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Title: Volunteers for Anarchy
Author: Morris Brodie
Date: November 17, 2020
Language: en
Topics: Spanish Civil War, volunteers, history, anti-fascism
Source: *Journal of Contemporary History*, (November 2020). DOI:10.1177/0022009420949926.

Morris Brodie

Volunteers for Anarchy

Abstract

This article explores the twin phenomena of anti-fascism and

transnational war volunteering through a case study of the International

Group of the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War. This anarchist-led

unit comprised approximately 368 volunteers with a variety of political

views from at least 25 different countries. The article examines the

relationship between these foreign volunteers and their Spanish hosts

(both anarchist and non-anarchist), through, firstly, the militarization

of the militias in the winter of 1936, and, secondly, the group’s role

in the May Days of 1937 and its aftermath. These episodes show the often

hostile attitude of Spaniards to foreigners within Spain and challenge

the characterization of the conflict as distinctively internationalist.

The lives of these volunteers also highlight the continuity of

anti-fascism between the interwar and wartime period, with Spain acting

as an ‘anti-fascist melting pot’ where volunteers of different

backgrounds and political leanings came together in a common cause. This

commitment, however, was not unconditional, and was frequently

challenged due to circumstances within Spain. Through studying these

transnational fighters, we have a more comprehensive understanding of

the complex nature of twentieth century anti-fascism.

Volunteers for Anarchy: The International Group of the Durruti

Column in the Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War is famous partly for those who came to Spain to

fight fascism beyond their own countries. Approximately 35,000

volunteers travelled to Spain to defend the Republic from 1936 to 1939,

the vast majority of these serving in the International Brigades

organized by the Communist International (Comintern). A significant

number, however, fought in formations under the control of the Spanish

anarchist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of

Labour, CNT) and Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Iberian Anarchist

Federation, FAI). Although there were similarities between service in

both detachments, there were also important differences, over

discipline, militarization, and the wider political focus of the

struggle. Contrary to the plethora of studies focusing on the

brigadistas, international volunteers in anarchist units have been

neglected by historians. Those few that have studied them have tended to

take either an individual (focusing on anarchist volunteers more

well-known for other endeavours such as Simone Weil or Carl Einstein) or

country-specific approach that, whilst valuable, ignores the

transnational and internationalist character of these units.[1]

Anti-fascism in the 1930s was not only an international, but

transnational phenomenon. Emphasizing the role of different national

groups within international units risks reinforcing the very national

boundaries these volunteers sought to challenge. It also shares

parallels with more explicitly nationalist histories of war

volunteering.[2]

This article seeks to address this by focusing on one of the most

significant foreign anarchist units: the International Group (Grupo

Internacional) of the Durruti Column (later the International Company of

the Popular Army’s 26^(th) (Durruti) Division).[3] Through a case study

of this unit, comprising approximately 368 milicianos (militia members)

from at least 25 different countries, it traces the experience of

foreign anarchist volunteers in Spain. The International Group was, as

one contemporary publication noted, a ‘living International,’ comprising

anti-fascists from around the world.[4] Examining its workings

highlights the variety of problems facing foreigners in Spain during the

civil war and how they sought to overcome them. It helps us to

understand the conflicts within the Spanish Republican camp, the complex

nature of international anti-fascism during the interwar period and the

wider phenomenon of transnational war volunteering more generally.

After an overview of the place of international anarchist volunteers in

the wider historiography of the war, I will examine the background of

the volunteers, including their nationality, class, gender and political

affiliation. The next two sections contribute to the scholarship on

foreign war volunteers by investigating the relationship between the

International Group and its Spanish hosts, through, firstly, the

militarization of the militias in the winter of 1936, and, secondly, the

group’s role in the May Days of 1937 and its aftermath. This includes

volunteers’ later service in the International Brigades, an important

comparison throughout. These episodes show the often hostile attitude of

Spaniards to foreigners within Spain and challenge the romantic, almost

mythical, picture of foreign service in Spain often presented in both

veterans’ and scholars’ accounts.[5] The final section of the article

deals with volunteers’ trajectories after defeat, emphasizing the

continuity between interwar and wartime anti-fascism, whilst

acknowledging that transnational solidarity had its limits.

