Seventy years ago, on October 17th, the International Brigades gave birth to a glorious chapter in mankind’s encyclopedia. It was written by 59, 380 men and women who came to Spain from 53 countries.
These words are written here are for all those selfless humans who bravely fought to keep Spain free from fascist dictatorship. They are not oriented to delve into or take a stand on the many ideological and political differences that played a complex role in their genuine endeavors.
“For the first time in the history of the peoples’ struggles, there was the spectacle, breathtaking in its grandeur, of the formation of International Brigades to help save a threatened country’s freedom and independence—the freedom and independence of our Spanish land…You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend.” So spoke Dolores Ibárruri (La Pasionaria) to 13,000 of them, in Barcelona, on November 1, 1938, as they were to leave their common battlefield.
Those who survived that brutal presage to World War Two continued writing their legend—either in the underground resistance movements they launched when fascism occupied their countries, or again, in the1960s, when they offered their active participation and guidance in solidarity with the uproar of a new generation of idealists and resisters of oppression, wars and racism.
70th memorial in Spain
Spain honored its Spanish and internationalist fighters for the Republic in hundreds of commemorations, in many cities during the months of July and October-November, 2006. One of the events held in the little Valencian town of Benisa was a special ceremony for one particular Dane, Egon Hřjlund. . He had enlisted in the common fight for democracy, one of the few Danish volunteers who was not a Communist or left socialist but rather adhered to the anti-communist circle of Social Democrats. Egon had fought in the defense of Madrid, and was wounded during the especially bloody battle of Jarama, in January 1937. Five thousand Republican Spaniards and internationalists lost their lives in that battle.
Alan Christiansen, the organizer of the Danish Friends of the International Brigade Association, attended the ten-day Benisa commemoration. Alan’s uncle had been a brigader. When his uncle returned to Denmark, he was jailed in Horserřd concentration camp for defending democracy in Spain. Alan is writing a bibliography of the nearly 550 Danish volunteers. Two-hundred and twenty died in Spain. One hundred and fifty perished on the battlefields; another 70 died of sicknesses and a few by torture in fascist jails.
This story of Egon is related by Alan regarding events in Benisa this year, and supplanted by a Danish television film, “Return to Spain,” which was made during that 1996 commemoration. It was shown in Benisa as part of the 70th year commemoration.
Egon Hřjlund’s history in Benisa started with his being transported to one of its two hospitals for the wounded and the sick. When he recovered, Egon was named Benisa’s Culture Commissionaire for the wounded. He fell in love with a local woman. They were reunited in that town during the 1996 observance. He was one of the many survivors at that time who received honorary citizenship issued them by Spain’s Parliament.
The film shows us Egon sitting in his wheelchair surrounded by equally elder Spanish fighters wearing berets. One of them fought alongside Egon. The mayor and councilmen are there, and many young people.
“Welcome Home! Welcome to your home,” they roared.
Egon is seen with his former lover. They toast with wine, tears and kisses. It was the first time he’d seen his woman friend in 30 years. “She was the most beautiful woman in Benisa. Pepita is still pretty.”
“I was just 20 years old then, an idealist. It’s not possible to describe how terrible people were massacred (and tortured) by the fascists. I didn’t like that brutal war but it was necessary. We’d do it again,” Egon says, in broken Spanish.
A declaration is read: “You gave the seeds to our eventual liberty”.
“We shared brotherhood!” Egon strongly replies to his honorary countrymen. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd.
At this 70th year commemoration, Alan Christiansen was invited to give a speech at the opening of a newly made cemetery for the fallen.
“It was so touching for us all. I was most heartened by the many young people present. Enthusiastic townspeople raised the three-colored Republican flag over the gravesites as we sang.” Alan closed the ceremony with a song written in 1937 by the Dane, Martin Jensen.
“Salute to you comrades,
To you my friend and my brother,
//Who is fighting in the mountains of Spain
for freedom and fortune on earth. //...”
“All the world following in excitement
The red fighting army.
//Comrade you are not alone,
No, thousands follow your actions. //…”
“You are our pride and glory,
You strengthen our resolve.
//We’ll never forget these sacrifices,
which for our fortune you’ve given.//…”
“Yes, the victorious host of the people
shall follow your trail of blood.
