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Ramón Serrano Suñer (12 September 1901 – 1 September 2003), was a Spanish politician during the first stages of the
Francoist dictatorship Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Sp ...
, between 1938 and 1942, when he held the posts of President of the
FET y de las JONS The Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS; ), frequently shortened to just "FET", was the sole legal party of the Francoist regime in Spain. It was created by General Francisco ...
caucus (1936), and then Interior Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. A neofalangist originally from the
CEDA The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (, CEDA), was a Spanish political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Ángel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined itself in te ...
, Serrano Suñer came to embody the most totalitarian impetus within the regime. Serrano Suñer was known for his pro-
Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
stance during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, when he supported the sending of the
Blue Division The Blue Division ( es, División Azul, german: Blaue Division) was a unit of volunteers from Francoist Spain within the German Army (''Wehrmacht'') on the Eastern Front during World War II. It was officially designated the Spanish Volunteer D ...
to fight along with the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
on the Russian front. He was also the brother-in-law of
Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...
's wife
Carmen Polo María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdés, 1st Lady of Meirás, Grandee of Spain (11 June 1900 – 6 February 1988) was the wife of the dictator, General and "''caudillo"'' Francisco Franco and is considered the most influential woman in Franco ...
, for which he was informally nicknamed ''Cuñadísimo'' or the "most brother-in-law" (in comparison, the dictator himself was styled as '' generalísimo''). Serrano Suñer was the founder of the 67,000-strong Spanish blind people's organization
ONCE Once means a one-time occurrence. Once may refer to: Music * ''Once'' (Pearl Jam song), a 1991 song from the album ''Ten'' * ''Once'' (Roy Harper album), a 1990 album by Roy Harper * ''Once'' (The Tyde album), a 2001 debut album by The Tyd ...
on 13 December 1938, as well as of the
EFE Agencia EFE, S.A. () is a Spanish international news agency, the major multimedia news agency in Spanish language and the world's fourth largest wire service after the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. EFE was created in 1939 ...
press-agency, in 1939. Serrano Suñer also founded the Radio Intercontinental radio network in 1950.


Early life

He was born Ramón Serrano Suñer in Cartagena, the fifth of seven children born to an engineer working in the
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
port of
Castellón de la Plana Castellón de la Plana (officially in ca-valencia, Castelló de la Plana), or simply Castellón ( ca-valencia, Castelló, link=no) is the capital city of the province of Castellón, in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is located in the east ...
. Although he was an excellent student, his father disapproved of his plans to become a lawyer. He enrolled at the Madrid's Central University to study law, just the same. A fellow student of
José Antonio Primo de Rivera José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 1st Duke of Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquess of Estella (24 April 1903 – 20 November 1936), often referred to simply as José Antonio, was a Spanish politician who founded the falangist Falang ...
(son of Spanish dictator
Miguel Primo de Rivera Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquess of Estella (8 January 1870 – 16 March 1930), was a dictator, aristocrat, and military officer who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during Spain's Restoration era. He deepl ...
, and founder of the Falange), he developed a taste for falangism while spending a year in
Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
. He joined the
State Lawyers Corps The State Lawyers Corps (Spanish: ''Cuerpo de Abogados del Estado'') is a body of top civil servants in Spain, dependent on the Solicitor General of the State, itself organically integrated (currently) within the Ministry of Justice. It was crea ...
in 1924. Ramón Serrano Suñer and Francisco Franco were co-brothers-in-law, since the two married two sisters: Serrano Suñer married Ramona (Zita) Polo y Martínez-Valdés, in
Oviedo Oviedo (; ast, Uviéu ) is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain and the administrative and commercial centre of the region. It is also the name of the municipality that contains the city. Oviedo is located ap ...
on 6 February 1932, whom he had met shortly after moving to Zaragoza in 1931. Franco married
Carmen Polo María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdés, 1st Lady of Meirás, Grandee of Spain (11 June 1900 – 6 February 1988) was the wife of the dictator, General and "''caudillo"'' Francisco Franco and is considered the most influential woman in Franco ...
y Martínez-Valdés in October 1923. Ramón Serrano Suñer and Zita Polo had six children: Fernando, Francisco, Jaime Javier, José, María del Pilar and Ramón Serrano-Suñer y Polo. was Ramón Serrano Suñer's illegitimate daughter by the Marquis of Llanzol's wife but he never recognized her. Not knowing they were half-siblings, Carmen and Ramón Serrano Suñer y Polo fell in love and were only prevented from marrying at the last minute. She later became the Chief of Cabinet, ranking as Secretary of State, under
Adolfo Suarez Adolfo may refer to: * Adolfo, São Paulo, a Brazilian municipality * Adolfo (designer), Cuban-born American fashion designer * Adolfo or Adolf Adolf (also spelt Adolph or Adolphe, Adolfo and when Latinised Adolphus) is a given name used in Ge ...
's right wing coalition and later as a socialist
member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
.


