Lluís Companys

Lluís Companys i Jover (; 21 June 1882 – 15 October 1940) was a Catalan politician who served as president of Catalonia, Spain from 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War.

Companys was a lawyer close to labour movement and one of the most prominent leaders of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) political party, founded in 1931. He had a key role in the events of the proclamation and first steps of the Second Spanish Republic. Appointed president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in 1934, after the death of the previous president, Francesc Macià, his government tried to consolidate the recently acquired Catalan self-government and implement a progressive agenda, despite the internal difficulties. Opposed to the inclusion of the right-wing CEDA party in the coalition Spanish government during the strikes and insurgency in October 1934, on 6 October he proclaimed a new Catalan State. He and the Catalan government were subsequently arrested and imprisoned.

After the left-wing Popular Front won the Spanish national election in 1936, Companys was pardoned, and he returned to head the fractious Catalan government. He remained president during the Spanish Civil War, loyal to the Republican faction. A refugee in France after the Republican defeat in 1939, he was arrested in 1940 by the secret police of Nazi Germany, the Gestapo. Extradited back to the Francoist Spain, he was executed on 15 October 1940. Provided by Wikipedia