With a gun in hand, Antonio Tejero Molina, lieutenant colonel at the Civil Guardentered the Spanish parliament on February 23, 1981. „Al suelo todo el mundo” he shouted from the podium – everyone on the ground. The mustache, his revolver, the hat: the images of the failed coup are etched in the Spanish collective memory. Tejero died on Wednesday at the age of 93.
The announcement of his death coincides with the Spanish government’s release of previously classified documents on the coup, also on Wednesday.
Six years after the death of General Francisco Franco, the fledgling Spanish democracy was almost nipped in the bud. Tejero stormed the parliament with more than two hundred Guardia Civil with submachine guns, they fired shots into the ceiling. Members of Parliament ducked behind their tables. The bullet holes are still admired by visitors to the Spanish parliament.
A photo by photographer Manuel Barriopedro of Tejero and his famous Guardia Civil tricornio hat won the World Press Photo the following year.
The coup plotters wanted to get rid of the democratic reforms of Adolfo Suárez, Spain’s first elected prime minister after Franco. For seventeen hours, Spaniards waited anxiously as Tejero held some 350 parliamentarians hostage. Tanks drove through the streets of Valencia, under the command of senior officer and fellow coup plotter Jaime Milans del Bosch.
Antonio Tejero stands next to his wife at the exhumation of the remains of Spanish dictator Franco on October 24, 2019.
Photo CURTO DE LA TORRE/AFP
The coup plotters hoped that King Juan Carlos would form a new government. That didn’t happen. The next afternoon, the king appeared on television in full military fatigues to declare his loyalty to the constitution and democracy. Tejero surrendered. The putsch was over.
Tejero spent the last years of his life out of the spotlight in his hometown of Valencia. His coup attempt became the “founding myth of Spanish democracy,” said Javier Cercas, author of the book Anatomía de un instante – which is about the events of 1981 – in a speech last year.