Early political career

Suñer was a member of the
Cortes Cortes, Cortés, Cortês, Corts, or Cortès may refer to: People * Cortes (surname), including a list of people with the name ** Hernán Cortés (1485–1547), a Spanish conquistador Places * Cortes, Navarre, a village in the South border of ...
within the group of the right-wing
CEDA The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (, CEDA), was a Spanish political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Ángel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined itself in te ...
although he did not formally join in the CEDA. Prior to the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
, he distanced himself from the CEDA and approached the
Falange Española de las JONS The Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS; ), was a fascist political party founded in Spain in 1934 as merger of the Falange Española and the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista. FE de las JON ...
but did not join it either. He had called the members of the youth wing
JAP ''Jap'' is an English abbreviation of the word "Japanese". Today, it is generally regarded as an ethnic slur. In the United States, some Japanese Americans have come to find the term very offensive, even when used as an abbreviation. Prior to t ...
to flee to the Falange in the spring of 1936. After the military coup of July 1936 and the outbreak of the civil war, he was locked in a Republican prison. He escaped in October 1936, dressed as a woman, and was then helped by the
Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
navy in getting to
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, from where he was able to reach
Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...
on 20 February 1937, where Franco was in office at the time. It was there that he could work with Franco to participate for the rebels in the civil war. In 1938, Serrano Suñer went to
Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
with Nicolás Franco, Franco's brother, probably to the 10th
Nuremberg Rally The Nuremberg Rallies (officially ', meaning ''Reich Party Congress'') refer to a series of celebratory events coordinated by the Nazi Party in Germany. The first rally held took place in 1923. This rally was not particularly large or impactful; ...
(''Reichsparteitag Grossdeutschland'' in German) of the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, to celebrate the
Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...
, the union of
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
with Germany, in March. Serrano Suñer served as Nationalist
Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
(1 February 1938 – 9 August 1939). When Franco amalgamated that ministry with the Ministry of Public Order ("Ministerio de Orden Público" in Spanish), a new name was created, the "Ministerio de la Gobernación", but the new name is now usually translated as "Ministry of the Interior". The merger was made by Franco on 9 August 1939, when Serrano Suñer became "Ministro de la Gobernación". Suñer also managed to re-elaborate the statutes of the
Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS The Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS; ), frequently shortened to just "FET", was the sole legal party of the Francoist regime in Spain. It was created by General Francisco ...
, decreasing the political power of the Secretary General in favour of a newly created office, the President of the Political Council, to which he was appointed on 9 August 1936. He felt the office of ''Gobernación'' on 16 October 1940. Just the day before, 15 October 1940, the former president of the
Generalitat of Catalonia The Generalitat de Catalunya (; oc, label=Aranese, Generalitat de Catalonha; es, Generalidad de Cataluña), or the Government of Catalonia, is the institutional system by which Catalonia politically organizes its self-government. It is formed b ...
,
Lluis Companys Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...
, had been executed by firing squad in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
. On 13 August, Companys had been handed over by the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
authorities of occupied
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
to the Spanish policeman and spy Pedro Urraca Rendueles, along with the extradition of Basque Minister of the Interior
Julián Zugazagoitia Julián Zugazagoitia Mendieta (5 February 1899, Bilbao – 9 November 1940, Madrid) was a Spanish journalist and politician. A member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, he was close to Indalecio Prieto and the editor of the '' El Socialist ...
, who had served under Republican Prime Minister
Juan Negrín Juan Negrín López (; 3 February 1892 – 12 November 1956) was a Spanish politician and physician. He was a leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) and served as finance minister and ...
