José Calvo Sotelo (
TuiTui is a town located in Galicia , in the province of Pontevedra. It has 15,350 inhabitants , and is located on the bank of the Minho River, at , facing the Portuguese town of Valença....
, Pontevedra Province, 6 May 1893—
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
, 13 July 1936) was a
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
political figure prior to and during the
Second Spanish RepublicThe Second Spanish Republic was the system of government in Spain between April 14, 1931, when King Alfonso XIII left the country following local and municipal elections in which republican candidates won the majority of votes in urban areas and April 1, 1939, when the last of the Republican ...
. His murder by a commando unit of the Assault Guards (and several socialist activists), a special police corps created to deal with urban violence, just the day after a harsh confrontation in Parliament, aroused suspicions of a government involvement in the crime and helped precipitate the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
.
An economist and jurist, he was secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the
Ateneo Mercantil de Madrid and a university professor of the
Universidad CentralThe Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
.
José Calvo Sotelo (
TuiTui is a town located in Galicia , in the province of Pontevedra. It has 15,350 inhabitants , and is located on the bank of the Minho River, at , facing the Portuguese town of Valença....
, Pontevedra Province, 6 May 1893—
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
, 13 July 1936) was a
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
political figure prior to and during the
Second Spanish RepublicThe Second Spanish Republic was the system of government in Spain between April 14, 1931, when King Alfonso XIII left the country following local and municipal elections in which republican candidates won the majority of votes in urban areas and April 1, 1939, when the last of the Republican ...
. His murder by a commando unit of the Assault Guards (and several socialist activists), a special police corps created to deal with urban violence, just the day after a harsh confrontation in Parliament, aroused suspicions of a government involvement in the crime and helped precipitate the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
.
An economist and jurist, he was secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the
Ateneo Mercantil de Madrid and a university professor of the
Universidad CentralThe Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
. He was a member of
Antonio Maura MontanerAntonio Maura y Montaner was Prime Minister of Spain on five separate occasions: December 6, 1903-December 16, 1904, January 25, 1907-January 21, 1909, March 22, 1918-November 9, 1918, April 14, 1919-July 20, 1919, and August 13, 1921-March 8, 1922.-Biography:Born in Palma de Mallorca on the...
's Conservative Party. He first served as an administrative officer in the Ministry of Grace and Justice. In 1919, he was chosen as a deputy to the
CortesThe Cortes Generales is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate . The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution...
for the district of
O CarballiñoO Carballiño is a municipality in the Spanish province of Ourense. It has a population of 12521 and an area of 54 km²....
, in
OurenseOurense is a city in northwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Ourense in Galicia. Its population of 107.186 accounts for 30% of the population of the province.-Location and Climate:...
, and in 1922 he was made civil governor of
ValenciaValencia is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Valencia and the third largest city in Spain, with a population of 810,064 in 2008. It is the 22nd-most populous municipality in the European Union and 35th-most populous urban area in the European Union with a...
.
When
Miguel Primo de RiveraMiguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquess of Estella was a Spanish dictator, aristocrat, and a military official who was appointed Prime Minister by the King and who for seven years was a dictator, ending the turno system of alternating parties.- Early years :Miguel Primo de Rivera was born...
became dictator of Spain in 1924 he appointed Calvo Sotelo as finance minister in 1925. Calvo Sotelo was forced into exile when the Republic was proclaimed (1931), but returned to Spain when he was amnestied in May 1934, becoming then a deputy for Renovación Española. He soon became one of the most important right-wing political figures in the country. Calvo Sotelo unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the
Falange EspañolaFalange Española de las J.O.N.S. is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word Falange means phalanx formation in Spanish...
from
José Antonio Primo de RiveraJosé Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 3rd Marquess of Estella , was a Spanish politician, the leader of the fascist party Falange Española...
in 1935. Calvo Sotelo was harshly critical of the Republican government after the electoral victory of the leftist
Popular FrontThe Popular Front in Spain's Second Republic was an electoral coalition and pact signed in January 1936 by various left-wing political organisations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's election....
in February 1936.
Assassination
In the first hours of the next day, 13 July 1936, members of the Assault Guards, Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas and the captain of
Civil GuardThe Guardia Civil, commonly known as the Benemérita, is the Spanish gendarmerie. It has foreign peace-keeping missions and maintains military status and is the equivalent of a federal paramilitary police...
Fernando Condés, went to Calvo Sotelo's house, took him in front of his wife and children, showing a fake arrest warrant, and later killed him with clubs, knives and gun shots in a police truck. His body was later left in the cemetery. According to all later investigations, the perpetrator of the murder was a socialist gunman, Luis Cuenca, who was known as bodyguard of the Socialist Party leader
Indalecio PrietoIndalecio Prieto Tuero was a Spanish politician, one of the leading figures of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in the years before and during the Second Spanish Republic....
.
In the days following, the Spanish Government undertook a routine investigation that never reached any conclusion. This only accelerated the preparations for a military revolt that was being developed since the electoral triumph of the Popular Front in the month of February. These preparations lead to the uprising of the army of Africa in
MelillaMelilla is an autonomous Spanish city located on the Mediterranean, on the north coast of North Africa. It was regarded as a part of Málaga province prior to 14 March 1995, when the city's Statute of Autonomy was passed.Melilla was a free port before Spain joined the European Union. As of 2008 it...
on 17 July 1936 that, under the assumed command of Generals
Emilio MolaEmilio Mola Vidal was a Nationalist commander during the Spanish Civil War . He is best-known for coining the phrase "fifth column."-Early Life:...
,
Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco Bahamonde, commonly known as Francisco Franco , or simply Franco, was a military general and dictator of Spain from October 1936, and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in 1975...
,
Gonzalo Queipo de LlanoGonzalo Queipo de Llano y Sierra, 1st Marquess of Queipo de Llano was a Spanish Army Officer who fought for the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War....
and
José SanjurjoGeneral José Sanjurjo y Sacanell, 1st Marquess of the Rif was a General in the Spanish Army who was one of the chief conspirators in the military uprising that led to the Spanish Civil War....
, marked the beginning of the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
.