//And the flowers of freedom shall sprout
From Spain’s blood-soaked soil.//”
Alan had sung this song at Denmark’s two observances, the first one was held on October 17 where a monument stands in honor of the killed Danes. Ironically, the monument was raised on Churchill Park where the Freedom museum also stands; the latter honors Danes who fought fascism once it overtook Denmark.
Ironically, because it must be recalled that Churchill was a major opponent of any support for the democratically elected Spanish Republican government, and an adherent to the so-called non-intervention pact. England and France pushed this through the League of Nations in August 1936. Backed by the US and Scandinavian countries, this policy prohibited any support to the Republic, including volunteer brigades. Thus, the bourgeois democratic states allowed fascist Germany, Italy and Portugal to intervene on the side of the Nationalist-Fascist uprising. In his 1942 book, “Step by Step 1936-1939”, Churchill wrote of his opposition to democratic Spain, which he characterized as, “a Communist Spain threading its tentacles through Portugal and France.”
The Second Republic was established by election in April 1931, and ended the dictatorship of General Miguél Primo de Rivera. Five years of positive reforms for the little man and yet many half-hearted ones led millions to strike and spread uprisings. A more progressive coalition of center and left-center parties was elected in April 1936. Most of the army sided with the aristocratic landowners and the Catholic Church’s reactionary leadership. They launched a coup d’é-tat on July 18. While it failed to take power, General Franco’s army occupied much territory in the west and south. In several places, such as Seville, the Spanish Foreign Legion and Moors beheaded workers and tortured others to death in gruesome ways.
Reasons for the conflicts in the Second Republic and the ensuing war were complex. For a fuller account see historian Paul Preston views on the war, which he sees as “not one, but many wars”. (1)
The fascists’ eventual success could only occur because of the non-intervention pact, which Hitler and Mussolini utilized for their goals of world domination. As the reactionary coup began, Hitler provided his Condor Legion air corps, transporting 70,000 Moroccan and Foreign Legion mercenaries to Franco’s front, and Mussolini sent in Italian infantry. Five hundred German pilots and tank drivers bombed and smashed Spaniards throughout the 30-month war, aided by, in all, 72,775 Italian ground troops.
International Militias
In August 1936, the first militia of foreign volunteers joined the many Spanish militias already in place from the Asturian uprisings of 1932-4, and from the Catalonian province, which had achieved semi-autonomy under the 2nd Republic. These militias were mainly made up of unionists led by anarcho-syndicalists, left socialists and Trotskyists. They received some weapons from the newly formed Popular Front government, which included, for the first time, the Communist Party and anarchist ministers. The Popular Front took over from the 2nd Republic’s tame leadership, which had refused to arm workers.
Many German, Italian, Austrian and Polish anti-fascists fled their countries as fascism crushed bourgeois democracy. A few days after they formed the “Centuria Thälmann”, in Barcelona, the first four Danish volunteers reached the city and enrolled in the centurion. Their story is quite special and their initiative led to many other Danes’ participation. Their story was related during the commemorations in Denmark by Allan Christiansen.
On August 8, Aage Nielsen turned 18. He, his brothers Kaj, 21, and Harald, 24, celebrated with their good friend, Hans Petersen. Hans, 26, was a machine worker. Harald was a butcher; Aage a bicycle messenger. They discussed the burning issues of those critical times: the economic crash of 1929, Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, the civil war in Spain accompanied by encroaching fascism with its active adherents at home. The four lived in a worker’s quarter in north-central Copenhagen where they sometimes fought the pro-fascist Conservative Party youth. The four were all members of Denmark’s Communist party (DKP) youth section (DKU). On Aage’s birthday, they decided to cycle to Spain, in order to join the newly formed foreign militia.
Their bicycles were confiscated at the France border, because they could not pay a tax. They reached Paris by hitch-hiking. There, they waited impatiently for France’s Communist Party and Moscow’s Comintern to decide what steps they would take to help the Spanish Republic. The four took off again, walking and hitch-hiking. In early September, they reached Barcelona where they were temporarily detained by the POUM militia (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), a mixture of left socialists, dissident Communists and Trotskyists formed in 1935.
POUM quickly released the brothers Nielsen plus Petersen and they joined the Centurion Thälmann. Harald had been in a Danish army machine-gun company and was handed one of the militia’s few Hotchkiss machine guns. The four took off with the centurion to Navarra province at the Huesce front. Over a two-month period of intense battles, which included bombardments from German planes, the centurion of 125 men lost 19 and 52 wounded. Harald was wounded in the hand and brother Kaj took over his machine-gun.