. While Serrano Suñer had been Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was General
Juan Luis Beigbeder y Atienza Juan Luis Beigbeder y Atienza (31 March 1888 – 6 June 1957) was a Spanish military and political leader who held the positions of Chief of Indigenous Affairs and later High Commissioner in the Protectorate of Morocco from 1937 to 1939 then, ju ...
, formerly a Military Attaché at the Spanish Embassy
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
as an Army Commandant in 1926. Already as a colonel, he was the predecessor of Serrano Suñer as a Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs. In September 1940, the strongly pro-Axis Serrano Suñer visited Berlin to meet the German Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
to discuss how Spain might best enter the war on the Axis side.Preston, Paul "Franco and Hitler: The Myth of Hendaye 1940" pages 1-16 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 1, Issue # 1, March 1992 page 5. During the meeting, Serrano Suñer presented a "shopping list" to Ribbentrop, saying Spain wanted
Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...
from the British; all of
French Morocco The French protectorate in Morocco (french: Protectorat français au Maroc; ar, الحماية الفرنسية في المغرب), also known as French Morocco, was the period of French colonial rule in Morocco between 1912 to 1956. The prote ...
and
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
"which belonged to Spain's ''
Lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imperi ...
''"; and about
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, he said: "Geographically speaking, Portugal has no right to exist". Additionally, Serrano Suñer wanted generous promises of German military and economic support before Spain entered the war. Serrano Suñer and Ribbentrop did not get along and they soon developed an intense mutual hatred of one another. Ribbentrop told Serrano Suñer that in return for military and economic aid and allowing the return of Gibraltar, Germany wanted to annex at least one of the
Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
(Ribbentrop stated that he preferred Germany to have all of the Canaries but was prepared to be magnanimous by taking only one); that Germany be allowed air and naval bases in Spanish Morocco with extraterritorial rights; German companies to be given control of the mines in Spanish Morocco; and finally Ribbentrop wanted an economic treaty that would have turned Spain into an economic colony of Germany. For the pro-Axis Serrano Suñer, who had been expecting the Germans to treat Spain as an ally and an equal, to learn that the Germans viewed Spain as little more than a
satellite state A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbiting ...
was a great shock. During his visits to Berlin, Serrano Suñer, who had started to rethink the wisdom of Spain entering the war, was overruled by Franco, who was keen to enter the war as soon as possible on the Axis side before Britain was defeated. Franco, in his letters to Serrano Suñer, praised Hitler as a wise statesman and dismissed Ribbentrop's demands as the product of a man who failed to appreciate properly what Spain had to offer the Axis. Meanwhile, even on becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, Serrano Suñer had to accept Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Falcó, 17th Duke of Alba, as ambassador to
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, who, since November 1937 represented the rebellious Franco and, from March 1939, represented Francisco Franco until March 1945. He had been formerly a Minister of Public Instruction, later Minister of State, 1930–1931, under the dictatorship of General
Dámaso Berenguer Dámaso Berenguer y Fusté, 1st Count of Xauen (4 August 1873 – 19 May 1953) was a Spanish general and politician. He served as Prime Minister during the last thirteen months of the reign of Alfonso XIII. Biography Berenguer was born in Sa ...
. In June 1939, Serrano Suñer had been back to Italy to present
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
with the thousands of repatriated Italian soldiers who had fought by the side of Franco in Spain against the Republicans. He was appointed the 263rd
Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...
(18 October 1940 – 3 September 1942) because of his skill at building a relationship with Mussolini. Even though he was working with Franco, he objected to the increasing role of the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in Falangist politics. The two brothers-in-law had some intraparty conflicts of their own, as Serrano Suñer accused Franco of riding on a "
cult of personality A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...
", and Franco viewed Serrano Suñer as increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of his party who criticised too many of its policies.


