Investigation names 1936 firing squad in Federico García Lorca's execution

New findings on the execution in Viznar

Ninety years after the August 1936 death of Federico Garcia Lorca during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the documentary 'Lorca, las horas perdidas' presents new conclusions from archival research led by investigator Miguel Caballero. Drawing on military records, civil registries, and cemetery documents, Caballero identified the seven members of the firing squad that carried out the execution in Viznar. The findings establish that the execution took place on 17 August 1936 between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, rather than the traditionally cited dates of 18 or 19 August.

The research challenges several longstanding accounts of the killing. It concludes that the order for Lorca's arrest and death came from a former Civil Guard officer aggrieved by the publication of 'Romancero gitano', rather than Granada's civil governor. Furthermore, an alleged telephone order attributed to General Queipo de Llano telling Valdes Guzman to give Lorca plenty of coffee could not have occurred because telephone connections were severed. Caballero also found that local worker Manuel Castilla Blanco, known as 'El Comunista', was 19 years old at the time and did not bury the poet, contradicting statements Castilla Blanco gave in the 1960s.

Land feuds and political targets

The documentary connects the killing to longstanding economic and personal animosities across the Vega de Granada. Lorca's father was a prominent landowner with local rivals, entangling the family in disputes involving the Roldan and Alba families. One execution squad member, Antonio Maria Benavides, belonged to the rival 'Pataslargas' clan and was a relative of the Lorca family. Lorca had incorporated his name into the June 1936 manuscript of 'La Casa de Bernarda Alba' as the deceased second husband of the titular character. Military archives later described Benavides as having poor moral conduct and a disposition toward violence.

These local vendettas converged with political and ideological persecution. Authorities and right-wing falangists targeted Lorca for his personal life, alleged ties to Freemasonry, and close connections to prominent socialist politicians such as Fernando de los Rios. Lorca had consistently framed his creative commitment around social solidarity rather than strict party alignment.

I am in favor of the poor. I will always be in favor of those who have nothing.

Intellectual legacy from Madrid to New York

Lorca was born in 1898 in Fuente Vaqueros and later moved to Madrid to live at the Residencia de Estudiantes, a center of intellectual life where he worked alongside figures like Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, and Rafael Alberti. Biographer Ian Gibson described the creative environment that shaped Lorca during those university years.

The atmosphere is brilliant, someone said it is like Oxford and Cambridge in Madrid.

In 1929, Lorca traveled to New York during the Wall Street stock market crash. Letters sent to his parents documented the widespread financial devastation and suicides he observed in the city. The trip provided the foundation for his collection 'Poeta en Nueva York', which examined commercialism, poverty, and human suffering. Biographers like Gibson later encountered his work through 'Romancero gitano' and traveled to Granada to locate the burial site near an olive tree in Viznar, prompting decades of archival research into his death.