the Guardian By Sam Jones
Memorial to Nazi airman shot down in Spanish civil war had been looked after by Spanish ace who killed him
A group that celebrates the republican pilots who fought fascism in the skies over Spain has condemned the vandalism of a memorial stone to a German airman that was looked after by an unlikely visitor – the Spanish ace who killed him.
Friedrich Windemuth, a member of the notorious Condor Legion sent by Hitler to aid Franco during the Spanish civil war, died after being shot down over northern Catalonia by the Spanish pilot José Falcó in February 1939.
The German fighter pilot’s body was repatriated but a memorial stone was put up close to where he died. Falcó, who fled into exile after Franco’s victory and died in 2014, would often visit the stone and lay flowers for his fallen adversary.