The Republican loyalists and their internationalist brothers were able to beat back the fascists. When they returned to Barcelona, Aage was chosen to receive the centurion’s honor flag.
Their next major battle was at Albacete in Castilla La Mancha province. Here, on October 17, the first International Brigade (IB) was officially inaugurated. All militias, foreign and national, were ordered to fight under one command, the Republican Army. Initially, the first IB was named Edgar André, but was soon renamed the 11th Brigade. Spanish units already were structured in ten brigades so the international ones began with 11, where most of the Danes and other Scandinavians, Dutch, Germans and Austrians were incorporated.
The 11th International Brigade was soon followed by the 12th (Italians’ “Garibaldi”), the 13th (folk from 26 lands, including some Danes), the 14th (Frenchmen), the 15th (Washington and Lincoln battalions made of US Americans and Englishmen), and later the 129th, made up of many nationalities.
In the autumn, the four were with thousands of internationalists and Spaniards defending Madrid. Hans was wounded and taken to a Barcelona hospital. The three brothers survived the entire two-month long offensive, which the Republic turned back at great human cost. In January 1937, the brothers were part of the DECA, anti-aircraft artillery unit, shooting down bombers when they could.
Kaj and Aage returned to Denmark after a year’s fighting. After a short relief in Denmark, Harald and Hans returned to Spain as fighters, then worked in propaganda and party work. They stayed after the official November 1st, 1938 farewell to the international brigades. They served others in their travels home or into exile. Harald and Hans were among the last to leave Barcelona before it fell to the fascists without a fight, on January 25, 1939. A group of Danish artillerists stayed fighting in Valencia until the last days. Franco celebrated his victory, on March 29, 1939 with the fall of Madrid.
Fighting alongside the first Danes and other volunteers from Germany, France, Poland and Italy, were 30 Brits. Sam Russell was one.
His description of the fight for Madrid was told by Anton Nielsen, leader of the Horserřd-Stutthof Association (a support group for those interned in the Danish and German concentration camps), at his recent commemoration talk in Copenhagen, October 28.
“The Russian guns were just starting to arrive; much of the ammunition did not fit the guns. Of the original 30 Brits, we were only six left by mid-December. A few were wounded, most were killed. It was a similar casualty rate in the whole of the French battalion.”
Sam said that he had it relatively easy as he was injured in the back in a battle next month. After recovering in an English hospital, he went back to Spain and did broadcast propaganda news from Barcelona. This experience led him to be Britain’s Communist party newspaper correspondent in Moscow in the late 1950s. In 1996, he was in Spain with Danes and other internationalists to receive an honorary citizenship.
One of those Danes to receive honorary Spanish citizenship was Villy Fuglsang (“Bird Song”, in English). Villy had heard of the brothers Nielsen while studying at a Communist party school in Moscow. He was moved to join the volunteers. Once entering Spain, Villy had to hitch-hike to Valencia where he was to join others. The vehicle which stopped for him was driven by Ernest Hemingway, who was returning to Spain from a propaganda tour in the US.
Villy, nicknamed “The Bird”, recounted this anecdote to the Danish left-wing daily, “Arbejderen” (The Worker), shortly before his death in September 2005. At 96 years of age, he was the last of the Danish volunteers to die.
“The Bird” was one of the few internationalists who had prior military training. He had been in the Danish cavalry, and, in Moscow, had taken a quick sergeant’s course. Once at his post in Spain, he was made a political commissionaire. Villy explained his duties to “Arbejderen” (2).
“The volunteers came from many lands. Although a high percentage were Communists, especially the Danes, there were also radicals, socialists, anarchists and Trotskyists. We had to melt all these different meanings into one to beat the fascists. That’s why we had political commissionaires. They must explain that it did not help to fight internally as long as our backs were up against the wall.
“The German army was the best trained and disciplined in Europe. We couldn’t use cadre discipline as they do in capitalism. We had to convince our volunteers” [and stop the internal disputes, editor].
After Madrid was secured, Villy was sent to the Aragón front to help stop the fascists at Zaragosa and Quinto. His company of Scandinavians, “Martin Andersen-Nexř”, was named after a leading Communist and one of Denmark’s greatest novelists. Andersen was one of 200 authors who attended the international congress of authors, in Madrid, in 1937, in support of the Republic.
