page_title: Joaquín Bau Nolla
section_title: Outcast
hierarchical_section_title: Joaquín Bau Nolla / Outcast
caption_attribution_description: Català: Portada de El Requete de Cataluña, no. 11 (jul. 1959)
context_page_description: Joaquín Bau Nolla was a Spanish Carlist and Francoist politician.
context_section_description: Bau's influence started to decline once Ramón Serrano Suñer arrived in Burgos. Upon arrival he was already averse towards Bau as late 1936 Franco decided that it would be the family of Bau, not the family of Serrano, to be exchanged with the Republicans for the family of general Miaja. The animosity grew during 1937, when Bau opposed totalitarian designs pursued by Franco's cuñado. When the first regular Francoist government was created early 1938 Bau was not even considered. In the spring of 1938 he left Burgos, settling in San Sebastián.
  Together with many Catalan industry tycoons taking refuge in the Gipuzkoan capital, Bau engaged in plans to re-create regional economic institutions once Catalonia would be retaken by the Nationalist troops. He was offered presidency of l'Institut Catala de Sant Isidre, the regional agricultural organization, but declined quoting his hostile relations with Serrano. Indeed, the internal Falangist document denounced him as one of the leaders of local "plutocratas y alta burguesia" who conspired against the national-syndicalist state.
  Bau kept supporting the Catalan Montserrat battalion. He remained involved in numerous charity projects, like Auxilio de Invierno. The most important of Bau's ventures of that period was probably helping the Catalan Republican POWs. Personal acquaintance of officers commanding Campos de Concentración and Comisíon Clasificadora, Bau did his best to release Catalan prisoners and enlist them either in the Carlist tercios or in the Falangist banderas. Following the end of the war he returned to Tortosa, though he is not listed as taking part in the Carlist-Falangist competition for power in Catalonia.
  Bau was not invited to the victory parade of May 19, 1939. Though sidetracked in great national politics, he remained engaged in clandestine and extremely sensitive Francoist business schemes. In 1941-42 he managed the deal with Nazi Oberkommando der Marine, supervising construction of 20 wooden ships intended to supply German troops fighting the British in Africa. Later on he kept exchanging courteous but purely formal correspondence with Franco. In the 1940s Bau dedicated himself to family issues, various Catholic organizations and business; he became the first post-war president of Banco de Tortosa and later multiplied his wealth by trading shares of the bank, going on also with the inherited Aceites Bau business. Privately he pursued his interest in organ music.
  Bau led one of 3 competing Traditionalist Tarragona factions, namely the one opposing Carloctavistas and javieristas and promoting rapprochement with the Alfonsist claimant, Don Juan. The Tortosa javierista Carlists distributed leaflets presenting him as Francoist traitor who ignored the lot of requetés detained by the Francoist administration. He apparently acknowledged that a future kingdom must encompass Francoist structures. His private papers from mid-1950s suggest that Bau, though with hesitation, tended to support what seemed a long-distance Franco's plan for crowning prince Juan Carlos. However, when in 1957 he joined the Carlists who abandoned the regent-claimant Don Javier, Bau declared Juan Carlos' father, Don Juan, the legitimate heir and continued to approach him as a king.
caption: S. M. Javier I, 1959
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