October 1940: Heinrich Himmler's visit to Spain

In October 1940, the SS leader Heinrich Himmler traveled down to Spain and stayed there for five days. Himmler's stay in Spain took place between October 19 and 24, and it was one of the very few trips that the National Socialist leader made to neutral countries.

Invited by the General Director of Security José Finat y Escrivá de Romaní - whom he had met in Berlin in August of that year - Himmler accepted the invitation. The main objective of the visit was to inspect the Spanish security devices, discuss Spanish-German police cooperation and prepare for the planned meeting between Franco and Hitler. However, the official version that was offered at the time presented it more as a mere tourist trip.

Himmler was accompanied by a German entourage, among whom were close associates such as Karl Wolff and Joachim Peiper. On the morning of October 19 the National Socialist leader entered the country through the border post of Irun, where he was received, among others, by Director General of Security; the commander of the VI Military Region , General José López-Pinto Berizo; the German ambassador to Spain, Eberhard von Stohrer; the head of the Gestapo in Madrid, Paul Winzer ; and the head of the National Socialist Party in Spain, Hans Thomsen. Shortly after crossing the border he made a stop in San Sebastian, where he was feted by local authorities and visited various places. He made another stop in the city of Burgosand visited its famouscathedral, in addition to having a meeting with Franco in this Castilian city, with whom he dined. 

On October 20, he arrived at Madrid's North Station in the morning , being received by a military entourage, the German ambassador in Madrid and Serrano Suñer. In the streets of the capital, decorated with National Socialist and Falangist flags, he was received by Falangists in uniform and members of the new Armed Police. The official organ of the regime, the newspaper Arriba, spared no praise for the foreign dignitary, reaching commenting that "men like Himmler reach their zenith strong states'. After meeting with Serrano Suñer at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Franco received him at the Palacio de El Pardo.  The Spanish dictator, who according to British ambassador Samuel Hoare had welcomed Himmler as a "sovereign prince," made a poor impression on the National Socialist leader. Himmler later attended a bullfight held in his honor in the Las Ventas bullring, organized by José Finat himself; as reported by the National Socialist newspaper Völkischer Beobachter, upon his arrival in Las Ventas he was received by great applause. The bullfighters Pepe Luis Vázquez, Marcial Lalanda and Rafael Ortega «Gallito» participated in the bullfight. The head of the SS was horrified by what he saw and later commented on his dislike of the bullfight, considering it a "cruel" spectacle.

Serrano Suñer used this visit to boost his political position in the regime. Since he was not satisfied with the coverage of the regime in the press, he instructed Enrique Giménez-Arnau - general director of the press - so that newspapers such as ABC , Ya or Arriba should be "up to the task." 

The next day Himmler went to El Escorial and to the old Visigothic capital, Toledo, where he toured the ruins of the destroyed fortress. Some authors relate this visit to their search for the Holy Grail as Toledo was an important Templar, alchemist and necromancer headquarters. Spanish archaeologist Julio Martínez Santa-Olalla , an ardent National Socialist sympathizer, was assigned to the cortege and accompanied Himmler during these visits. At night the head of the SS attended a dinner at the Ritz Hotel in Madridorganized by José Finat, and attended by the main hierarchies of the Falange. On October 22, in the morning, Himmler visited the Prado Museum, the headquarters of Social Assistance and the Archaeological Museum of Madrid - where he carefully studied a map of the Germanic invasions -, and already in the afternoon he gave a speech at the Madrid headquarters of the National Socialist Party. During his speech the head of the SS announced that "all the Jews of the Greater German Reich would be resettled in a" closed ghetto "of the General Government.

