Spanish Civil War
In 1931, Pujol did his six months of compulsory military service in a cavalry unit, the 7th Regiment of Light Artillery. He knew he was unsuited for a military career, hating horse-riding and claiming to lack the "...essential qualities of loyalty, generosity and honor".
Pujol was managing a poultry farm north of Barcelona in 1936 when the Spanish Civil War began. His sister Elana's fiancé was taken by Republican forces, and later she and his mother were arrested and accused of being counter-revolutionaries. A relative in a trade union was able to rescue them from captivity.
He was called up for service on the Republican side but opposed the Republican government due to their treatment of his family. He hid at the home of his girlfriend, but was captured in a police raid and imprisoned for a week, before being freed via the resistance group Socorro Blanco. They hid him until they could produce fake identity papers that showed him to be too old for military service.
He started managing a poultry farm that had been requisitioned by the local Republican government, but it was not economically viable. The experience with rule by committee soured him on Communism further.
He re-joined the Republican side using the false papers with the intention to desert as soon as possible, volunteering to lay telegraph cables near the front lines. He managed to desert to the Nationalist side during the Battle of the Ebro in September 1938. However, he was equally ill-treated by the Nationalist side, disliking their fascist influences and being struck and imprisoned by his colonel upon Pujol's expressing sympathy with the monarchy.
His experience with both sides left him with a deep loathing of both fascism and communism, and by extension Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. He was proud that he had managed to serve both sides without firing a single bullet for either. After his discharge from the Nationalist army, he met his future first wife, Araceli Gonzalez, in Burgos and married her in Madrid; they had one child, Juan Fernando.
Read more about this topic: Joan Pujol Garcia
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