Luis Bolín

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Luis Antonio Bolín Bidwell (also Luis Calvo Andaluz; * 1897 in Málaga , † 1969 in Madrid ) was a lawyer and journalist. During the Spanish Civil War he was the press chief of the putschists of the Unión Militar Española . 1954 to 1962 he headed the Spanish newspaper ABC .

Life

Bolín studied at the University of Granada . During the First World War he was a journalist in France. In 1921 he was with the information department of the League of Nations . From 1932 to 1936 Calvo was press attaché at the Spanish Embassy in London . His brother Manuel Bolín was married to Constancia de la Mora , who fought on the side of the Republic.

Taxi for Franco

On July 6, 1936, the editor of ABC , Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena , telephoned Bolín in London from Biarritz and instructed him to do the following:

“It is necessary that you commission a seaplane in England which is capable of flying directly from the Canary Islands to Morocco, if possible to Ceuta . A Spaniard who is called Mayorga will give you the money you need, he works in the City of London in the Kleinwort Bank . The plane must be in Casablanca next Saturday, July 11, 1936. "

- Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena July 6, 1936

With this plan, Bolín met Juan de la Cierva and Douglas Francis Jerrold at Simpson's-in-the-Strand . Bolín and de la Cierva did not find a seaplane with these characteristics. Jerrold recommended a De Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide to the aircraft charter company Olley Air Services in the London Borough of Croydon .

The original plan had to be changed. Ceuta had no airfield, which made it necessary to find another place to land and a flight route that did not include a stopover on the Spanish peninsula. To disguise the purpose of the flight, de Ciervo suggested disguising it as a pleasure trip. Two blonde women were supposed to get the authorities' attention. Jerold referred Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard, including his daughter Diana and her friend Dorothy Watson.

Pollard had officially rented the plane. In his later publications, Bolín wrote that Pollard was superficial and did not understand Spanish. The crew also included Cecil W. H. Bebb, the pilot of the Royal Air Force , George Bryers as a mechanic and a radio operator.

The aircraft with the inscription G-ACYR took off from Croydon on July 11 at 7:15 am and landed at a flooded airport near Bordeaux . De Tena got on and flew to Casablanca in French Morocco . From there de Tena wanted to go to Tangier, rent a small plane there and take Franco to Llano Amarillo on Ceuta, where a small plane could land. In order for de Tena to get a seat in the De Havilland DH.89 , the mechanic had to fly from Toulouse to Casablanca on an Air France scheduled flight . They flew on to Portugal on July 11, 1936, but had to turn back over Spain due to bad weather and landed in Biarritz . On July 12, 1936, the plane landed between Porto and Lisbon , where Bolín and de Tena spoke to José Sanjurjo . Sanjuro was supposed to lead the coup, but he hadn't organized anything from his exile in Portugal, so he could only give them encouragement. On the evening of July 12, 1936, the group flew on to Casablanca , where they landed on July 15, 1936. In Casablanca they met the mechanic again and moved into the Hotel Carlton . Pollard, the renter of the plane, instructed Bepp to get the plane ready for a flight to the Canary Islands. To which he replied that he had to overhaul the engine and that they could not fly before July 15, 1936. The radio operator had contacted airports via Spain, he was suspected of working for the Spanish government, he was accused of incompetence and drunkenness and was left with the British ambassador in Casablanca. Bolín also stayed in Casablanca. In order to allay the suspicions of the Spanish authorities, the plane stopped in Cape Juby and Ifni before landing on Gran Canaria . Nevertheless, the news of the flight had already reached the Ministry of the Interior, which ordered the aircraft to be detained.

Arrived in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria , Pollard went to Santa Cruz de Tenerife with his daughter and Dorothy Watson to bring Franco the slogan for the transfer: "Galicia saluda a Franco", which Bolín had written down for them in Casablanca Bebb and Bryers stayed in Gando. On July 16, 1936, Bebb and Bryers were arrested at their hotel and interrogated by men from Luis Orgaz Yoldi about the destination of their trip. They said they were waiting for a group of English tourists to take them back to England. On July 15, 1936, General Amado Balmes, the military commander of Las Palmas, shot himself with the service weapon. On July 17, 1936, Franco embarked on the post steamer Viera y Clavijo for Las Palmas, as the government had recommended, to investigate the incident and to attend the funeral. He arrived at eight o'clock and attended the autopsy and wake. At 12 noon Franco attended the funeral with Boix Roig, the civil governor and the chairman of the magistrate. During the afternoon he visited different neighborhoods and returned to his accommodation in the Hotel Madrid at 7pm. At this moment, the coup is more than a rumor, Antonio Boix Roig pulled the forces of the Guardia Civil and the raid squad together in the government building.

