Altolaguirre loses two of his brothers, Luis and Federico, in the first months of the war. He collaborates with El Mono Azul and is appointed director of the Teatro Español.  He moves to Valencia, where he prints the journal Hora de España from 1937 on.  He directs Lorca’s Mariana Pineda for the International Congress of Anti-fascist Writers, edits Poetas en la España leal, and also prints books by Octavio Paz, Juan Marinello and Nicolas Guillén. In the summer of 1938, while serving in the XI Corps of the Army of the East, he prints the literary pamphlet Granada de las letras y las armas, and then Los Lunes de El Combatiente. In the final weeks of the war, he prints Prados’ Cancionero menor para los combatientes,Neruda’s España en el corazón and Vallejo’s España, aparta de mí este cáliz.  He leaves Spain by crossing the Pyrenees and ends up at a concentration camp where he suffers a nervous breakdown.