Background
Ridruejo was born in Burgo de Osma-Ciudad de Osma, Soria.
politician writer autobiographer poet
Ridruejo was born in Burgo de Osma-Ciudad de Osma, Soria.
He was co-author of the words to the Falangist anthem Cara al Sol. Under Serrano Súñer"s influence he was appointed as Minister of Propaganda to the cabinet of Francisco Franco in 1938. A strong Falangist and as a result sometimes in conflict with the military tendency within Francoism, he was censured during the Spanish Civil War by General Álvarez-Arenas for producing propaganda leaflets in the Catalan language, with the military elite deciding that Spain"s minority languages should be crushed rather than courted.
Ridruejo"s uneasiness with the conservative military elements of Franco"s government was to prove his undoing.
Galarza used his influence to ensure the dismissal of Ridruejo and he would not return to government thereafter. He was also damaged by the fact that he had been active in support of Nazi Germany as other pro-Nazis such as Sancho Dávila y Fernández de Celis and Pedro Gamero del Castillo were dismissed at the same time.
In 1955 the disillusioned Ridruejo set up a semi-clandestine club bringing together "authentic" Falangists with communists, socialists and democrats (such as Enrique Múgica, Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Ramón Tamames, José María Ruiz Gallardón, and others)in a loose alliance united only by opposition to the Franco regime. His opposition activity saw him jailed briefly the following year and again in 1957 when he told the Cuban radical journal Bohemia that he was active in the illegal opposition.
By the early 1960s Ridruejo"s opposition activity saw him living in exile in South America.
He returned to Spain late in life and died in Madrid in 1975.
He published his autobiography, Escrito en España in Argentina in 1962 with the book also detailing his conversion from to social democracy which had occurred around this time.
