José Antonio Aguirre Lecube (Bilbao, March 6, 1904–Paris, March 22, 1960) was a Spanish political figure. He assumed the position of first lehendakari or president of Euskadi during the Spanish Civil War. He was determined to create a Basque Army to fight on the side of the Republic. Geography > Europe > Spain > Basque Country > Biscay Cityscape of Bilbao, with the Guggenheim Museum on the bottom right Bilbao (Basque: Bilbo) is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Pais Vasco and the capital of the province of Vizcaya (Basque: Bizkaia). ... March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). ... 1904 is a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... March 22 is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (82nd in Leap years). ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Kingdom of Spain or Spain (Spanish and Galician: Reino de España or España; Catalan: Regne dEspanya; Basque: Espainiako Erresuma) is a country located in the southwest of Europe. ... The President of the Basque Country is referred to as Lehendakari (literally, firstlier) in Basque, or Eusko Jaurlaritzako Lehendakari (President of the Basque Government); the Spanish title is Presidente del Gobierno Vasco. ... President is a title held by many leaders of organizations, companies, universities, and countries. ... Basque Country (Basque Euskadi, Spanish País Vasco) is an autonomous community of Spain whose capital is Vitoria (Basque Gasteiz). ... Alternative meaning: Spanish Civil War, 1820-1823 A republican soldier seeks cover on the Plaza de Toros in Teruel, east of Madrid. ... Eusko Gudarostea was the name of the Basque national army during the Spanish civil war. ...

A former player in the Athletic Bilbao football team, a student at Deusto University and militant of the EAJ-PNV party, before becoming Basque president he was mayor of the Biscayne locality of Getxo. His main characteristic was loyalty to the Second Spanish Republic. He knew that the future of Euskadi was dependent on a Republican victory. Athletic Club de Bilbao are a Basque football club from Bilbao in Vizcaya. ... The Basque Nationalist Party is a political party in the Basque region of Spain. ... Flag of the Spanish Republics. ...

He formed a Government of concentration in that nationalists, republican, Socialists, Communists and other sectors were present, not without tensions among them. The Gernika oak is a symbol of Basque freedoms. ... The Spanish Socialist Workers Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español or PSOE) is one of the main parties of Spain. ... PCE may stand for: Parametric cost estimation Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (New Zealand) Partial chemical equilibrium Partial Compliance Evaluation (EPA) Partido Comunista de España (Communist Party of Spain, pce. ...

Battalions of different ideologies formed the Basque Army, which reflected the state of the Government. Badly armed and barely trained, the Eusko Gudarostea managed to mobilize 100,000 soldiers. One of the most pressing deficiencies, that unbalanced the odds, was the absence of heavy artillery and aviation. Famous are the desperate calls of Aguirre to his allies Prieto and Azaña to send equipment to Euskadi. Historians agree that this action was nonviable due to the difficulty in breaking the siege that Biscay was put under. Vizcaya (Basque Bizkaia) is a province of northern Spain, in the northwestern part of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. ...

In June 1937, the nationalists broke through the Iron Belt of Bilbao and entered the Basque capital thanks to the defection of the engineer Goicoechea, who had designed the fortifications. Aguirre transferred his Government to Trucíos before maintaining course to Santander later to march to Catalonia, where he arranged to continue fighting with his men for the Republic. In the meantime, the nationalistic leader Juan de Ajuriaguerra agreed to a surrender in Santoña (now in Cantabria) to the Italians (Pact of Santoña) that Franco did not respect, all behind the back of Aguirre, who was in favor of continuing the conflict. Capital Santander Area  - Total  - % of Spain Ranked 15th 5 321 km² 1. ... The Corpo Truppe Volontarie (Division of Volunteer Troops) was an Italian expeditionary force which was sent to Spain when Franco during the Spanish Civil War. ...

But events superceded the efforts of the first lehendakari in history, who fled to France after the war, being pursued for years by pro-Franco agents, leading to an incredible exile that took him to Paris, Berlin, and New York.

Aguirre, from Guernica to New York.