According to Mae N. Ngai, transnational history ‘follows the movement or

reach of people, ideas, and/or things across national (or other defined)

borders.’[6] Transnational history is not simply a comparative study

spanning two or more countries; it recognizes the interconnections

between them, and how these shape developments in all the countries

under consideration. There has been a ‘transnational turn’ in both

anti-fascist and anarchist studies in recent years, much of which

focuses on the 1930s and 1940s. Recent work by Michael Seidman and

upcoming projects by Helen Graham and Robert Gildea indicate a new

appreciation of the transnational nature of interwar anti-fascism.

Indeed, Hugo García maintains that it ‘appears in many respects to be

the ideal type of a transnational movement.’[7] The Spanish Civil War in

particular lends itself to transnational study, given the international

context of the conflict and its reputation as a testing ground for the

Second World War. Jorge Marco, for example, has recently examined the

effect of transnational soldiers on the military tactics of both the

Spanish Republican and Allied armies, and Lisa A. Kirschenbaum has

produced a pioneering history of transnational communism during the

civil war period through the eyes of the Comintern. There is a need,

however, to disentangle the history of anti-fascism from that of the

communist movement.[8]

Anarchism, in view of its hostility to established organizations and

emphasis on individual freedom, fluidity and personal networks, seems

ideally suited to study through a transnational lens. Constance Bantman

and Bert Altena even suggest that ‘transnationalism seems to be a

natural characteristic of anarchist movements.’[9] It is surprising,

then, that there has been comparatively little scholarly work on the

transnational nature of anarchism during the Spanish Civil War, with

most studies on anarchism during the period focusing on the CNT and

FAI.[10] Although Enrico Acciai has examined Italian anti-fascist

volunteers in the Ascaso Column during the conflict, international

anarchist milicianos more generally have escaped such attention. The

recent publication of the memoirs of Antoine Gimenez (pseudonym of Bruno

Salvadori, an Italian volunteer who fought with the International Group

during the war)—complete with extensive historical notes—is a possible

sign that this may be changing.[11]

As I have argued elsewhere, the Spanish Civil War had a profound effect

on the international anarchist movement. The apparently spontaneous

factory and land collectivisations seen across significant portions of

Republican territory, combined with the construction of

anti-hierarchical revolutionary militias to combat fascism, inspired

comrades across the world and injected life into an otherwise moribund

movement. Many international anarchists set up new groups and newspapers

in their own countries devoted to raising solidarity for those in Spain.

Others made the trip across the Atlantic or over the Pyrenees to work

for the CNT-FAI in Barcelona and other cities, document the social

revolution that was sweeping through areas of Aragón and Catalonia or to

join the militias at the front.[12] Their influence on the CNT-FAI has

been emphasized in recent works by James A. Baer and Martha A.

Ackelsberg, who examine the flow of both activists and ideas between

Spain and Latin America in the period before and during the civil war.

Their military contribution is more difficult to assess, however. Unlike

the International Brigades, whose introduction during the Battle of

Madrid has achieved legendary status and is often credited (rightly or

wrongly) with ‘saving’ the capital, international anarchist milicianos

do not have a ‘defining battle’ as such, and their service was much more

fragmented than that of the brigadistas.[13]

Calculating the number of foreign anarchists who fought in Spain remains

challenging. The Comandancia Militar de Milicias (Militia Military

Command) did not maintain lists of anarchist militias operating in

Aragón and the Levant (the main area of operations), and anarchists were

less meticulous in their record-keeping than their communist

counterparts. One article appearing in the Italian-American anarchist

newspaper Il Martello in February 1938 claimed that 2000 foreign

anarchists had served on the Aragón front since the war’s beginning.

