Vicente Rojo Lluch - Return To Spain and Death

Return To Spain and Death

In February 1957 he returned to Spain, where most of his family already lived. This return was made possible through a series of negotiations which involved several Nationalist military officers in Madrid, F. José Luís Almenar Betancourt S.J., a Jesuit who was in contact him during his stay in Bolivia, and the Bishop of Cochabamba, a former military chaplain who had served under Rojo.

Although he was not bothered in the beginning by the Francoist authorities, on July 16, 1957 the Special Court for the Repression of Masonry and Communism informed him that he would be prosecuted for the crime of military rebellion, in his position as ex-commander of the Army. This was the customary charge on professional military officers who did not join the rebels in 1936. He was sentenced to 30 years, but did not served a single day as the sentence was suspended sentence, and he was soon pardoned.

Vicente Rojo died at his home in Madrid, June 15, 1966. Of the obituaries appearing in the Spanish press, only the one in El Alcázar, -mouthpiece of the Francoist ex-combatants- and the one by noted Falangist writer Rafael Garcia Serrano in the party press, amply eulogized his military achievements.

He wrote several books detailing his military experiences in the civil war, which were published in the following order: ¡Alerta a los pueblos! (1939), ¡España heroica! (1961) and Así fue la defensa de Madrid (1967).

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