José Ibáñez Martín (18 December 1896 in Valbona, Aragon – 21 December 1969 in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

) was a Spanish politician who was a long-serving member of the Cabinet of Francisco Franco. From 1939 to 1967 he also served as President of the Spanish National Research Council.

Biography

A supporter of Miguel Primo de Rivera, 2nd Marquis of Estella in his youth, Ibáñez Martín served as a deputy for the

Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right 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 ...

(CEDA). He was a leading member of the ''Asociación Católica Nacional de Propagandistas'' (ANCP), the propaganda movement that formed the basis for the Catholic monarchist party Popular Action. Thrwoing his lot in with the Nationalist side in 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, link ...

, he became staunchly loyal to Francisco Franco, to the point where critics accused him of sycophancy, and he even compared Franco to Fernán González of Castile due to ''El Caudillo'' founding a "new Spain". However Ibáñez Martín spent most of the civil war out of the country as Franco had despatched him to

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

with a mission to promote the Nationalist cause amongst the Spanish-speaking people there. Appointed as Minister of Education in succession to Pedro Sainz Rodríguez in 1939, a post he held until 1951, Ibáñez Martín oversaw the dismantling of the republican education system and its replacement with one based largely on the values and ideas of the

Roman 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 ...

. Highly reactionary in his Catholicism, Ibáñez Martín was impressed by

Josemaría Escrivá Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (9 January 1902 – 26 June 1975) was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest. He founded Opus Dei, an organization of laypeople and priests dedicated to the teaching that everyone is called to holiness ...

and as Minister of Education in the early 1940s he ensured that members of Opus Dei would no longer be hindered in the efforts to obtain teaching posts at universities, a move that helped the organisation grow considerably in power. Although not a member of Opus Dei Ibáñez Martín felt a bond to the movement due to his close friendship with José María Albareda, the two having met during the civil war whilst sheltering in the

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an embassy in

. He enjoyed a growth in influence in the immediate aftermath of the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

as Franco sought to trim his cabinet of anybody who had declared support for the

Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

. As a result, Ibáñez Martín was given control over the press as well as retaining his role as Education Minister. His decision to rejoin to the ANCP in 1944, at the time somewhat controversial, had thus in fact helped his prospects as there had been little common ground between the monarchists and the pro-

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

wings of Franco's movement.Paul Preston, ''The Politics of Revenge: Fascism and the Military in Twentieth-Century Spain'', Routledge, 1995, p. 118 Ibáñez Martín was the Spanish ambassador to

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 ...

from 1958 to 1969.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibanez Martin, Jose 1896 births 1969 deaths Education ministers of Spain Spanish monarchists Spanish Roman Catholics Ambassadors of Spain to Portugal Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Second Spanish Republic