Teodomiro Menéndez Fernández ( Oviedo, 1879 –

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 ...

, 1978) was a

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politician and

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syndicalist.

Biography

Teodomiro Menéndez Fernández was born in Oviedo in 1879. He began to work at a very early age in the Weapons Factory of La Vega (Oviedo) obtaining his training attending to the classrooms of the University Extension ovetense. He started his career in politics by running for election to Oviedo City Hall in 1911. He was elected

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. In 1919 he was elected deputy for the

Cortes Generales The Cortes Generales (; en, Spanish Parliament, lit=General Courts) are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house), and the Senate (the upper house). The Congress of Deputies meet ...

(''Spanish parliament''). In 1917, as head of the railroad

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, he promoted a railway

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in Asturias. After the strike was crushed by the

army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

, he was arrested and jailed. In 1931, during the government of the second republic, Teodomiro was elected deputy for the Cortes Generales for Oviedo and held the office of Public Works between 1932 and 1933, projecting the future rail links of Madrid. In 1934, he participated in the

of October 1934 being captured by the Moroccan troops and sentenced to death. He was jailed in the prison of

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, Cantabria, until the victory of the

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

in the elections of February 1936 date in which it is released. In the

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that followed the elections he fought on the republican side. Once the war finished, he went into exile in France in 1939 running away from prison. In 1940, following the

Nazi occupation of France The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...

he was imprisoned in

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and returned to Spain. Once in Spain, he was sentenced to death for the second time. In 1950, after ten years in prison, he was released because his death sentence had been commuted to 30 years in prison thanks to the efforts of Serrano Súñer. He died in Madrid in 1978 at the age of 99, after having been imprisoned sixteen times and sentenced to death twice, being buried in the civil cemetery of Madrid.Menéndez Fernández, Teodomiro
Pablo Iglesias Foundation (www.fpabloiglesias.es)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menéndez, Teodomiro 1879 births 1978 deaths Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Second Spanish Republic