Also on July 17, 1936, General Orgaz visited Bepp again in the presence of Pollard. During interrogation, they were told that their identity had been clarified the previous day and that their passenger was already in Las Palmas.

On July 18, 1936 at 2:33 p.m. the Dragon Rapide took off with Franco towards Casablanca. Franco wore national costume and a diplomatic passport in the name of José Antonio de Sangróniz. His cousin Francisco Franco Salgado and an air traffic officer flew with him. During the first stopover in Agadir , they encountered a group of military aircraft under the orders of the government, which were flying from Cabo Juby to Spain. Franco ordered Bepp to park at the other end of the runway to avoid being recognized, from there Bebb sent an encrypted message, which informed that he had Franco on board, who did not get off the plane.

At 9:15 pm the Dragon Rapide arrived in Casablanca and they met with Bolín. Franco wanted to continue the trip, but everyone else talked it out, which is why they stayed in Casablanca. Bolín shared a room with Franco. During the day, Bolín received a call from de Tena telling him that they should not land in the international city of Tangier, as intended, as a group of armed men awaited Franco's arrival there. The destination was now the Sania Ramel Airport, Tetuán, which was controlled by Colonel Eduardo Sáenz de Buruaga. Shortly beforehand, the airport was still under the command of Ricardo de la Puente Bahamonde, Franco's first cousin loyal to the Republic. On July 19, 1936, they landed at Sania Ramel Airport, Tetuán .

Bomber for Guernica

On July 21, 1936, Franco Bolín and Marqués sent Luca de Tena to Rome. In Bolín's pocket was a sheet of paper from the officers' mess at Tetuan airport, on which Franco had hurriedly written: "I am hereby urgently instructing Don Luis Antonio Bolín in England, Germany or Italy to buy planes and supplies for the non-Marxist Spanish army". In Rome Bolín sought with financing of Juan March in Benito Mussolini to Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 as the Bombing of Guernica were involved in. As the press chief of the putschists of the Unión Militar Española , Bolín had Arthur Koestler arrested in early 1937 and threatened “K. like shooting a mad dog ” Bolín let it be known about the bombing of Guernica that the“ Reds ”themselves (meaning the Basque Republicans) had set Guernica on fire. From February 1938 to May 6, 1945 Bolín was director of the Spanish State Tourist Office. From 1942 to 1952, Bolín was part of the Spanish Congress as Jefe del Sindicato Nacional de Hostelería y Similares .

In 1938 Calvo returned to London as a correspondent for the ABC newspaper . On February 12, 1942, Calvo was arrested in Bristol at the foot of the gangway of the plane with which he came from Lisbon. Calvo admitted in "Camp 020" to work for the defense . Until mid-1944, Calvo continued to deliver reports to Germany that were written to him by MI6 . He was interned and deported to Spain in 1945 on the initiative of the Vatican. 

Director of the ABC

From 1954 to 1962 Luis Calvo Andaluz was director of the ABC . Together with Luca de Tena, Calvo belonged to the close circle of friends of Juan Perón in his exile in Spain from 1958 to 1973, which is why the name Luis Calvo was named as a co-author in the Perón biography, Yo, Juan Domingo Perón , Buenos Aires, published in 1976 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Simpson's-in-the-Strand in the English language Wikipedia
  2. Monumento del Llano Amarillo in the Spanish language Wikipedia
  3. Cisneros, I. Change of course, 1961 p.112 (original title: Cambio de Rumbo)
  4. Mora Constancia de la: Double gloss, 1940 p.267
  5. El dia 03/08/2008 Manuel Vázquez Moro, último gobernador civil de la II República
  6. ^ Robert H. Whealey: Hitler And Spain
  7. Manfred Funke: Hitler, Germany and the Powers: Materials for the Foreign Policy of the Third Reich
  8. Who bombed Guernica? In: Die Zeit , No. 5/1973
  9. Members of the Congress BOLIN BIDWELL, LUIS ANTONIO
  10. ^ Latchmere House (HM Prison) in the English language Wikipedia
  11. Michael Alpert : Españoles al servicio de Berlin, Espías de verbena ( Memento from June 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 28 kB)
  12. Luis CALVO ANDALUZ in: The National Archives
  13. Ladislas Farago : The Game of the Foxes: The Untold Story of German Espionage in the United States and Great Britain During World War II . New York 1971
  14. dialnet.unirioja.es