On August 23, 1937, Villy’s company captain, also a Dane, was wounded between the eyes and Villy, as political commissionaire, had to take his place. Accepting the command, he crawled forward. A fascist sniper took aim at Villy, who also took aim. His enemy shot first and hit Villy’s shoulder. When the battle was ended in favor of the republican army, Villy was transported to a hospital. Once recovered, Villy served for a time in Catalonia from where he was sent home.
Among other Danes who joined the fight by walking and hitch-hiking into Spain were Leo Kari and Gustaf Munch-Petersen. A portrait of them was shown on Danish television, on November 17th, in honor of the 70th year since volunteer brigades were formed.
At age18, Leo was already a member of the DKP and a porcelain factory worker. Gustaf, 24, was not a Communist, rather an idealist and poet. They met one another for the first time in Spain after having had walked separately over the Pyrénées mountains. They had speculated that the fight wouldn’t take more than a few months before the Republic would emerge victorious.
They were shocked by the systematic brutality of the nationalist-fascist army. They saw dead bodies of civilians and Republican fighters left by Moroccan mercenaries after they had butchered them alive. Eyes were torn out of their sockets, noses and tongues cut off, limbs hacked up. When the fascists took the little Extremadura province town of Badajoz, they forced all survivors, who were members of any union or any Republican government political party, into the bullfighting arena and massacred them all. On April 26, 1937, the Germans and Italians bombed the village of Guernica in Basque land, which was not at war nor had it any military or strategic significance. People fleeing the bombed market place were mowed down by low-flying aircraft firing machine guns. Seventy-five percent of the village was left in ruins and 2,500 murdered.
When it seemed like the fascists would win, volunteers like Leo and Gustaf fought on for the sake of comradeship and a last hope. Gustaf was killed on March 28, 1938, during the long and decisive battle at Ebro river in Aragón. Leo survived the war and returned to Denmark where he soon was fighting the fascists and the collaborationist Danish government on home territory.
Out of tens of thousands of international volunteers, a few score were followers of anarchist or Trotskyist thinking. Some joined POUM. Among them were two Danes, Tage Lau, who served briefly in Barcelona as a propagandist, and Aage Kjelsř. This is the story of Aage (3).
Aage and Tage had been cycling in Yugoslavia when they decided to take to Barcelona. Aage joined up with anarchists in August 1936, one of the first Danes to fight. He received a short course in the use of rifles and grenades and fought for two months at the Huesca front in Aragón, in the Durruti column. Among his comrades were anarchists in the FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation).
They had sparse weaponry. Soviet weapons were not passed out to anarchists or Trotskyists. He later returned to Barcelona and joined an International Brigade, which did receive Soviet bought weapons. In Albeceta, he learned to use a machine gun, one of few weapons received from Mexico, the only other country that provided weapons to the Republic. Mexico did not place conditions on who should use its arms.
Aage later fought in southern Andalusia. They were up against lethally effective Moor and Spanish Foreign Legion snipers. His comrades were able to kill quite a number of them as well. Aage was most surprised to see that many Muslim Moors died holding a Catholic cross or an image of the Virgin Mary.
It was this irony that made him understand the mistake that the Popular Front government had made in not declaring Morocco’s independence. This would have assuaged the desire of Moors to fight with the fascist Spaniards. And the Foreign Legion would have had to stay in Morocco to counter the natives’ inevitable fight for sovereignty. Yet not even the anarchists took up this issue. Only POUM made Moroccan independence part of its policies.
Aage was wounded in the legs at the Madrid front, in late 1936. Once released from a hospital, he came to Barcelona and joined the POUM. He sat on the central committee for POUM’s Trotskyist section. He noted with pleasure that in Barcelona production and services were collectivized, especially where the anarchist CNT (Confederación Nacional de Trabajadores) and FAI unionists were strongest. Workers also made weapons and ammunition. They controlled much of the local governments and the telephone company.
There were sharp differences about how to conduct the war. War and revolution for left socialists, anarchists and Trotskyists were inseparable. For the Communists, social democrats and the Comintern, it was a matter of winning the war and taking on the revolution afterwards.