Historian Dieter Nelles argues that between 1000 and 1500 foreign

anarchists came to Catalonia in the first weeks after July 1936, and

Augustin Souchy, who worked for the CNT-FAI Foreign Language Division

during the conflict, estimates a figure of 3000 in total.[14] Most

anarchists who did not join the International Brigades fought in

international groups attached to CNT and FAI militias. The CNT, with

between 500,000 and a million members in 1936, was the most powerful

anarchist organization in the world at the time. The more radical FAI,

with a pre-war peak membership of 5500 in 1933, also had a reputation

for ideological firmness and militancy. There were international groups

in the Ascaso Column, the Ortiz Column, and smaller units like the

Batallón de la Muerte (Battalion of Death) and Muerte es Maestro (Death

is Master) militia.[15]

Anarchist columns varied in organization, but the primary unit was the

agrupación (action group). These were composed of centurias (usually

five centurias to an agrupación), themselves containing approximately

100 milicianos, as well as a medical team and a machine gun section.

Centurias were split once more into grupos (groups) comprising between

10 and 25 fighters. These grupos elected delegates to the centuria,

which in turn sent representatives to the agrupaciones, who then liaised

with the column’s war committee. The nomenclature of the anarchist

militias reflects the hostility to which anarchists regarded military

units historically. This contrasted with units controlled by Marxists,

which were largely modelled on the Red Army.[16]

The International Group of the Durruti Column is perhaps the most famous

of the foreign anarchist militia units. According to anarchist historian

Abel Paz, around 400 fighters served in the group at some point, while

David Berry believes that the group reached a maximum of 240 members. My

own research has uncovered 368 individuals from 25 countries. I have

excluded those internacionales known to have served with the column but

not explicitly with the International Group. I have omitted, for

example, the Italian-American Carl Marzani, who was a member of the

Durruti Column but not the International Group (indeed,

he—incorrectly—identifies himself as the ‘only non-Spaniard’ in the

column), as well as some militants mentioned by Berry.[17] The main

sources for volunteers are the records of the CNT and FAI held at the

International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, the

records of the Comintern within the Russian State Archive of Social and

Political History (RGASPI), as well as newspapers and the memoirs,

diaries and letters of participants.[18] Allowing for gaps in record

keeping, particularly during the months before the militarization of the

anarchist militias in early 1937 (discussed below), Paz’s estimate for

numbers seems sensible.

The International Group was initially formed on the Aragón front at the

end of July 1936 from an assortment of approximately 30 volunteers.

According to Berry, it was the brainchild of French anarchists François

Charles Carpentier and Charles Ridel (AKA Louis Mercier Vega). Born in

Reims in 1904, Carpentier had been a corporal during the First World War

and joined the Saint-Denis group of the Union Anarchiste (Anarchist

Union, UA) in 1927. Ridel, in addition to being a UA member, had

attended the CNT congress in Zaragoza in May 1936, and as a result knew

Buenaventura Durruti (the column’s commander) personally. The pair left

Paris in late July bound for Spain, eventually joining up with the

column at Fraga in Huesca province. They became the representatives of

the International Group, in addition to French anarchist Fernand Fortin,

Emile Cottin (the French anarchist famous for the attempted

assassination of Georges Clemenceau in 1919) and an unidentified

‘Carles.’ The internationals were known as gorros negros (black

bonnets), named after their unofficial uniform of a black beret. This

gave greater camouflage for night attacks, in which the International

Group often participated (see Table 1).[19]

[Table 1. Major battles of the International Group (includes those as

International Company of 26^(th) Division and IWMA Battalion).]

The first delegate (de facto leader) of the group was the Frenchman

Louis Berthomieu, who had been an artillery captain during the First

World War. Other volunteers selected for leadership roles leaders in the

group also had previous military experience, including the Italian

Pietro (Pablo) Vagliasindi, the Germans Christian Lamotte and Carl

Einstein and Frenchman Alexis Cardeur. This, coupled with the fact that

Berthomieu said he ‘knew nothing’ about political matters, suggests that

military experience, rather than ideological consistency, was the

overriding factor in electing leaders within the group.[20] This

contradicts the assertion of Charles Esdaile that militia leaders ‘owed

their position to nothing other than their posts in some party or

trade-union hierarchy.’[21]

According to Paz, the International Group was split into five sections,

each containing around 50 milicianos. In practice, though, there were

two rough groupings: a German-speaking and a French-speaking section.

