Horacio Echevarrieta

Horacio Echevarrieta Maruri (Basque)(September 15, 1870 – May 20, 1963) was a businessman, banker, industrialist, patron of the arts, politician and diplomatic mediator. In 1927, he founded Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España, S. A. Operadora, now known as Iberia.

Born in Bilbao, the son of a mine owner, Cosme Echevarrieta, he expanded his father's activities and set up businesses in many fields, such as the merchant marine, shipbuilding and real estate. He was one of the shareholders of The Niágara Spanish Aerocar Co., Limited which inaugurated the Spanish Aerocar at Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1916.

A diputado for the Radical Republicano from 1914 to 1917, in 1916 he bought the liberal paper El Liberal.

After being placed under house arrest for his involvement in the 1917 general strike, he stepped down from his post of president of the Chamber of Commerce, gave up his seat in parliament, which was taken over by his political and business ally, Indalecio Prieto, as well as from the leadership of the republicanism that he had inherited from his father.

Following Spain's catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Annual in 1921, when 10,000–12,000 Spanish troops died, he acted as a mediator between the Spanish government and Abd el-Krim in freeing the 300 Spanish soldiers captured, for which, as a republican, he is said to have turned down King Alfonso XIII's offer of a title.

At his Malaga estate, he played host to visitors like King Alfonso XIII, General Miguel Primo de Rivera and the German naval officer and spymaster Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service (from 1935 to 1944).

He had extensive dealings with Canaris and in 1925 signed a lucrative contract to supply the German Reichsmarine with German-designed torpedoes and had also built a U-Boat for testing and training.

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