Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira

Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira (9 December 1914 in Madrid9 June 1933 in Madrid) was an activist for socialism and sexual revolution, who was conceived and raised by her anti-theist, socialist, eugenicist, and feminist mother, Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira, as a prototype for the women of the future. She spoke four languages when she was eight years old, finished law school as a teenager, and was a leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) which she abandoned in favor of extreme Republicanism, joining the Federal Democratic Republican Party (PRDF).

When she was 18 years old and had become internationally renowned while also seeking personal and political independence from her controlling mother, the latter shot Hildegart to death in her sleep.

Conception
Hildegart was conceived in Ferrol, Spain, by her mother Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira and a long undisclosed biological father. Aurora chose the father with eugenic intentions; she wanted to create the perfect child to further her feminist and socialist ideology. She had previously taken care of her sister's son, giving him musical courses until he became a prodigy, but his mother took him to raise him herself.

As Carballeira had been seeking a man who would never openly claim paternity or legal custody of their child, Hildegart's father was an intellectually brilliant Roman Catholic priest and military chaplain to the Spanish Royal Army, Alberto Pallás. When Carballeira was certain that she was pregnant, she moved to Madrid, where Hildegart was born. During her pregnancy, Aurora had set a clock to wake herself up every hour, allowing her to change sleep position so blood could flow to the fetus uniformly.

Name
Hildegart's birth certificate and baptism act give her name as Hildegart Leocadia Georgina Hermenegilda Maria del Pilar Rodriguez Carballeira but she only used her first name. In spite of Aurora's atheism and opposition to birth registration, she had her daughter baptized, somewhat late, on 23 March 1915 and then registered on 29 April 1915. Her mother said that Hildegart meant "Garden of Wisdom" in German, but there is no basis for that and the name was either an invention or an alternative spelling of the Nordic/German name Hildegard.

Education
She knew how to read at 2 and typed before 4. At 10, she spoke German, French and English and the following year gave conferences on feminism and female sexuality. Her mother had a total control on Hildegart, forbidding her to do anything which could distract her from "her work."

In June 1928, at the age of 13½, Hildegart enrolled in the School of Law of the Complutense University of Madrid. She later taught courses at its School of Philosophy after the formation of the Second Spanish Republic.

Politics
At 14, she joined the PSOE, like her mother. She was also a member of the Unión General de Trabajadores.

In 1932, she was expelled from the PSOE after publishing an article in La Libertad criticizing the PSOE for supporting a candidate she considered reactionary; she then joined the Federal Party and started attacking those she termed socialenchufistas.

Rodríguez was among the contributors of the Valencia-based Orto magazine between 1932 and 1934.

Sexual revolution
Hildegart was one of the most active people in the Spanish movement for sex reformation, writing on subjects such as contraception, prostitution and eugenics.

She was connected to the European vanguard, corresponding with Havelock Ellis, whose work she translated and who nicknamed her "the Red Virgin", and Margaret Sanger. At the foundation of the Spanish League for Sexual Reform on 1932, presided over by Dr Gregorio Marañón, she was chosen as Secretary without opposition.

She had correspondence with many other European personalities, and accompanied the author H. G. Wells on a visit he made to Madrid, but declined his offer to relocate to London and become his secretary. This offer by Wells, who was reportedly very concerned and wanted Hildegart away from the influence of her mother, furthered the persecution complex already felt by Aurora.

Murder


Aurora shot her daughter several times while she slept in her bed. There were several hypotheses about the motivations behind Hildegart's murder. Hildegart may have fallen in love. She also intended to separate from her mother who, out of paranoia, had threatened to commit suicide. Aurora's own explanation was, "(El escultor, tras descubrir la más mínima imperfección en su obra, la destruye)," "The sculptress, after discovering the most minimal imperfection in her work, destroys it."

Aftermath
Aurora was tried for murder in Madrid. At her trial, she claimed that a Catalan lawyer, Antonio Villena, H. G. Wells, and Havelock Ellis were the agents of an international conspiracy to have her daughter leave Spain and make her serve the Intelligence Services and that, furthermore, Antonio Villena and Hildegart were lovers. She was sentenced to imprisonment for 26 years, 8 months and 10 days, to which she said she won 26 years to live, expressing joy she will not be locked away in an asylum. Aurora never regretted Hildegart's murder and repeatedly said that she would do it again.

Until her medical records resurfaced in 1977, Aurora was incorrectly believed to have been secretly removed from prison by the Nationalist faction and subjected to summary execution and secret burial as part of the White Terror during the Spanish Civil War. In reality, Aurora was transferred from prison to the mental institution in Ciempozuelos, Madrid, with a diagnosis of paranoia and schizophrenia. From 1941, she stopped speaking to her psychiatrists, and the following year, she made ragdolls with prominent genitals, which were confiscated and destroyed by the hospital orderlies. In a 1948 letter to the Mother Superior of the nuns running the mental institution, Aurora said she spent a long time in prison and that she deserved to be pardoned. Instead, she died of cancer in 1955 and was buried in a mass grave.