August 17, 1936: Beheading of López de Ochoa

It happened on the very day that General Fanjul was shot in the courtyard of the Modelo jail, after having been granted permission to marry his lover, Luisa Aguado Cuadrillero. A nearly happy ending, by contrast with the fate of López de Ochoa, a Republican general and a Mason, who a group of militiamen captured in pajamas and slippers and dragged out in the hustle from the Carabanchel Military Hospital, where his friend General Pozas, Minister of War, had admitted him to protect him from those who blamed him for the repression in Asturias.

— Sick, you? Cut the chatter and move, or else we’ll come and you’ll slip away —exclaimed a militiaman.

Several members of the CNT had gone to the hospital’s prisoner pavilion. Everyone knew that López de Ochoa had been attempted to be removed from there days earlier, completely bandaged, by his friends. Unfortunately for him he was discovered, and the news provoked public outrage. Outside the hospital a shouting mob waited. The uproar drew many onlookers to the hospital doors, among them Rosa and Inés, Pepe Mañas’s cousins, who saw them pass in front of the shop.

—What are they going to do with this man? Where are they taking him?

They both followed those pushing that sick man, still in pajamas. López de Ochoa kept his head held high amid the insults. The night was clear. They carried him to the top of the Cerro de Almodóvar, fifty meters from the hospital. In the open ground, four militiamen in shirt sleeves stood before him, loaded their Mauser rifles, and pressed them against his chest.

—Couldn’t you at least have let me dress, you wretches?

The general cast a disdainful, tired glance at the crowd. “Kill him once and for all!” someone shouted. Among the mob, the leader felt compelled to justify his action.

—Today you die for being one of the butchers of Asturias.

—That’s it! Death to the butchers of Asturias! Death to the executioners!

The platoon’s volley unleashed cries of joy. The mob’s bloodlust rose as, with the body tilting forward, it soaked the ground. The leader stepped closer with a pistol to finish him off, but seeing that it wasn’t necessary he spared the shot. Rosa and Inés stood on tiptoe to get a better view of what was happening.

—There’s a true butcher. They’re going to cut off his head!

Amidst the morbid excitement, a nurse from the hospital handed a large knife to a militiaman who knelt to sever the head of the dead man with practiced movements, handling the body so that blood wouldn’t splatter. With two or three sharp blows, and after wresting with the spine, the hardest part, he gave one final yank. Keeping his foot on the dead man’s chest, he lifted the head by the hair.

—This is how the butchers of Asturias end! Someone fetch a pike! Let’s parade him through Madrid!

The head, bloodied and separated from the body, stared at them all with wide-open eyes.

All the entries for 1936 day by day

Interview with José Ángel Mañas about 1936 day by day