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The family history of Geri Halliwell, one of the members of the Spice Girls, is closely linked to Córdoba. Her great-grandfather, Emiliano Hidalgo Fernández, was the republican mayor of Dos Torres during the Second Republic and was executed by firing squad on 27 December 1940, at the age of 61, at La Salud cemetery in Córdoba. The information was uncovered after months of investigation by journalist David Moreno.
Hidalgo was arrested in May 1939 and brought before a court martial because of his socialist activism and his role during the Civil War. In the 116-page case file he is described as “founder of the Socialist Party” in Dos Torres and as someone whose conduct was “subversive and revolutionary”.
The charges also named him as one of the leaders who opposed the 1936 military coup.
The indictment states that he was a “Marxist leader” who acted against what the Francoists called the “glorious movement”. However, the file itself acknowledges that some of the accusations could not prove his direct responsibility for certain events.
The court ultimately sentenced him to death for the offence of “supporting the military uprising”, a sentence that was carried out on 27 December 1940. The record of his death notes that he was executed “by firing squad” against the cemetery walls.
The family’s connection with Córdoba does not end with Emiliano Hidalgo. His son Máximo was also arrested after the Civil War and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In prison he met one of the women who worked as guards, with whom he would go on to start a family, a story that years later would end up being linked to Geri Halliwell.
His story might have been lost among the thousands of republicans persecuted in Córdoba after the Civil War. Instead, decades later, his name resurfaced in connection with one of the biggest pop phenomena in the world: the Spice Girls, through his great-granddaughter Geri Halliwell.