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A heated debate in Palma city council reignited historic tensions around one of the darkest chapters of Spain’s Civil War.
Officials clashed about the legacy of the cruiser Baleares and its alleged role in the 1937 bombing of fleeing civilians from Malaga – an event now widely recognised as a war crime.
The controversy erupted during a recent council full session, when Councillor for Urban Planning Oscar Fidalgo emphatically denied that the Baleares Was involved in the infamous attack against civilians fleeing along the coast road from Malaga towards Almeria known as La Desbanda. “Not one shot was fired by the warship throughout the Desbanda in Málaga,” Fidalgo stated. The cruiser was being tested at the time.
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Left-wing councillors, particularly those from the Socialist Party of Spain (PSOE), immediately reacted to Fidalgo’s remarks. They argued that his statement contradicted historical accounts. PSOE councillor Pepe Martin challenged Fidalgo’s claim by citing passages of El Crucero Baleares 1936–1938A book by historians Jeroni Connolly and Eduardo Fullana, detailing the ship’s role in the tragic event.
Fidalgo received the books from Martinez on the floor of the council. Martinez had brought the book with him from the Cort Library, along with other volumes from his own collection. “Get informed and read historians so you don’t make a fool of yourself in the eyes of the people of Malaga,” Martínez urged.
The dispute is directly linked to a larger legal and political battle over the monument that was erected by Palma’s Parc de Sa Feixina in the 1940s in honor of the 765 crew members, mostly Mallorcans, who served on the Baleares Who perished when the vessel was sunk in 1938 by Republican forces?
Long have left-wing groups campaigned against the removal of the monument, claiming that it is a relic from Francoist propaganda. The Supreme Court has protected the monument against demolition. However, the Constitutional Court still hasn’t issued a ruling.
PSOE submitted a motion at the last plenary to remove the protected status for the monument in the city’s Heritage Register. The conservative Partido Popular party (PP) as well as the far-right Vox group voted against the proposal. They claimed that the monument had already been stripped of Francoist symbols in 2010 under an agreement led by former socialist mayor AinaCalvo.
Fidalgo criticized PSOE for its political inconsistency. Fidalgo said, “They spent money on public money to remove symbolism and settle debates and now they ask us to do opposite to what the judge’s say.”
Fidalgo remained firm despite mounting evidence and scholarly debate. He said, “There are no serious historians who support these claims.” “What I have to say in this session may hurt you, but that is my opinion as well as the opinions of historians who are relevant. You have touched a nerve in me. “I am standing by what I said.”
The debate has left no clear resolution in sight, with legal questions over the monument’s future still pending in Spain’s highest court – and the historical truth about BalearesNearly a century after the Civil War, opinions are still divided about what happened.
