Assassination of José Calvo Sotelo

The assassination of José Calvo Sotelo took place in Madrid, Spain, in the early morning of Monday 13 July 1936, during the Second Spanish Republic, when a group of Assault Guards and members of the socialist militias led by a captain of the Civil Guard in civilian clothes showed up at the home of the monarchist leader José Calvo Sotelo with the pretext of taking him to the General Directorate of Security (Spanish: Dirección General de Seguridad, DGS) and, on the way, the socialist Luis Cuenca Estevas shot him twice in the back of the head and then took his body to the morgue of the Almudena Cemetery. The crime was a reprisal for the assassination a few hours earlier of Lieutenant Castillo of the Assault Guard, who was well known for his commitment to the Socialists, whose militia he had trained. Calvo Sotelo was the most important victim and practically the last before the Spanish Civil War, of the wave of political violence that broke out in Spain after the triumph of the Popular Front in the February 1936 elections that caused 384 deaths between February and July (111 deaths were caused by leftists, 122 by rightists —half by Falangists: 61— and 84 by the forces of law and order).

The news of the assassination of Calvo Sotelo caused an enormous commotion not only because of the event itself (he was the most prominent leader of the opposition) but also because the perpetrators of the assassination were members of the security forces who had Socialist militants as assistants (one of them was Indalecio Prieto's bodyguard) and as chief the Civil Guard Captain Condés, also linked to the PSOE. However, what probably caused an even greater impact was the lack of response from the government of the Popular Front, which was led by Santiago Casares Quiroga, and of the President of the Republic, Manuel Azaña.

On the other hand, the assassination of Calvo Sotelo and its circumstances led many military men, who were still hesitant or indifferent, to join the conspiracy against the government that had been brewing since April under the leadership of General Mola which, only four days after the assassination of the monarchist leader, would lead to the coup d'état of July 1936, whose partial failure triggered the Spanish Civil War. The victors in the war proclaimed Calvo Sotelo as the "protomartyr" of their "Liberation Crusade". Monuments were erected in his honour (the most important one, located in Madrid's Plaza de Castilla, was personally inaugurated by Generalissimo Franco in 1960) and in practically all Spanish cities, a street or a square was dedicated to him. A state-owned INI company founded in 1942 was named after him.

The socialist Julián Zugazagoitia, in the immediate post-war period, wrote the following:

The conservative and military forces, organized for a long time to revolt, had been wounded. Calvo Sotelo was the civilian leader of the movement. He had imposed himself on all the men of the monarchy, over whom he had the superiority of his preparation and talent. [...] He embodied in his person the confidence not only of the monarchists, but also of more than half of the CEDA deputies...