Republic, War and the Execution of Companys
Catalonia wins autonomy under the Second Republic, lives through revolution and war, and loses it all in 1939; its exiled president is handed over by the Gestapo and shot.
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge — Paul Preston, HarperPerennial (2006)
- The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain — Paul Preston, HarperPress (2012)
- The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 — Antony Beevor, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2006)
On 14 April 1931, as the Republic was proclaimed in Madrid, the veteran nationalist Francesc Macià of Esquerra Republicana (ERC) proclaimed a “Catalan Republic” from the balcony of Barcelona’s city hall. Within days he agreed to settle for autonomy, and the restored Generalitat won a Statute in 1932. On 6 October 1934, after the right entered the Spanish government, Macià’s successor Lluís Companys proclaimed a “Catalan State within the Spanish Federal Republic”; the army ended it within hours, and the Statute was suspended until the Popular Front won in 1936.
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- The Spanish Republic and Civil War — Julián Casanova, Cambridge University Press (2010)
In July 1936 the military coup failed in Barcelona, and anarchist and revolutionary militias took over much of daily life, collectivising factories and killing thousands of perceived enemies, among them many priests. In May 1937 fighting broke out in Barcelona’s streets between anarchists and communists, the events George Orwell described in Homage to Catalonia. Italian bombers killed around a thousand people in Barcelona in March 1938. The city fell on 26 January 1939, and Franco abolished the Statute.
- The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 — Antony Beevor, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2006)
- The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge — Paul Preston, HarperPerennial (2006)
- Barcelona — Robert Hughes, Knopf (1992)
Companys fled to France. In August 1940 the Gestapo arrested him there and handed him to Franco. After a summary court-martial he was shot at Montjuïc castle on 15 October 1940; by tradition he took off his shoes to feel Catalan soil and died crying “Per Catalunya!”
- The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain — Paul Preston, HarperPress (2012)
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
A brief flowering of freedom, culture and social reform, destroyed by a fascist army that singled out Catalonia for punishment; Companys is the elected president murdered for being Catalan and a democrat.
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain — Paul Preston, HarperPress (2012)
The October 1934 proclamation was a rebellion against the Republic itself, and Companys's government lost control of revolutionary militias that killed thousands in Catalonia in 1936.
- The Spanish Republic and Civil War — Julián Casanova, Cambridge University Press (2010)
- The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 — Antony Beevor, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2006)
Why it matters today
The Generalitat of the 1930s is the direct ancestor of today's, and Lluís Companys, shot at Montjuïc, is its martyr. Spain's 2022 memory law declared his trial illegitimate, but many Catalans still want a full apology from the Spanish state.