Political Lives #2 Lluís Companys
POL0002
17 June 2018
04/11/2025
Cataloguing Data
Period / Epoch
17 June 2018
Original title
Political Lives #2 Lluís Companys 1882 – 1940
Category
Biography
Description
POLITICAL LIVES is a series of biographies of remarkable politicians, scholars and activists that helped shape our societies throughout the XX century.
Original language
English
Date
17 June 2018
Author(s)
Coppieters Foundation
The second issue of the collection is devoted to Lluís Companys the only democratically elected president to be executed during the Second World War.
He worked as a journalist, labour lawyer, union organiser, town councillor and member of parliament (MP) before becoming the president of Catalonia.
He survived imprisonment in Madrid and Minorca and exile in occupied France, where he was arrested by the German military police, and deported to Franco’s Spain. There he was given a summary court martial and shot on the grounds of Barcelona’s Montjuïc castle.
He survived imprisonment in Madrid and Minorca and exile in occupied France, where he was arrested by the German military police, and deported to Franco’s Spain. There he was given a summary court martial and shot on the grounds of Barcelona’s Montjuïc castle.
Franco was so concerned that Companys’ prestige would turn him into a Catalan national martyr, that he and his regime did their utmost to keep his execution secret for nearly four decades.