolted against the newly democratically elected center-right republican government and joined the Asturias miners revolution. Companys asked Manuel Azana, who happened to be in Barcelona during the events, to lead a newly proclaimed Spanish Republican government, a proposition that Azana rejected. After the 1936 election and the victory of the left-wing coalition Frente Popular, he was set free by the new government.
Civil War
When the Spanish Civil War began shortly after, in July 1936, Companys sided with the Second Spanish Republic against the Nacionales rebels and was instrumental in organizing a collaboration between the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, which was sponsored by his Catalan government, and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), a revolutionary anti-Stalinist communist party, and Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), an anarchist syndicalist trade union. During the events, Companys opened the police and gendarmery armories to the anarchist and POUM groups, who after defeating the coupists, created havoc and carnage in the city rounding up and shooting hundreds of civilians deemed "bourgeoisie" or "rightist", religious orders members and priests, as well as burning all the churches, monasteries and convents of the city. De facto, Companys lost the control of the city and Catalonia until the May Days of 1937 when the anarchists and POUM were suppressed. After the coup, the CNT had 30,000 armed men in Barcelona, while the government had only 5000. Antony Beevor estimates the total number of people killed in Catalonia in the summer and autumn of 1936 at 8,352.
Exile and execution
Exiled to France in 1939 after the Civil War, Companys had passed up various chances to leave France because his son Lluis was seriously ill in a clinic in Paris. He was arrested in La Baule-les-Pins near Nantes on 13 August 1940, and detained in La Sante Prison. He was then extradited by Nazi German authorities to the Spanish government in Madrid in early September 1940 and imprisoned in the cellars of the headquarters of the Direccion General de Seguridad (State Security) at the Real Casa de Correos in Puerta del Sol. He was held there for five weeks, kept in solitary confinement, tortured and beaten, while senior figures of the Franco regime visited his cell, insulted him and threw coins or crusts of bread at him. After a military trial which lasted less than one hour, lacking legal guarantees where he was accused of military rebellion, Companys was executed at Montjuic Castle in Barcelona at 6:30 a.m. on October 15, 1940. Refusing to wear a blindfold, he was taken before a firing squad of Civil Guards and, as they fired, he cried 'Per Catalunya!' (For Catalonia!). He is buried at the Montjuic Cemetery, near the castle. The cause of death was given as 'traumatic internal haemorrhage'.
The main stadium used for the 1992 Summer Olympics, located on Montjuic, is officially named in his memory. In 1998 a monument to Companys was installed near Arc de Triomf, on Passeig de Lluis Companys in Barcelona. A friend of Companys, Conxita Julia, is portrayed next to Companys' image in the monument. Several streets and squares in many cities and villages of Catalonia are named "Lluis Companys" after him.