Other nationalities were scattered across the group, with multilingual

volunteers acting as translators. French and German were the primary

languages used, but, according to the German anarchist exile newspaper

Die Soziale Revolution, ‘at least half a dozen different mother tongues

were spoken,’ highlighting the improvisational—and

transnational—character of the group.[22] Few of the early foreign

volunteers spoke Spanish (Berthomieu was an exception—another possible

reason for his election to a leadership position). Nevertheless, like in

the International Brigades, there were shared Spanish phrases among

anarchist volunteers, which they used when travelling through villages:

¡Viva la Confederación! (Long live the Confederation!—the CNT) and ¡Viva

la revolución social! (Long live the social revolution!). These

explicitly revolutionary slogans, as opposed to the defensive slogan of

¡No pasaran! (They shall not pass!) favoured in the brigades, are a

notable sign of the anarchist unit’s commitment to the radical

interpretation of the war, the repercussions of which are discussed

below.[23]

The French-speaking section, which included Italians and Belgians, was

known as the Sebastién Faure centuria, after the French anarchist of the

same name. This unit was on occasion seconded to the Ortiz Column, which

explains why it is listed distinctly in some of the CNT files. The

German-speaking section also contained Swiss and Swedish volunteers.

Some accounts assert that this was known as the Erich Mühsam centuria,

but I could find no contemporary evidence of this, and it may be being

confused with a machine gun section of the same name in the Ascaso

Column. The remnants of this group transferred to the Durruti Column in

November 1936. Similarly, Kenyon Zimmer has dismissed claims by

historians that there was a Sacco and Vanzetti centuria composed of

Americans affiliated with the column.[24]

As Table 2 shows, the largest numbers of volunteers came from France and

Germany, followed by Spain, Italy and Switzerland. France supplied more

volunteers than any other country during the civil war (around 9,000

fought in the International Brigades), so the high number of French

anarchists is not surprising, especially considering the proximity of

France to Spain and relative strength of the French movement.

International volunteers for the militias were often processed by the

French anarchist movement, either in Paris or through the Section

Française (French Section) located in the border town of Puigcerdà.[25]

Germans were over-represented in the International Group in terms of the

strength of the German anarchist movement. This was partly because Spain

was the primary exile destination for German anarchists, with many

settling in Barcelona before 1936 due to the Spanish Republic’s liberal

asylum policy and employment laws. These exiles formed the Gruppe

Deutsche Anarcho-Syndikalisten im Ausland (Group of German

Anarcho-Syndicalists in Exile, DAS) in 1934, which would play an

important role in the civil war in Barcelona. In addition, as discussed

below, a significant proportion of Germans within the column were

members or former members of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands

(Communist Party of Germany, KPD).[26]

[Table 2. Nationalities of International Group volunteers.]

The large number of Spaniards suggests a certain looseness in the

definition of the International Group and mirrors the large numbers of

native fighters in the International Brigades during the closing stages

of the conflict. Details on these volunteers are slight (partly because

they are often referenced by their nicknames in survivors’ accounts),

but it seems likely that Spanish milicianos were transferred from other

sections of the column to bulk up numbers at certain periods. Some,

certainly, were with the International Group from early on. As Berry

notes, they could also be exiles who followed their new-found comrades

into the International Group once they returned home.[27] Italian

anarchist volunteers in Spain were more numerous than most other

nationalities, but a large proportion of these fought with the Italian

Section of the Ascaso Column, hence the disproportionately low number in

the Durruti Column.[28] Four Swiss volunteers came to Spain to

participate in the People’s Olympiad in Barcelona, the left-wing

alternative to the Nazi Olympics in Berlin, joining the militia after

this was cancelled.[29] The impressive array of nationalities within the

International Group highlights the durability of the anarchist movement

despite external pressures during the interwar period. The diversity of

volunteers also shows that political solidarity was not limited by

national political boundaries.

