Agirre's Diaries

The German blitzkrieg surprised President Jose A. Agirre Lekube on the beaches of Dunkirk. Persecuted by the German police and without the option of fleeing to Paris, he decided to hide in Berlin. He lived in the capital of the Reich for months at a short distance from the Gestapo headquarters. With the help of the Panamanian consul in Belgium, Germ?n Guardia Ja?n, Agirre was able to obtain a false identity that shared his initials, Jos? A. ?lvarez Lastra (JAAL). The present diary is a day-by-day account of seventeen months in the life of a fugitive, an exile in the core of Nazi Germany, but it is not a travel account. Agirre recorded both personal and public affairs in it. It shows very well how at the most difficult moment of the war, when it seemed that the Axis troops had no rivals who could stand against them, the President of the Basques threw in his lot unequivocally with democracy.