ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the individual experiences of a few prominent female leaders as reflected in witness statements and trial transcripts in order to explore women’s roles within the mixed-gender groups. It aims to provide a brief overview of the structure and aims of the mixed-gender groups. According to historians the Falange groups were created “in the wake of the earlier women’s welfare-aid organisations which greatly facilitated their formation.” There were around eighteen or nineteen Clandestine Falange groups in Madrid, fourteen of which were dismantled by the Republican security services with the aid of informants like the former Falangist Alberto Castilla Olavarria. The Clandestine Falange also assisted in the requisition of archives, records and classified military documentation. The Falange organised escape-lines for certain individuals pursuant to direct instructions from the General Staff Headquarters in Burgos. Esperanza Ortega Cebrian was the leader of a Falange of around thirty men that formed part of a larger group led by Jose de Frutos Rey.
