MadridUpdated:
‘Las Palmas, starting point’, pointed out the ABC headline. The report, published on July 18, 1962, recalled what the hours before the coup d’état were like with which Franco, Mola and company started the Civil War 16 years earlier. That article mentioned the room of the Hotel Madrid where the future dictator spent his last night and in whose bed, moved by curiosity, famous film directors such as John Huston and Robert Zemeckis and Hollywood stars such as Gregory Peck, Uma Thurman or Brad Pitt himself have rested since then, who He even wanted to immortalize the moment with a photograph.
The Galician general stayed in room number 3 of this 20th-century establishment located in Alameda de Colón, which still has its beautiful modernist façade.
It was designed by Rafael Massanet y Faus and maintains its airy balconies with black balustrades and the usual yellow and white color of the time. It is still the oldest accommodation in the city and, during those years, it was one of the most reputable and famous places to stay on the island.
The room occupied by Franco was, specifically, on the first floor. His door still remains intact. It even opens with the same old metal key. The same goes for the bed, the wall light, the built-in wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the mirror and the elegant bronze chandelier that hangs from the chest, which are the same ones that the general saw that night he spent communicating with the rest of the rebel generals and preparing his trip to Morocco in the Dragon Rapide plane, with the aim of leading the insurrection.
The most curious thing about this room is that there are not a few politicians who, when they pass through the city, take the opportunity to visit it. This is the case of the former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pasqual Maragall, who was photographed inside, and José Bono, who has visited it on numerous occasions, taking some visitors there and also photographing himself there. The former socialist minister, in addition, explained at the time to the current owners of the business that they had the obligation to preserve it, arguing that the room was part of our past and helped keep alive the chronology of the events that occurred that special day.
+ infothe hours before
This is how those ABC detailed them: «Franco arrived in Las Palmas, from Tenerife, on July 17, to preside over the funeral of General Amado Balmes, military governor of Gran Canaria, who had died the day before when a pistol was fired at him in the field shooting of the Isleta […]. Dismissal of the duel, Franco moved to the rooms that he was to occupy in the Madrid hotel during his stay in the city. […] That night the civil governor of Las Palmas [el socialista Antonio Boix] He received an urgent phone call from Madrid: a military movement had broken out in North Africa and he was asking for news regarding public order in the province. He answered the governor himself that the tranquility was absolute ».
The future leader also reserved room number 11 for his wife, Carmen Polo, and his daughter, Carmen Franco, who were traveling with him, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Franco Salgado-Araujo, the military legal commander Lorenzo Martínez Fuset and four plainclothes officers who They were his escort. This was later reinforced by rumors of a possible attack on his person during Balmes’s funeral, such as the attempt he had suffered three days earlier at the Tenerife Military Command, organized by the anarchist leader Antonio Vidal. This was the one that came closest to ending him, since the authors were one meter from this other general’s room until they heard him shout: “Help, gunmen!” And they ran away.
In the end, there were no threats at the aforementioned funeral, which took place at noon on July 17. In the book
‘The great mistake of the Republic’ (Crítica, 2021), Ángel Viñas assures that Franco sent General Luis Orgaz to request three Italian passports from the consul of that country, Ruggero Martin, but that at three that same afternoon they told the fascist official that they were no longer necessary. In the afternoon, he reportedly met at the Hotel Madrid and in the adjoining cafe with some officials from Las Palmas. Other historians point out that he later had dinner with Salgado-Araujo, who was also his cousin, and Martínez Fuset. He then went to bed.
+ info“Arrest Franco, dead or alive”
“A group of excited officials from the telegraphic center of Las Palmas –recalled ABC below–. They were led by a certain Camino, who proposed to the civil governor the arrest of General Franco, who at that time was resting in his rooms at the Madrid hotel. The governor did not consider this measure “wise or feasible.” Orders were sent to the labor leaders and instructions were given to concentrate the Civil Guard and organize the defense of their barracks. At dawn, new dispatches from Madrid specified an order: ‘Arrest Franco, dead or alive’».
During that night, the general received a telegram announcing the uprising in Melilla. At 5:15 in the morning, from his room at the Hotel Madrid, he sent the following message to the rebels: «Glory to the heroic Army of Africa. Spain especially. Receive the enthusiastic greeting of these garrisons, who join you and other fellow Peninsulars in these historic moments. Blind faith in victory. Long live Spain with honor. General Frank.” However, as at that time he was still Commander General of the Canary Islands, based in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, he preferred to send him from this city and not from Las Palmas, where he was actually following, to make believe that he was in the position of the.
Franco’s departure from Las Palmas was a carefully organized operation. On the morning of July 18, he woke up in his room at the Hotel Madrid and went to the San Telmo pier dressed in civilian clothes so as not to arouse suspicion. From there they took him to the tugboat España II, to move to the bay of Gando, where the Dragon Rapide was waiting for him with its engines running. That same day, the uprising spread throughout Spain. The Government of the Second Republic, overwhelmed, decided to deliver arms and ammunition to the parties and to the workers and revolutionary organizations. They called it “Arming the people.” The greatest tragedy experienced in Spain throughout contemporary history began, with half a million dead and another half million displaced.
www.abc.es
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism