Julián Grimau

Julián Grimau García (1911, Madrid—April 20, 1963, Madrid) was a Spanish politician, member of the Communist Party of Spain, executed during Francisco Franco's dictatorship.

Initially active in the Federal Republican Party and the Republican Left, he joined the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) upon the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Grimau spent the war years in Barcelona, where his father had been a police inspector. When the Second Spanish Republic was defeated by Francisco Franco's armies in 1939, he sought political asylum in Latin America, and later settled in France.

Grimau became one of the PCE leaders, joining the Central Committee after its Congress in Prague (1954). In 1959, he took charge of the "internal" wing of the party which operated clandestinely in Francoist Spain, living secretly in the country on various occasions.

Subsequently, Grimau became one of the Regime's most sought-after enemies, causing many historians to wonder about the reason for his ill-fated 1962 arrival in the capital. No convincing explanation has yet been identified, but former PCE leaders such as Jorge Semprún have suggested that General Secretary Santiago Carrillo wanted to have Grimau removed from party leadership and deliberately facilitated his arrest in November.

Julián Grimau was ambushed while traveling by bus, the only other two passengers being members of the Spanish secret police. He was taken to the Puerta del Sol headquarters of the General Security Directorate (DGS, nowadays the seat of the Comunidad de Madrid administration). Grimau fell from a second-storey window, suffering serious injuries to his skull and both of his wrists. He later explained to his lawyers that he had been subjected to torture while in the building, and had actually been flung head first from the window by the police. Minister of the Interior Manuel Fraga Iribarne claimed that Grimau was treated properly and threw himself out the window for an "unexplainable" reason, although this seems to be highly improbable.

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