After their stay in the capital, the German delegation headed by plane to Barcelona. He landed at the Prat aerodrome on the morning of October 23, being received by the military and civil authorities. Accompanied by the captain general of Catalonia, General Orgaz, and the mayor of Barcelona, Miguel Mateu y Pla, he attended a folkloric act in the Spanish town of Montjuich. In Barcelona Himmler and his entourage stayed at the Ritz Hotel. At around 3:30 p.m. the delegation moved to theMontserrat monastery, a place that was well known for the tradition of the Holy Grail. In fact, Himmler firmly believed that Montserrat was actually the "Monsalvat" appears narrated in the opera Parsifal by Richard Wagner. One of the monks, Andreu Ripoll Noble, was the only one who could speak German, so he acted as an interpreter for the group of visitors. Himmler - who on several occasions emphasized to the monks the Germanic and pagan origin of Montserrat - asked to see the files related to the location of the Holy Grail, although the Benedictines made him see that it was not there. On their return to Barcelona they visited the German consulate and later attended a dinner hosted by the City Council. After dinner Himmler and other Francoist leaders visited an old republican "Czech" located in Vallmajor street. The next day he took a plane and returned to Germany.

It so happens that while the National Socialist leader was in Barcelona, ​​his wallet with secret documents was lost.

Cheka

Heinrich Himmler inside the Cheka (communist torture and execution installation) Vallmajor, Barcelona 1940. These were cells inspired by the Bauhaus and Surrealist art movements.

This Cheka was designed by the Austro-Hungarian Slovenian Alfons Laurencic, also the designer of the Zaragoza Cheka. His main inspirations were the paintings of surrealist Salvador Dalí and the color theories of Wassily Kandinsky. 

It was located inside the Convent of Les Magdalenes Agustines, built using forced labor by prisoners such as painter Víctor Ripaux, accused of aiding priests hiding from the red terror. He and other Conservatives were forced to destroy all of the sacred elements of the church.

Within these chekas, administratively known as "preventorium D", members of the Republican factions introduced their prisoners into a world of pain. The cells featured beds at a 20-degree angle that were almost impossible to sleep on. They also had irregularly shaped bricks on the floor that prevented prisoners from walking. The walls in the 2 m x 1 m cells were covered in surrealist patterns designed to make prisoners distressed, and lighting effects were used to make the artwork even more dizzying. Some of them had a stone seat designed to make occupants instantly slide to the floor, while other cells were painted in tar and became tremendously hot in the summer. Circles and a board were painted and some greenish crystals were installed that filtered a diffused light, bringing out a strange aspect to the drawings. Laurencic chose the color green, he said, to produce in the prisoner “the effect of a sad, rainy and hopeless day”. At night a red light was turned on, making the shapes vary considerably. The spirals and dice forms implied points of suggestion for the prisoners while the circles and lines produced an irritation on the nervous system. A clock was also placed in these cells, arranged in such a way that during a whole day it would not mark more than four or five hours, with the aim of causing disorientation in the prisoner. Laurencic and his closest collaborators designed a firing squad wall in the courtyard of the Cheka in which a kind of big grave had also been erected. There, a large number of mock executions were carried out on almost all the prisoners. The objective was to create a climate of permanent panic among the inmates.

Before being executed, Laurencic publicly acknowledged that he had designed this Cheka at the request of the Popular Front government, the order came from the 23-year-old PSOE member Santiago Garcés, head of the SIM (Military Information Service) at the time. Historian Stanley G. Payne has suggested that Garcés, who was one of the men involved in the assassination of opposition leader Calvo Sotelo, might be an agent of the Soviet NKVD. He was, therefore, one of the people directly responsible for the instigation of the war. 

The night before his execution, Laurencic stated: "Although I know I'm going to die, long live Generalissimo Franco." After confessing and receiving Communion, he was transferred to Campo de la Bota at 4 in the morning of July 9, 1939. 

In front of the firing squad, he refused to have his eyes covered and just before receiving the shots, he raised his arm and performed the Fascist salute. Himmler also visited the Montserrat monastery, were 23 monks were killed by anarchists, some burned alive. 

The rumour is that he asked them about the Holy Grail. If he could only find the Holy Grail, it would help Germany win the war and, moreover, give him supernatural powers. Evidently, Himmler found nothing of merit on the mountain. He returned to Barcelona and flew back to Germany later that day. His brief, ignoble trip to Catalunya was soon forgotten, though perhaps a certain movie by Steven Spielberg took some influence from it.