Melchor Rodríguez García

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In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Rodríguez and the second or maternal family name is García.
Rodríguez in 1936
Commemorative tilework in the house where Melchor Rodríguez García was born, in Triana, Seville.

Melchor Rodríguez García (also known as El Ángel Rojo - Red Angel; 1893, —14 February 1972) was a Spanish politician, a notable anarcho-syndicalist, and the head of prison authorities in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. He was the last Mayor of Madrid before the Francoist forces took over the city.[1]

Biography[]

Born in Seville, he started his career as a worker. During the times of the Second Spanish Republic he joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo union and became the head of one of its trade unions. After the outbreak of the Civil War, on 5 December 1936, Juan García Oliver appointed Rodríguez García director of the prisons[2] of Madrid, as one of the anarchists to be accepted into the government for their support of the republicans. At that post, he was responsible not only for the upkeep of the prisoners and prevention of escapes, but more importantly for prevention of lynching, proposed by numerous members of various militias.

The society of besieged Madrid reacted with violence towards the imprisoned nationalists after particularly bloody bombardments or after the press reporting of the nationalist treatment of captured republicans. The most notable of such massacres happened after the air raid on Alcalá de Henares air base in December 1936. A group of protesters, some of whom were armed, arrived at one of Madrid's prisons, stormed the gates and demanded that the cells be opened and the nationalist prisoners be handed to the crowd. Rodríguez appeared in the prison, ordered the crowd to disperse and even announced that he would rather give arms to the prisoners than hand them over to the mob. Among the saved prisoners were notable football player Ricardo Zamora and several political leaders of the Falange Española such as Rafael Sánchez Mazas, Ramón Serrano Súñer, Valentín Galarza Morante and Raimundo Fernández-Cuesta.

During his term in office, Melchor Rodríguez García also revealed that José Cazorla Maure, a counsellor of state security of the Council of Defence of Madrid organized a net of private, illegal prisons run by the Communist Party of Spain.[3] Later in the war he became one of Madrid's counsellors himself, on behalf of the Iberian Anarchist Federation. After the fall of Madrid in 1939, he officially passed the office to the new Francoist authorities.

After the fall of the Republic, Melchor Rodríguez was tried for his wartime past by the nationalists. Due to the favourable testimony of many former prisoners, the court martial commuted life sentence to 20 years of imprisonment, he was released 5 years later. He continued to be involved in the clandestine anarchist movement during the dictatorship. He died in 1972.

References[]

  1. ^ "Sí se ha aprobado por unanimidad, también a propuesta de Ciudadanos, dedicar una calle al anarquista Melchor Rodríguez García, el último alcalde de Madrid republicano, ante "el gran consenso social y político" al respecto y por "su gran relevancia para la reconciliación y la concordia tras la Guerra Civil". El País. Madrid sustituirá las calles franquistas por víctimas del terrorismo
  2. ^ Beevor 2006, p. 173
  3. ^ Beevor 2006, p. 260

Sources[]

Beevor, Antony (2006). The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-303765-X.

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