Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
Espejo — site of Capa's 'Falling Soldier'
Battlefield
The story
Robert Capa's photograph of a militiaman falling backwards, published in Vu on 23 September 1936 and in Life in 1937, became the defining image of the war. For decades it was said to show the anarchist Federico Borrell García killed at Cerro Muriano, north of Córdoba, on 5 September 1936. In 2009 José Manuel Susperregui matched the skyline to the outskirts of Espejo, about 50 km away, where the front was quiet at the time; many now think the picture was staged or taken during an exercise. Espejo shows how the Córdoba front lines ran through open countryside in the first summer.
What you can see today
The open, rolling farmland around Espejo, whose skyline was matched to the photographs; no memorial or marker is known.
Plan your visit
Drive around the outskirts of Espejo with a copy of the photograph; the fields are private farmland, so view from tracks.
Sources
Nearby sites
- Lopera — battlefield and Jardín de los Poetas Ingleses (Cornford & Fox) · 42 km
- Santuario de la Virgen de la Cabeza (1936–37 siege), Andújar · 72 km
- Refugio antiaéreo de Villanueva de Córdoba · 72 km
- Parque Federico García Lorca, Alfacar (Fuente Grande) · 100 km
- Huerta de San Vicente (García Lorca house-museum), Granada · 100 km
- Barranco de Víznar (mass graves, Place of Memory) · 101 km
All 158 sites in Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 →
The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The battlefields, trenches, ruined villages, shelters, museums and memorials of the Spanish Civil War across the whole of Spain, told fairly from both sides.
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