Demetrio Carceller (1894-1968)

Who was Demetrio Carceller Segura? A businessman, a politician or both at the same time? His name has appeared linked to the economic management of the first Franco regime, because he was Minister of Industry and Commerce no less than during World War II. But also, and above all, he occupies a fundamental place in the development of the oil industry in Spain, since throughout his professional career he impregnated the creation of CAMPSA, the execution of CEPSA and the articulation of a oil sector in a country without oil. As a businessman that he was, he promoted industrial policies from the Government in tension with the most statist criteria of the men of the INI, and explored autarky as a protective umbrella for the business fabric while the economy was rebuilding itself and the world, once again, repositioning itself. How did all this happen? This biography, the first to be dedicated to Carceller with some detention, rescues documents from twenty-nine archives and libraries in various countries to rebuild his life and business long before his time at the Ministry, until his death in May 1968. Son of a father obsessed with giving him studies, a footballer in the smoky Terrassa of the centuries, a recruit in Barcelona in the worst years of the Restoration, a businessman fascinated by the United States, an opponent of the big banks and a manager or promoter of more than a dozen companies of various sectors, the life of Demetrio Carceller is a postcard of the dizzying 20th century, seen from Spain.