Right after the war, Companys, along with thousands of Spanish Republicans, sought cover in France exiled but because of the, by that time, mutual sympathy between Franco's government and Nazi Germany, he was captured after the Fall of France in 1940 and handed to Spanish authorities, who tortured him and which sentenced him to death for 'military rebellion'. He was executed at Montjuïc in Barcelona at 6.30 a.m. on October 15, 1940. Refusing to wear a blindfold, he was taken before a firing squad of Civil Guards and, as they fired, he cried 'Per Catalunya!'.