Gonzalo de Aguilera Munro
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Nationalist factionGonzalo de Aguilera Munro | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 26 December 1886 |
| Died | 15 May 1965 (aged 78) |
| Allegiance | Nationalist faction |
| Branch | Spanish Army |
| Rank | Lieutenant-Colonel |
| Conflicts | Spanish Civil War |
Gonzalo de Aguilera Munro, 11th Conde de Alba de Yeltes (26 December 1886 – 15 May 1965) was a Spanish aristocrat and military officer who served with the nationalist faction of the Spanish Army during the Spanish Civil War. He served as the press officer for General Francisco Franco and General Emilio Mola. He inherited the title of El XI Conde de Alba de Yeltes (English: The 11th Count of Alba de Yeltes) in 1919.
Gonzalo de Aguilera Munro was born in Madrid on 26 December 1886, the son of Lieutenant Colonel Agustín Aguilera y Gamboa, 10th Conde de Alba de Yeltes, an officer in the Spanish Cavalry. His mother, Mary Munro, was Scottish. He was educated in England, first at Wimbledon College and then at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit public school in Lancashire where his father had been a pupil.[1]
It is alleged that Gonzalo carried out many atrocities during the Spanish Civil War.[2]: 3, 10, 103–104, 148 At the outbreak of the war, according to his own account, the Conde de Alba de Yeltes lined up the labourers on his estate and shot six of them as a lesson to the others.[3]
As the press officer of the nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War, de Alba de Yeltes worked with war correspondents covering the war, including Sefton Delmer, Arnold Lunn and Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker.[4] In this capacity, he openly articulated and defended the White Terror against the entire working class, as in these classicidal statements he made to journalist John T. Whitaker:[5]
We have to kill, kill, you know? They are like animals, you know, and we cannot expect them to get rid of the virus of Bolshevism. After all, rats and lice are the carriers of the plague. Now I hope you understand what we mean by the regeneration of Spain... Our program consists... of exterminating one third of the male population of Spain. That would cleanse the country and get rid of the proletariat. And it is also economically convenient. There will be no more unemployment in Spain, do you understand?
He also told the American reporter Hubert R. Knickerbocker:[6]
We are going to execute fifty thousand people in Madrid. And it doesn’t matter where [President] Azaña and [Prime Minister] Largo Caballero or the rest of them try to escape to, because even if it takes us years hunting them down around the entire world, we’ll catch them and kill every last one of them... What you fail to understand is that any stupid democrat, or whatever they want to call themselves, blindly serves the goals of the red revolution. All democrats are slaves of Bolshevism. Hitler is the only one who knows how to recognize a Red when he sees one... We must destroy the brood of red schools that the so-called Republic set up to teach slaves to rebel. The masses only need to read enough to understand orders. We must restore the authority of the Church. The slaves need it to teach them how to behave... It’s deplorable that women vote. No one should vote, least of all women... In our state, people will have the freedom to keep their mouths shut.
After the war, he broke ties with the Franco regime when he made it clear to the dictator that he had fought for the monarchy and expected the king to return.[citation needed] He retired to his large estate in Salamanca, where he continued writing and annotating every book in his extensive library.
As he got older, the Conde seemed to suffer increasingly from mental instability. On 26 August 1964, he shot dead his two adult sons Gonzalo and Agustín in the family mansion near Salamanca, aged 47 and 39.[2]: 527 He was subsequently incarcerated in an asylum in Salamanca, where he died the following year, having never stood trial for this murder.[2]: 527–528 [7] As a result, his title of Count of Alba de Yeltes was passed directly to his granddaughter, Marianela de la Trinidad de Aguilera y Lodeiro.
