The Government reinstates the rank of Antonio Escobar, the “forgotten Republican general” of the Civil Guard | Catalonia

“The family has never told us about my grandfather. All we know is from friends, witnesses. Neither my father nor my mother, who were the ones who knew him, did not tell anything,” explains José Luis Escobar, 82, sitting in a tiny press room, surrounded by journalists and accompanied by a Colonel from the Civil Guard. He takes a morning to pay homage to his father’s father, Antonio Escobar, General of the Civil Guard, shot on October 8, 1940, for maintaining loyalty to the Republic, under the orders of the Catalan President Lluís Companys. Almost eight decades later, the Government has announced that in the next Council of Ministers it will restore Escobar to the rank of general to which he rose in the Civil War. No political representatives of the Generalitat attended the event. The Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, and the Minister of Justice, Gemma Ubasart, were invited, but both have decided for issues of the agenda, according to sources from the Government Delegation.

After a picket of honors in the Montjuïc cemetery, where he is buried, and including his tomb in the official historical tour, the new director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, accompanied by the Government delegate in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto, relatives de Escobar and high command of all the police forces in the community, have paid tribute to Escobar. “A restitution with which we cut at the root with the term that he had known for these years: the forgotten general”, González has assured. The general has been buried in the Barcelona cemetery since he was shot in the castle of Montjuïc, directing his execution himself. He was shot as a “colonel” because the Franco regime legislated that no promotion granted by the Government of the Republic during the war was recognized. Escobar was the only colonel promoted to brigadier general (1937) in the Civil War.

The Colonel of the Civil Guard and doctor in History Jesús Narciso Núñez has glossed, on behalf of his family, the figure of Escobar. “Fair, upright and of deep Catholic faith”, Escobar (Ceuta, 1879) suffered the military uprising of July 18, 1936 in Catalonia. “His performance and that of the 19th Tercio — under the orders of General Aranguren — were decisive for the failure of the rebellion in Barcelona,” Colonel Narciso confirmed about Escobar, who combined his fidelity to the Republic with a deep religious feeling, father and brother of adoring nuns. The secretary of Historical Memory, Fernando Martínez, has determined that it is necessary to “rescue exemplary memories” and “do justice” before the “brave actions” of Escobar. “We enrich ourselves as a country,” he has said.

The family does not keep anything from General Escobar, according to his grandson. “There is nothing left. Neither writing, nor anything, ”he summarized. The only photograph that has been projected in the reduced act in the Government Delegation in Catalonia. “This is not the time to recount forced silences, spurious contempt and cowardly humiliation”, Colonel Narciso defended in his public intervention, in which he reviewed the path followed by the restitution of the memory of Escobar assassinated during the Franco regime . In his speech he quoted the novel general escobar warby José Luis Olaizola, who in 1983 won the Planeta prize, ignoring a subsequent accusation of plagiarism, which earned the publisher two years of litigation with Pedro Massip, author of a film script, and married to a niece of the general.

The official dignification of Escobar’s memory began in 2010, with a tribute from the Barcelona City Council when it was directed by the socialist Jordi Hereu. In 2011, the Ministry of Defense, with the case of Carme Chacón (PSOE) at its forefront, published the work 25 soldiers of the Republic, between them Aranguren and Escobar. In 2019, it is public in the segment of the work. A process that culminated this Wednesday with the public act and the restitution of the rank foreseen for the next Council of Ministers.

“The next one has to be Aranguren”, wishes Colonel Narciso, who, when asked about the look and sensitivity of the Civil Guard on the Republic and the Civil War, insisted that “each person can have whatever opinion they may be”, but The Institutional Guardia Civil is defended this Wednesday by its director, Mercedes González. In her speech, she spoke of the “courage and respect for legality” of General Escobar, trained in the values ​​of the corps: “loyalty, discipline and honor.” “We give him back what he had always belonged to,” she said, a “restitution” that supposes a “posthumous last service.”

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