Involvement in World War II

Just one week after Serrano Suñer was promoted to Minister of Foreign Affairs, on 23 October 1940, Franco and
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
met at the
Hendaye Hendaye (Basque language, Basque: ''Hendaia'')HENDAIA
Auñamendi Encyclopedia, Auñamendi Eusko Entz ...
railway station in France, near the Spanish border. There, Serrano Suñer met with Ribbentrop. Paul Schmidt, head interpreter of the German Chancellor, reported that Franco sat between Ribbentrop and
Walther von Brauchitsch Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch (4 October 1881 – 18 October 1948) was a German field marshal and the Commander-in-Chief (''Oberbefehlshaber'') of the German Army during World War II. Born into an aristocratic military family ...
, while Adolf Hitler sat between the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer and the Spanish Ambassador at Berlin, Eugenio Espinosa de los Monteros. However, neither the Spanish Ambassador at Berlin nor the German Ambassador at Madrid,
Eberhard von Stohrer Eberhard von Stohrer (5 February, 1883 – March 7, 1953) was a career German diplomat who served during World War I and World War II. The son of an Army General from Württemberg, he studied at Leipzig University, receiving a Doctor of Law degr ...
, were allowed at the exhaustive and inconclusive political meetings. By morning the meeting ended with no compromise. Serrano Suñer was later to say of the Hendaye summit that because of General Franco's obsession with Morocco, that if only Hitler had offered him French Morocco, then Spain would have entered the war in October 1940. Although Serrano Suñer had played a major role in establishing the Spanish state under Franco, being so influential as to be nicknamed the ''Cuñadísimo'', which translates as supreme brother-in-law (a joke on " Generalísimo"), and despite Serrano Suñer's advocating for Spain to join the Axis powers, Franco opted for Spain to remain a nonbelligerent during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Serrano Suñer's protégé, Pedro Gamero del Castillo, consulted in January 1941 with Hans Lazar, the press secretary of the German embassy, and told him that a Serrano Suñer government would commit to the Axis powers and thus asked for him to arrange for the Nazis to back his mentor publicly. However, it is unclear whether Gamero was working on his own initiative and Hitler was disappointed that Serrano Suñer had not tried harder to help Germany and called him the "gravedigger of the new Spain". To make up for that failure, Serrano Suñer proposed the
Blue Division The Blue Division ( es, División Azul, german: Blaue Division) was a unit of volunteers from Francoist Spain within the German Army (''Wehrmacht'') on the Eastern Front during World War II. It was officially designated the Spanish Volunteer D ...
of Spanish volunteers to fight with the Germans against the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
after
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
, which started on 22 June 1941. On 23 June, upon receiving the news, he met with Franco in El Pardo, and the Council of Ministers passed a resolution thereafter concerning the sending of a division of Spanish volunteers to the front. A day after, on 24 June, he declaimed his famous invective () rallying a revanchist mood during a speech delivered from the balcony of the FET-JONS headquarters. On 25 November 1941 he signed in Berlin the revision of the pact of 25 November 1936
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
Anti-Comintern Pact The Anti-Comintern Pact, officially the Agreement against the Communist International was an anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on 25 November 1936 and was directed against the Communist International (Com ...
, an anticommunist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan (later to be joined by other countries) directed against the Communist International (Comintern) or Komintern. In September 1942, following the Basilica of Begoña incident of August 1942, Serrano Suñer was forced to resign as foreign minister and president of the political council of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS.


Later life

After World War II, he wrote a persuasive letter to Franco, calling for a transitional government that would have room for intellectuals in exile. When Franco received the letter, he wrote a derisive "Ho-ho." in its margin. Serrano Suñer ultimately retired from public life in 1947. In 1949, Serrano Suñer sponsored the visit to Spain of British Fascist leader
Oswald Mosley Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...
, taking him to the tomb of José Antonio Primo de Rivera. In 1961, in the context of the
Algiers putsch The Algiers putsch (french: Putsch d'Alger or ), also known as the Generals' putsch (''Putsch des généraux''), was a failed coup d'état intended to force President of France, French President Charles de Gaulle not to abandon French Algeria, ...
against French president
Charles De Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
, Serrano Suñer was the main Spanish support to
Raoul Salan Raoul Albin Louis Salan (; 10 June 1899 – 3 July 1984) was a French Army general. He served as the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. He was one of four retired generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch op ...
during the latter's spell in Spain, and provided for Salan's transfer to Algeria so he could carry out the attempted generals' coup in April. Also by that time, Serrano operated too as a link between Salan and Portuguese dictator Oliveira Salazar, an enthusiastic supporter of Salan's putschist intentions. Serrano Suñer died on 1 September 2003 in
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, eleven days before his 102nd birthday.


References


Bibliography

* * * * * *


External links


Cien Empresarios Españoles del Siglo Veinte
Info on a book, 672 pages, by Rojo Cagigal, Juan Carlos . Azagra Ros, Joaquín Pedro . Arana Pérez, Ignacio . Echániz Ortúñez, José and others, 13 economists in total . , 2000. *''Milicia y diplomacia: los diarios del Conde de Jordana 1936-1944'', forewords and initial study by Carlos Seco Serrano. (Selección y glosas de Rafael Gómez- Jordana Prats). Burgos: Dossoles, 2002. "Colección La Valija Diplomática". 311 pp.. *Charles B. Burdick. ''Germany's Military strategy and Spain In World War II''.Syracuse Univ. Press, Syracuse, U.S.A., (1968). 228 pages. . Former American Professor Charles B. Burdick biography can be seen at:
Madrid Carmen Díez de RiveraMemorias de Carmen Diez de Rivera
* Ramón Serrano Súñer, ''Entre Hendaya y Gibraltar''. , (2011). *Pauley, Bruce F. (1981). ''Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis: A History of Austrian National Socialism'', University of North Carolina Press. . * {{DEFAULTSORT:Serrano Suner, Ramon 1901 births 2003 deaths FET y de las JONS politicians Foreign ministers of Spain Foreign relations of Spain during the Francoist dictatorship Government ministers during the Francoist dictatorship Interior ministers of Spain Members of the State Lawyers Corps Men centenarians Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Second Spanish Republic Politicians from Cartagena, Spain Spanish anti-communists Spanish centenarians Spanish people of the Spanish Civil War (National faction) Spanish propagandists World War II political leaders