At the start of the Spanish Civil War he was imprisoned in Ibiza and released in August 1936 when the island returned to Republican control. By November 1936 he was in Madrid having commandeered an aristocrat's palace (Palacio de Zabálburu) near Retiro Park as headquarters of his Alianza de Intelectuales Anti-fascistas (Alliance of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals), which became a second home to Gerda Taro. During the Spanish Civil War, Alberti became the poetic voice of the left and he made frequent broadcasts from the capital during the Siege of Madrid by the Francoist armies, composing poems in praise of the defenders of the city. There was scarcely an edition of the XV International Brigade newspaper, "Volunteer for Liberty" which didn't contain one of his poems. In early 1939 he and his wife were in Elda running a large country house as a hotel, at which many Republicans gathered considering exile. These included La Pasionara, Enrique Líster and Juan Modesto. After the defeat of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces and the disbandment of the Republic by the rebel faction, Alberti and María fled to Paris via Oran and moved into an apartment together with Pablo Neruda on the Quai de l'Horloge. They lived in Paris until the end of 1940 working as translators for French radio and as announcers for the broadcasts of "Paris-Mondial" in Latin-America. After the German occupation of France they sailed from Marseilles to Buenos Aires on the SS Mendoza.