User:Deisenbe/sandbox/Lorca assassination

Influence of the Assassination
Lorca's assassination did not appear in news media until months after it happened. The few who knew about it did not wish to publicize it, and communications and reporting were chaotic in the first weeks of what at that time was not recognized as the beginning of a civil war. Rumors began to circulate; H.G. Wells sent a telegram to the military governor of Granada inquiring about Lorca's wherwabouts; he received an answer: "I don't know" ("Ignórase el paradero").

When the assassination was confirmed, even though the details remained unreported for decades, there was an international outcry. It took place in the part of Spain ruled over by the right-wing military rebels; as Lorca was not closely identified with

Foreigners began to go to Spain to fight against the right-wing. Rebels who had killed a poet. They played no mikitary role and had never fired a gun in ther lives. Protagonist of For Whom the Bell Tolls. For the Spanish government under siege they were a logistical nightmare; they had no common language. However, the arrival of the first of them greatly boosted the Republicans' morale, which was a factor in the successful defense of Madrid. If Madrid had fallen, we know now that the war would have ended sooner, with less loss of life. It was the Republicans' only victory. Thus Lorca's death contribued to the defense of Madrid, which caused the prolongation of a hopeless war. C. Ni n

lorca assassination
Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) was executed, or assassinated, or murdered, at the outset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, when general chaos in Spain allowed for assassinations of all sorts. His death soon became the iconic event of the War, even, for Spain, the iconic event of the twentieth century. While the mechanics of his execution are well known, thanks to the pioneering work of Ian Gibson, about the motives for his execution there is a long-standing and confusing controversy, similar in some degree to that which exists about the assassination of President Kennedy.

Lorca's political affiliation
The political situation preceding the Spanish Civil War far exceeds in its complexity that of the obvious comparison, the American Civil War. Spain is the only country in which anarchism was at one point a real Spanian genre. During the first two years ("la niña bonita", or the happy period) of the Spanish Republic, Lorca directed a theater company, La Barraca (The Hut), which had a truck, provided by the leftist 1931-1933 government, so as to take classical Spanish theaters to small towns and put it on in improvised venues.

Taking refuge in Granada
On the eve of the outbreak of the Civil War, with chaos in Madrid, Lorca left Madrid by train for Granada. He believed he would be safer in rightest Granada than in leftist Madrid. If Lorca believed that, he must have been to some degree in sympathy with the goals of the Falangist revolution. (Remember that Unamuno was as well, before August 18.)

However, he was not safe in Granada, where he was known to be a friend of the leftist minister Fernando de los Ríos. (As it turned out, he would ahve been safe in Madrid.) While at his parents' house, the Huerta de San Vicente, he was threatened by unidentified men who visited him there, telloing him "we know who you are", and accusing him, ludicrously, of having a hidden short-wave radio with which to maintain communciation with Russia.

Lorca could easily have escaped to Republican territory; at that early moment no clear lines, much less forces, separated the two sides. He could have left the country; he had ean invitation from Mexico, and according to some sources, a paid ticket. Yet he refused to do so, either from a wish for martyrdom (for which there is no evidence in his works or correspondence),

He was fascinated by death,, and at one point improvised a coffin in which he lay in front of his friends. Yet he would have been defiant if he was seeking martyrdom; every source suggests that he did not.

Taking refuge in the Rosales' house
After Lorca was threatened by visitors to his family's house, the Huerta de San Vicente, he took refuge and believed himself safe in the house of his intimate friend the poet Luis Rosales. Luis' brother José Rosales Camacho was the head of the Falange party in Granada, and the Rosales' house was its de facto Granada headquarters. (The rightist political party which was ideologically affiliated with the Nazis, and after Franco took power, the only political party in Spain. JONS

On August 16, 1936, a delegation of armed men surrounded the Rosales house, having managed, strangely, to arrive when none of the men of the family were home, and during which, strangely, none of them could be reached by telephone. The leader of the delegation was Ramón Ruiz Alonso, a typographer and former legislator. Saying that he was doing so "on his own responsibility", Ruiz took Lorca from the Rosales house to the Granada town hall/police station, where he was jailed.

The Lorca family has never forgiven the Rosales for failing to protect Lorca, or even for having turned him in; rumors suggest that the head of the Rosales family had asked for Lorca to be removed. What is certain is that Luis Rosales himself had nothing to do with it, and in fact found himself in considerable danger himself for having protected Lorca at all; a large fine settled the matter. Luis's relations with his siblings and father were strained after this incident.

It obvious which sidecto support.