In May 1937, Barcelona police tried to take over telephone operations from the workers and there were armed clashes. Aage was among those who set up barricades in the streets during the internal conflict. Because of the need for Soviet weapons, the Popular Front government and the anarchists made a compromise with the Communist party and Comintern (4). When the left socialist Popular Front government leader, Largo Caballero, was replaced by the more conservative social democratic Juan Negrín, the anarchist ministers left the government and dropped collectivization and workers control. Moscow and Spain’s CP believed such policies would injure possible cooperation with the middle-class and small capitalists and thus weaken the fight against fascism. They also hoped to convince western governments that they were not about to create a Soviet Spain.
POUM remained adamant that these compromises were mistaken. POUM was legally dissolved and many leaders and members were arrested. Some were shot. Aage was arrested twice, interrogated and beaten. A guard aided his escape from jail and CNT anarchists helped Aage escape Spain. He sailed on a Scandinavian ship to Marseilles where he was arrested and deported to Denmark.
Danish October 28 observance
At the Nuremberg trials, chief of the Nazi air force, Herman Göring, stated that it was necessary to bomb and strafe Guernica, in order to test their weapons and see what affect they would have. “We could not achieve that experience in another way.”
“What is it that gets human beings to do such things”, asked Anton Nielsen, in his talk at Copenhagen’s construction workers’ union hall on October 28.
“Involuntarily, my thoughts sprang to the Vietnam war, to the United States’ terror against this poor but proud people—neither would they let themselves be cowed by a brutal superpower.”
Anton referred to what Lt. William Calley said in his defense for that genocidal massacre. Calley was the only criminal tried for the My Lai massacre. Paraphrasing him:
“It doesn’t bother me that I killed those people in My Lai…We were not there in My Lai to kill people. We were there to kill an ideology…to eliminate communism…I saw communism like a southerner sees a nigger: it is harmful and evil.”
Anton continues:
“From Spain to Auschwitz, Majdanek, Neuengamme and Stutthof to Nuremberg—and further to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan—all the same…screaming stupidity and human contempt…hate and oppression’s ideology—the Third Reich as well as the so-called New World Order ideology.”
Gustaf Munch-Petersen also thought about such insane inhumanity. The last of his “Selected Poems” are written in English (5). Here are the final two verses of the poem, “My Evening Has Come”, taken from “Black God’s Stone”:
I could never be conquered—
I was always the victor—
here I sit—
with my legs cross, looking
with far-off eyes into my own fire—
outside the tent
the hatred goes on whispering—
tonight I shall be murdered—
I--, the victor --,
I who couldn’t be conquered—
My unpierceable quietude embraces
everything
like the first mother—
here I sit—
with my tent around me—
my evening has come—
--30--
NOTES:
1. “Revolution and War in Spain 1931-1939,” edited by Paul Preston, Methue, London and N.Y., 1984. Many of the statistics in this piece come from that collection of well researched essays. For more background, see also the article, “The Spanish Civil War, 70 Years On: The Deafening Silence on Franco’s Genocide,” by Vicente Navarro, counterpunch.org, July 19, 2006.
2. “Vi tog derned for at bekćmpe fascisme,” (We took down there to fight fascism) reprinted on Oct. 28, 2006.
3. “Socialist Standspunkt”, October 17, 2006, taken from an oral account of Kjelsř, June 1976.
4. Op. cit. nr. 1. In chapter twelve, “The financing of the Spanish Civil War”, Spanish professor of economics, Angel Vińas, shows how imbalanced was the financing and arming of both sides. The Soviet Union sold weapons at three percent interest and received pure gold until reserves were exhausted. Then the Republic used its silver reserves and jewelry donations from citizens. The estimate is that the Republic paid the Soviets nearly one billion dollars worth of minerals, and before the end of the war no more weapons were forthcoming. In contrast, Franco’s army was financed on credits by the fascist Germans and Italians and some monopoly capitalist firms, such as Texaco, which shipped oil to Franco’s occupied territory. In all, Franco had acquired about the same amount, in value, of weapons, ammunition, oil and other supplies as did the Republic, but it did not have to pay unless it won. Once in power, Franco reimbursed his debt over a ten-year period using cooper, food stuffs and money. The cooper helped the German armaments industry as it pushed onward.
5. “Selected Poems” by Gustaf Munch-Petersen, published by Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 1962.
© Copyright 2006 by AxisofLogic.com
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