José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Spanish lawyer and politician, founded the Falange (d. 1936)
José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 1st Duke of Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquess of Estella (24 April 1903 – 20 November 1936), often referred to simply as José Antonio, was a Spanish politician who founded the fascist Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx"), later Falange Española de las JONS.
The eldest son of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, who governed Spain as dictator from 1923 to 1930, Primo de Rivera worked as a lawyer before entering politics, an enterprise he initially engaged into vowing to defend his deceased father's memory. He founded Falange Española in October 1933, shortly before the 1933 general election, in which he was elected member of the Republican Cortes, running as a candidate. He assumed the role of messianic leader and charged himself with the task of saving Spain in founding a Fascist party, but he encountered difficulties widening his support base during his whole political life.In 1936, he endorsed the Spanish nationalist military coup against the republic that led to a civil war that he later tried to stop. Imprisoned before the start of the war, he was accused of conspiracy and military rebellion against the government of the Second Spanish Republic and was sentenced to death and executed during the first months of the war.
In life, he held the nobiliary title of 3rd Marquess of Estella, Grandee of Spain. In 1948, he was posthumously bestowed the title of Duke of Primo de Rivera, which was subsequently passed to his brother Miguel. The image of José Antonio was revered during the war by the Nationalist faction, and after the establishment of Francoist Spain, he was regarded as a martyr, his figure being a tool of the Francoist propaganda apparatus. The inscription of "José Antonio ¡Presente!" could be found in many churches all across Spain.