Julián Zugazagoitia

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Zugazagoitia and the second or maternal family name is Mendieta.

Julián Zugazagoitia Mendieta (5 February 1899, Bilbao – 9 November 1940, Madrid) was a Spanish journalist and politician.

Zugazagoitia in 1925

A member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, he was close to Indalecio Prieto and the editor of the El Socialista in mid-1930s.^[1][2] In the first weeks of the Spanish Civil War he wrote against the paseos and denounced the anarchist and communist secret prisons (checas).^[3] In October 1936 he wrote in El Socialista: "The life of an adversary who surrenders is unassailable; no combatant can dispose of that life. That is not how the rebels behave. It matters not. It is how we should behave."^[4] In May 1937 he was appointed by the prime minister, Juan Negrín, as minister of Interior of the Second Spanish Republic.^[5] Because of the abduction and killing of Andreu Nin, he dismissed the Director General of Security, Antonio Ortega and threatened to resign as minister.^[6]

In 1938, he supported the dissolution by force of the anarchist-controlledConsejo de Aragon.^[7] He was replaced in May 1938,^[8] but in April 1938, he was appointed secretary of the ministry of defence.^[9] After the war, he fled to France, but in 1940 was arrested by the Gestapo, handed over to Spain and executed.^[10] In France he wrote a history about the Spanish Civil War: Historia de la guerra en España, published in 1940.^[11]