Researcher: Madeline Keiger, Stuyvesant '27

Note: Jose Sainz-Nothnagel was NOT a member of the Lincoln Brigade and instead volunteered for the Nationalists. We include his story here as it is part of the overall story of New Yorkers who participated in the Spanish Civil War.


Jose “Pepe” Nicolas Sainz-Nothnagel was born in Santa Maria del Meruelo, Spain on August 3rd, 1907. His mother, Frieda Nothnagel, was nineteen years old at the time, and was German. His father, Jose Antolin Sainz de la Sierra, was twenty three, and was born and raised in Spain. His father was strictly Nationalist, even before the emergence of the Spanish Civil War. As a result, Sainz was raised with the same ideas. In 1912, at five years old, he moved with his family to New York City, and as a result he spoke fluent English with an American accent (along with several other languages). His father ran a driving school business out of a garage. He grew up in the Bronx, at 956 Intervale Avenue, and attended public grade school at PS 20 and PS 45, and high school at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. Unfortunately, the records of Sainz’ time at Stuyvesant have now been lost, likely because he may not have ever graduated, instead moving away before then.


In either March of 1921 or in 1922, at fourteen or fifteen years old respectively, Sainz boarded the Cherbourg and arrived in Spain with his family on March 28. Sainz, who carried a personal affinity for Germany due to his German mother, chose to study there. He attended Dr. Jackelmann's Höhere Vorbereitungsanstalt in 1923, and Siemens Schuckertwerke Techniches Bureau in Berlin, where he received an electrical engineering degree. Sainz’s time in Germany influenced him significantly. After the end of the Great War (WWI), Germany suffered a lot of internal turmoil, leading to the rise of new ideals and political beliefs, the same that Sainz would bring back with him to Spain and fight for.


After getting his degree, Sainz returned to Spain. He got a job working for an engineering company, as a translator between English and Spanish. On March 28, 1928, he married Amelia Varona Valdizan. He had his first child, Jose Luis Sainz Varona (1929 - 2020), on June 19, 1929. He and Valdizan likely had one other child during this time, and their identity is kept anonymous. To his great dismay, his father passed away on October 21 that same year. His father’s death may have contributed to his following move to actively participate with the Nationalists.


With political tensions rising, Sainz officially joined the Primo de Rivera party in 1933 while living in Toledo. He quickly rose through the ranks, to a commanding position. He was selected to represent Toledo in the 100th anniversary, and is said to have stated that he would attend the celebration no matter “how the civil war turns out.” He was one of the early members of the Falange Espanol, and he served on the first National Council in 1934, as a regional representative of New Castille. In 1935, he was also a member of the Junta Politica of the FE y de la JONS (a movement that was the combination of two earlier movements, the Junta Politica and the JONS). In 1936, he was one of the Falange candidates in that year’s election.


Leading up to the July 1936 uprising, Sainz, now the provincial chief of Toledo, coordinated communication between the military and the Falange. He moved to Madrid, and participated in several rebellions, in cities such as Zaragoza and Salamanca. He proposed to his political allies that the Falange should begin a putsch in Toledo, to help launch the rebellion.


In May 1936, Sainz was arrested in Primo de Rivera’s house, along with a few others, but was quickly released on June 27th. He promptly travelled to Zaragoza and Huenca to help the others prepare for the rebellion.


He was arrested once again on July 5th, found carrying a circular () containing plans from General Mola for the final part of the coup, causing Mola to then delay his plans some. As a result of this arrest, he was in prison when the coup started, later noting that he had spent too much time there over the last few years, and was “looking for a chance to put some other people there.”


Despite this temporary setback, after he was released on the 28th, Sainz was still assured of his side’s victory. “We are certain to win,” he said, “we have the flower of Spanish youth and intelligence on our side. We will make Spain a great power like the United States.” Sainz immediately rushed to join the war effort. He led some of the fascist fighters on the northern front, leading them into battle as early as July 31st.