Aguirre went first to France, where organized the camps and services with him heading it personally. He was in Belgium when Hitler occupied that country and so he started a long travel to Berlin under a false identity. Under the protection of a Panamanian ambassador, he reached Sweden and, dodging SS German intelligence, he arrived in Brazil on the ship Vasaholm to the port of Río de Janeiro on August 27 of 1941, the Brazilian customs authorities registered that Panamanian Doctor José Álvarez Lastra and Venezuelan María de Arrigorriaga, the last companied by their sons José and Gloria, entered the country. They didn't suspect that they were José Antonio Aguirre, his wife María Zabala and their sons Aintzane and Joseba escaping the long Nazi arm. But in spite of the intense efforts made by Manuel de Ynchausti in the United States, the difficulties remostrated by the English consul Ralph Stevenson around the impossibility of entering with a name and leaving with another, it seemed far from being solved. While after a month his true personality was in danger of being discovered. The French Republic or France (French: République française or France) is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents. ... The Kingdom of Belgium (Dutch: Koninkrijk België, French: Royaume de Belgique, German: Königreich Belgien) is a country in Western Europe, bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, France, and the North Sea. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... Berlin (pronounced: , German ) is the capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,387,404 inhabitants (as of September 2004); down from 4. ... For other uses of the abbreviation SS, see SS (disambiguation) The Schutzstaffel (Protective Squadron), or SS, was a large paramilitary organization that belonged to the Nazi party. ... August 27 is the 239th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (240th in leap years), with 126 days remaining. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

He wrote then to Ramón María de Aldasoro, former Counseler of Intendency and Comerce of the Basque government, who leaded the Euzkadi Delegation in Buenos Aires. This representation, integered by Isaac López Mendizabal, Santiago Cunchillos and Pablo Artzanko, had arrived to America on November 1938. But the efforts made by Aldasoro didn't succeed under an authorities that had yet undisimuled sympathy for the European "New Order". Buenos Aires (Good Winds in Spanish, but more akin to Fair Winds, as in navigation) is the capital of Argentina and its largest city and port, as well as one of the largest cities in South America. ... 1938 was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Seeing it, Aguirre went to Uruguay and there asked to a reduced group of Basque patriots what Argentine denied. The Uruguayan president general Alfredo Baldomir not only was willing to do it but to recive him with the honors corresponding to his hight dignity. Six men movilized the political personalities there not only to get safety but to remove the awake the consciences of the diaspora, dormant cause the Francoist propaganda. Culminated the arrangements, the public annoncement of the arrive of the president would be made on Octobre 8, when the Montevidean newspapers informed widely about his arrival and his biographical whereabouts. A little delegation integrated by congressional representatives Julio Iturbide and Juan Domingo Uriarte went to the Brazilian city of Río Grande do Sul accompanied by its Uruguayan consul, to accompany him in his last stage of his travel. {PD|Lehendakari Aguirre and family at his arrival to Uruguayan borders. ...

His personality was reinstated and given visa to New York, where he stablished under the protection of American-Basques as teacher of Columbia University. When the United States decided to back Franco in 1952 he went to France anew where the Basque Government in exile was established. Also there he encountered that the pro-Nazi French government of Vichy confiscated the Basque Government building and De Gaulle maintained it under the Franco government possession, building that today is the Instituto Cervantes premises, in a joke of destiny. Anyway the president of the government in exile was always a PNV member and even the Spanish sole representant in the United Nations was the Basque appointee Jesús de Galíndez until his murder in a obscure episode in the time of the Spanish entry in the United Nations. He also decided to put the big Basque exilees network at the service of the Allied side and collaborated with the US Secretary of State and the CIA along the Cold War to fight Communism in Latin America. The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America, the States, or (archaically) Columbia—is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... Vichy France (French: now called Régime de Vichy or Vichy; called itself at the time État Français, or French State) was the French state of 1940-1944 which was a puppet government under Nazi influence, as opposed to the Free French Forces, based first in London and later in Algiers. ... Portrait of General Charles de Gaulle. ... The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization made up of 191 states established in 1945. ... In general, allies are people or groups that have joined an alliance and are working together to achieve some common purpose. ... CIA, see CIA (disambiguation). ... The Cold War ( 1947- 1991) was the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between groups of nations practicing different ideologies and political systems. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ...

Jose Antonio Aguirre y Lecube died on March 22, 1960 of a heart attack. His body was shipped from Paris to Saint-Jean-de-Luz where it spent a night in the Monzón house. He was buried on March 28 after a funeral mass at the Saint Jean parish church. March 22 is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (82nd in Leap years). ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... A myocardial infarction occurs when an atherosclerotic plaque slowly builds up in the inner lining of a coronary artery and then suddenly ruptures, totally occluding the artery and preventing blood flow downstream. ... Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Basque Donibane Lohitzun) is a commune of the Pyr es-Atlantiques d partement in France. ... March 28 is the 87th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (88th in Leap years). ... Underwater funeral in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea A funeral is a ceremony marking a persons death. ... Mass is a property of physical objects that, roughly speaking, measures the amount of matter they contain. ...

Influence

His life was the subject of a Soule folk play (pastoral), Aguirre presidenta ("The president Aguirre"). Categories: France geography stubs | Basque | Zuberoa ...

External links

• Basque Nationalist Party. (http://www.eaj-pnv.com/)