Federico García Lorca - Motives For Assassination

Motives For Assassination

Significant controversy remains about the motives and details of Lorca's murder. Personal, non-political motives have also been suggested. García Lorca's biographer, Stainton, states that his killers made remarks about his sexual orientation, suggesting that it played a role in his death. Ian Gibson suggests that García Lorca's assassination was part of a campaign of mass killings intended to eliminate supporters of the Marxist Popular Front. However, Gibson proposes that rivalry between the anti-communist Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) and the Falange was a major factor in Lorca's death. Former CEDA Parliamentary Deputy Ramon Ruiz Alonso arrested García Lorca at the Rosales' home, and was the one responsible for the original denunciation that led to the arrest warrant being issued.

Then I realized I had been murdered.
They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches
.... but they did not find me.
They never found me?
No. They never found me.

It has been argued that García Lorca was apolitical and had many friends in both Republican and Nationalist camps. Gibson disputes this in his 1978 book about the poet's death. He cites, for example, Mundo Obrero's published manifesto, which Lorca later signed, and alleges that Lorca was an active supporter of the Popular Front. Lorca read this manifesto out at a banquet in honour of fellow poet Rafael Alberti on 9 February 1936.

Many anti-communists were sympathetic to Lorca or assisted him. In the days before his arrest he found shelter in the house of the artist and leading Falange member Luis Rosales. Indeed, evidence suggests that Rosales was very nearly shot as well for helping García Lorca by the Civil Governor Valdes.The Basque Communist poet Gabriel Celaya wrote in his memoirs that he once found García Lorca in the company of Falangist José Maria Aizpurua. Celaya further wrote that Lorca dined every Friday with Falangist founder and leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera. On 11 March 1937 an article appeared in the Falangist press denouncing the murder and lionizing García Lorca; the article opened: "The finest poet of Imperial Spain has been assassinated." Jean-Louis Schonberg also put forward the 'homosexual jealousy' theory. The dossier on the murder, compiled at Franco's request and referred to by Gibson and others, has yet to surface. The first published account of an attempt to locate Lorca's grave can be found in British traveller and Hispanist Gerald Brenan's book 'The Face of Spain'. Despite early attempts such as Brenan's in 1949, the site remained undiscovered throughout the Francoist era.