Antonio Tejero

Antonio Tejero Molina (born April 30, 1932 in Alhaurín el Grande , Province of Málaga ) was a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish Guardia Civil (since 1974) and in February 1981 involved in a failed coup, the so-called 23-F- Putsch.

Tejero joined the Guardia Civil in 1951 and became head of the command posts in San Sebastián , Vitoria and Málaga . He was repeatedly disciplined in the past for disobedience (including disciplinary arrest), but was also removed from his post in Málaga due to an arbitrary act. At the time of the coup attempt in February 1981, he was in command of the Third Military Region.

Operación Galaxia

On November 11, 1978 Tejero was involved in the " Operación Galaxia " conspiracy and was tried for it on May 8, 1980 before a military court and sentenced to seven months and one day of disciplinary arrest. However, there was no degradation.

Solidaridad Española

Tejero was also the founder of the right-wing party Solidaridad Española .

The 23F coup

On February 23, 1981, Tejero, accompanied by members of the Guardia Civil, entered parliament during the installation of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as head of government and established the incumbent government and the deputies. When he saw his coup fail, he surrendered and was arrested. This coup attempt is also called 23-F in Spain . Tejero was tried, sentenced to 30 years in prison for ringleadership and had to leave the Guardia Civil. In 1982 he unsuccessfully participated in the elections for a right-wing party founded under his leadership called Frente de Solidaridad de España in order to gain immunity . The party received 0.14 percent of the vote and soon ceased to exist.

From September 1993 he was placed in open detention; His sentence was suspended in December 1996 and Tejero was the last participant in the coup to be released on December 2, 1996. He lives near Málaga with his son.

In early 2006 he drew attention to himself through a letter to the editor of the newspaper Melilla Hoy , in which he criticized the Catalan Statute of Autonomy .

On October 24, 2019, now 87 years old, he took part in a protest against the reburial of the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco in Madrid.

Trivia

A scene in the 2014 Spanish animated film “ Clever & Smart on a Secret Mission” (original: Mortadelo y Filemón versus Jimmy el Cachondo ) alludes to the coup attempt . In it, Fred Clever, disguised as an officer of the Guardia Civil and clearly recognizable as Antonio Tejero, orders the candidate of a reality TV show to lie on the floor and shoots a gun twice into the ceiling of the television studio.

See also

• History of Spain

swell

• José Luis Barbería, Joaquín Prieto: Tres tramas en la sombra. In: El País . February 21, 2011 (Spanish, special article on the 30th anniversary of 23-F). 

literature

• Javier Cercas : Anatomy of a Moment . The night Spain's democracy was saved. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-10-011369-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Spanish Ministry of the Interior, election results 1982 ( Memento of the original from February 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Solidaridad Española (SE), 28,451 valid votes (0.14%) (Spanish) 
2. ↑ Malaga101: Qué fue del golpista Tejero? ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 23, 2010 (Spanish). 
3. ↑ ¿Hasta cuándo… Zapatero? ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Melilla Hoy, January 25, 2006  
4. ↑ Thomas Urban , Des dictator's very last rest , sz.de, October 24, 2019.