Juan March

Joan March Ordinas

Juan March Ordinas (born October 4, 1880 in Santa Margalida , † March 10, 1962 in a car accident near Las Rozas de Madrid ) was a Spanish entrepreneur and banker.

biography

March comes from a farming family with tight economic conditions. He studied at the Franciscan College of Pont d'Inca ( Marratxí ). He was the son of a cattle dealer who, from an early age, showed imagination in developing business opportunities. His economic activities were widespread, including the pig trade, property trade, tobacco growing, power generation, tram operators, seafaring, coastal shipping, newspaper publishers.

March was married to Leonor Servera Melis (1888-1957). In this marriage, Juan March Servera (1906–1973) and Bartolomé March Servera (1917–1998) were born. His wife Leonor Servera Melis, daughter of a politician from Manacor , connected him to the bank, which made his start-up capital available to him.

Majorcan pig trade

The origin of his fortune lay in the pig trade. He used the profits to buy land on Mallorca and later devoted himself to smuggling : He obtained products from North Africa and Gibraltar , which were sold on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. His fortune grew under the reign of Alfonso XIII. In 1906 he turned to tobacco growing and bought shares in a tobacco factory in Algeria . In 1911 he had a monopoly on Moroccan and Spanish tobacco with the Compañía Internacional de Tabacos de Marruecos . He invested in power generation in the Balearic and Canary Islands . In Palma he was a tram operator. From 1911 he had the Villa March built in Cala Rajada . In 1916 he founded the Compañía Transmediterránea with a capital of 100 million pesetas , which operated a few ships and maintained the sea connection between the Balearic Islands and Morocco and coastal shipping along the Spanish east coast.

Blockade breakers in the First World War

During the First World War, March broke through the blockade with contraband and supplied ships to both warring parties. In 1923 March was elected a member of the Cortes por Mallorca for the left-wing liberal party in the Santiago Alba constituency. In 1926 he founded Banca March and had amassed the second largest financial fortune of a single person. When the second Spanish republic was founded in 1931, March was arrested and charged with collaborating with the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera . He was imprisoned in Cárcel Modelo de Madrid in June 1932 and transferred to Alcalá de Henares prison in 1933 . He managed to flee to Gibraltar , where he found asylum because of his work with MI6 .

Putsch of the Unión Militar Española

March was in exile in Rome in July 1936 . He played a significant role in the financing of the coup of 17 and 18 July 1936. The flight of Francisco Franco from Las Palmas to Tetouan was - with active involvement of the British major and later head of MI6 at the British Embassy in Madrid Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard - co-organized through his ABC newspaper . The flight was planned by Luis Bolín , ABC correspondent in London, and Douglas Francis Jerrold . Jerrold rented the plane. March invested £ 1 million in the first 12 Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 and Caproni Ca.306 aircraft for part of the transfer of Franco's Moroccan mercenaries to Spain. March's investment in the coup was 600 million pesetas.

Compañía Española de Petróleos SA

In 1939 March controlled 75 percent of Compañía Española de Petróleos SA (CEPSA), which operated the most productive Spanish oil refinery on Santa Cruz de Tenerife . Crude oil from the USA, Venezuela and Romania was refined there. CEPSA had a monopoly on oil sales in the Canary Islands, in Spanish Morocco and on re-export to Campsa . The High Command of the Navy of the German Reich tried to secure the fuel supply for its submarines and destroyers . During the First World War, the consul Jakob Ahlers was the submarine gas station attendant on Santa Cruz de Tenerife . Since the operation was carried out undercover, March agreed to serve as a front man in a 25 million pesetas operation. At a later point in time, the shares bought by March were to be transferred to Reich property. Financing came from the Sparpeseten reptile fund .

Second World War

After September 1, 1939, March agreed to serve the representatives of the German Reich for leasing the German ships that were in Spanish ports at the beginning of the war. In 1940 there was such a close cooperation with the German sea captain Gerhard Wagner (Admiral) (1898–1987) in the so-called "Wagner Action" in which strategically important war raw materials were brought to Germany and with the German deliveries of weapons, mercenaries and transport services as part of the suppression of the Spanish Republic in the years from 1936 onwards.

Robert Solborg (* 1893) from the Office of Strategic Services and US military attaché in Lisbon from 1942 to 1945, reported that the British government of Winston Churchill bought 30 generals of the Franco regime in 1941 to prevent Spain from entering the Second World War . The transfers to the military were processed through the Banca March . March should convince them and distribute the commission of the equivalent of 10 million United States dollars .

Transición Española

In February 1948, March acquired under dubious circumstances, the power stations of Barcelona ( Barcelona Traction ), which 10 million pounds were worth, for about half a million pounds. From 1944, March promoted Don Juan de Borbón , who had turned to the Allies, as heir to the Spanish throne. He also invested in newspapers and political parties. In 1955, following the example of the Rockefeller Foundation or the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Fundación Juan March for the advancement of science and culture was funded with 300 million pesetas (1.5 million United States dollars ) and at his death 2,000 million pesetas (12 million US dollars). Today it has sculptures and picture collections, research institutes, libraries, awards research prizes and research grants and promotes cultural activities.

Juan March died of the consequences of a car accident that occurred on February 25, 1962 in Las Rozas de Madrid .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article at elmundo.es of June 6, 2008, accessed on September 20, 2010
2. ^ Robert H. Whealey Hitler And Spain Page 12
3. ^ Christian Leitz Economic Relations Between Nazi Germany and Franco's Spain Page 120
4. ^ Stanley G. Payne Franco and Hitler Page 70
5. ↑ El País , October 5, 2008, Banquero de varios bandos  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )
6. ↑ Televisió de Catalunya Joan March, los negocios de la guerra ( Memento of May 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
7. ^ Fundación Juan March

literature

• Manuel de Benavides: El último pirata del mediterraneo . Tipografía Cosmos, Barcelona 1934.
• Ramon Garriga: Juan March y su tiempo . Ed. Planeta, Barcelona, ​​1976.
• Bernardo Diaz Nosty: La Irresistible ascensión de Juan March . SEDMAY ediciones, Madrid 1977.
• Pere Ferrer Guasp: Juan March. Los inicios de un imperio financiero, 1900-1924 . Palma de Mallorca 2001.
• Pere Ferrer Guasp: Joan March, la cara oculta del poder . Edicions Cort, Palma-Illes Balears 2004.

Web links

• Newspaper article about Juan March in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .