Fernando de los Ríos

Fernando de los Ríos developed his political outlook through the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and university study in Germany. He taught political law in Granada, joined the Socialist Party in 1919, and opposed its entry into the Communist International after visiting Soviet Russia. Under the Second Republic he held ministerial portfolios that included justice and public education. ¹

During the Civil War, de los Ríos sought arms and international support for the Republic, first in Paris and then as ambassador in Washington. He defended the Republican cause through speeches, articles, and diplomatic work. ¹

De los Ríos presented the war to American officials as an international assault on Spain’s legitimate government. In a note of 15 March 1937, he transmitted his government’s account of Italian military units fighting near Guadalajara. He cited testimony from captured officers and soldiers, supplied an order of battle, and argued that intervention without a declaration of war violated international obligations. He appealed to other governments to defend international standards and described the League of Nations as having fallen silent in the face of aggression. ²

On 2 June he followed a meeting with the secretary of state with a formal protest against German warships’ bombardment of Almería. He argued that German naval activity had violated the agreed nonintervention patrol arrangements and that Berlin should have referred its complaint to the international committee before retaliating. His memorandum attributed the initial exchange near Ibiza to German provocation, a contested sequence he advanced on behalf of the Republic. ³

After leaving the embassy on 31 March 1939, he accepted a teaching position at the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1945 he briefly returned to public office as foreign minister of the Republican government in exile. He died in New York in 1949; his remains were returned to Madrid in 1980. ¹