At the time, he was the only accounted for chief of the present revolt. Primo de Rivera was at the time missing, and Sainz’s nine fellow-members were all in prison. As a result, he became the de facto leader of the movement. Despite this, after the execution of Jose Antonio, Sainz’s name was thrown in the list of candidates to be his successor. However, likely due to his fanatical reputation as a devotee of the Falangists, Manuel Hedilla was chosen instead, and Sainz was instead placed as a member of the second National Council. John Whitaker, a correspondent for the New York Herald-Tribune is said to have said that Sainz killed 127 “reds” himself, and that he was known by those around him to carry a German Lueger, a type of pistol, with him at all times.


Sainz faced several injuries over the course of the war, most notably on September 4th in 1936 in Talavera, where he was caught in a bombing during street fighting, and was struck by the shrapnel in the explosion, eventually resulting in the amputation of one of his fingers. He requested discharge just two days later, strongly motivated by the Nationalist movement. He then continued in the assault, moving to Toledo. He is then recorded as an instrumental organizer in the recapture of Toledo less than a month later on September 27th.


In December of 1936, he joined the mission travelling to Nazi Germany, during which he visited his mother and her family. In the leadership election that followed, Sainz voted in support of Hedilla, and actually remained his staunch supporter despite his earlier rejection in favor of Hedilla. Sainz was also a member of the Junta de Mando, and until the FE merged with the Carlists, he sat on the National Council. In June of 1937, he was briefly detained for being a supporter of Hedilla.


After the end of the war, Sainz started a government branch called the Educacion y Descanso, which worked on the construction of facilities and policy. In 1944, he left the government and looked into a few private efforts, including a rowboat concession, construction, and a farming business. In 1948, the government discovered weapons on his farm property, and he was (as one of several times following the war) arrested by the government. Likely as a result of this, he left Spain in 1948, and moved to Mexico. In Mexico, he worked at Guest Airways as General Manager of Traffic and Sales. He divorced his wife, who refused to come with him to Mexico. In 1956, just a month later, he remarried, to Jeanette Louisa Mallen, with whom he had three more children. He worked for a number of different airline companies over the next few decades, living in Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, and San Juan at different times. He worked for Japan Airlines briefly in 1960 (see ID card in images).


His beloved mother died in 1980, likely in Spain. Sainz underwent open-heart surgery in 1981 [citation needed] and, after moving back to Dallas upon retiring in 1982, died there in 1984 on July 26. He was survived by Jeanette Mallen, who died in 2015, with three sons and several grandchildren and great grandchildren (names not included for anonymity).


Jose Sainz-Nothnagel’s life story is long and complicated. He was heavily influenced by a variety of factors, including his strongly Nationalist father, his time in Germany during the rise of fascism, and was further radicalized by the Falange when he joined the group, finding like-minded people that likely meant polarization for everyone involved. It is important, even today, to remember stories like Sainz’s. It is vital that we take it upon ourselves to learn from history, to understand people of a variety of beliefs. We should not erase anyone from history, even if we don’t respect their actions today, for we can learn from them, whoever they are.

Sources

2016. The Provincial Chief of Falange: José Sainz Nothnagel. https://toledogce.blogspot.com/2016/02/el-jefe-provincial-de-falange-jose.html#comment-form.
Agudo, Gumersindo M. 1939. Un Vida en la Falange:Pepe Sainz.
Ancestry.com. n.d. “Ancestry Records.” Ancestry.com. Accessed April, 2026. https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=jose_sainz+nothnagel&name_x=_1&searchMode=simple&types=r.
The Associated Press. 1936. “Former New York School Boy Leads Rebels; José Sainz, Raised in Bronx, Sees Victory.” New York Times, August 1, 1936.
Bowen, Wayne H. “Spanish Pilgrimages to Hitler’s Germany: Emissaries of the New Order.” The Historian 71, no. 2 (2009): 258–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24454498.
Dallas Morning News. 2015. “Jeannette MALLEN-SAINZ Obituary.” The Dallas Morning News. Jeannette MALLEN-SAINZ Obituary.
Navarro-Bonilla, Diego & Robledano Arillo, Jesús. (2021). Skogler: Photography at the Service of Falangism (Zaragoza, July 1936). Fascism. 10. 52-84. 10.1163/22116257-10010002.
Rees, Philip. 1990. Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890. N.p.: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Thomas, Hugh. 2001. The Spanish Civil War: Revised Edition. N.p.: Random House Publishing Group.