Occupations are known for 62 volunteers, with sailor being the most

common occupation (see Table 3). The maritime industry also made up a

large number of volunteers for the International Brigades; 500–600

American sailors and longshoremen (the largest single occupational

grouping among Americans) served in Spain.[30] Eleven German volunteers

in the International Group were members of the International Transport

Workers’ Federation (ITF) or the International Union of Seamen and

Harbour Workers (ISH). Swedish anarcho-syndicalist miliciano Nils Lätt

claimed that as ‘a sailor and an Esperantist’ he frequently encountered

Spanish comrades and was ‘completely captured by their enthusiasm.’ This

was an important factor in his decision to join the International

Group.[31] Sailors were also able to jump ship whilst docked in Spain in

order to join the militias; this was the case for at least two

volunteers: Jewish-American Ed Scheddin and German Franz Wiese.[32]

[Table 3. Occupations of International Group volunteers.]

Another notable grouping is those attached to the military. Three of

these were members of the French Foreign Legion. Willi Schroth, who

eventually joined the 13^(th) International Brigade, was described by

his Comintern superiors as ‘an undisciplined comrade’ and ‘politically

highly unreliable, a real foreign legion-type.’[33] Schroth might fit

the category of ‘mercenary’ sometimes used to denigrate the

pro-Republican cause. Gimenez admitted that ‘many among us had unsettled

matters with the police for things unrelated to social struggle,’ but

most volunteers appear to have been workers of some category.[34]

Skilled workers were the second most common category, followed by

drivers or mechanics. Other trade unions represented include the French

Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and Confédération Générale du

Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire (General Confederation of

Revolutionary Trade Unions, CGTSR), the CNT, the Sveriges Arbetares

Centralorganisation (Central Organization of the Workers of Sweden, SAC)

and the anarcho-syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and

Freie Arbeiter Union Deutschlands (Free Workers’ Union of Germany,

FAUD).[35]

At least 12 volunteers were women, including the French writer and

pacifist Simone Weil. Weil had a comparatively brief spell in Spain,

after injuring herself by stepping in a pot of boiling oil on the Ebro

front. She had initially wanted to cross into enemy territory in order

to locate the whereabouts of Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista

(Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, POUM) general secretary Joaquín

Maurín, but this was vetoed by the party leadership.[36] As Lisa

Margaret Lines argues, the milicianas (female militia members) were ‘a

manifestation of the new gender roles and opportunities created by the

civil war and social revolution.’[37] They came to symbolize the

vitality of the Republican struggle, but, despite the striking images

printed in foreign newspapers, they still tended to perform gendered

roles within the militia. While on expedition in August 1936, Berthomieu

instructed Weil to stay inside a captured farmhouse and cook. Four women

were joined by their partners and three acted as nurses or served in the

kitchen. Women were also frequently the object of (often unwanted) male

miliciano attention, and many of the group’s leaders sought to

discourage them from joining the militia. They did still fight, however,

and in fact the majority of milicianas in the International Group died

in battle. Gimenez recounts in his memoirs the horrific detail that two

of them—Augusta Marx and Georgette Kokoczinski—were disembowelled before

being killed, but this is difficult to verify. Only one, the Austrian

Leopoldine Kokes, survived long enough to be expelled from the column

following the order removing women from the front line in early

1937.[38] The fact that women were only active at the front for a few

months is indicative of how short-lived these changes in gender roles

were. It is also suggestive of the emphasis that both sides in the

conflict placed on the ‘mobilizing myth’ of masculinity under arms,

although, as James Matthews notes, the Republicans rejected some of the

‘ultra-masculine’ tendencies of the Nationalists.[39]

A rough sample of 114 volunteers suggests that most arrived in Spain in

1936, with at least 11 already living in the country before then (Figure

1). A more detailed sample of 83 volunteers indicates that, for those

who travelled to Spain after the war’s outbreak, the summer of 1936 was

the most popular period for arrival, with numbers tailing off towards

the start of 1937 (Figure 2). This is unsurprising, since volunteers

arriving from 1937 tended to join the International Brigades, which

first fought at Madrid in November 1936. The early months of the war

were also the period when the prestige of the Spanish anarchists was

arguably highest, so it seems logical that service in a CNT-FAI militia

would have been more popular then. The Durruti Column had a reputation

among foreigners as a ‘tough outfit,’ and Durruti was well-known in

anarchist circles as a seasoned militant.[40]

[Figure 1. Arrival of International Group volunteers in Spain (by year).

This sample (and Figure 2) contains no Spanish volunteers.]

[Figure 2. Arrival of International Group volunteers in Spain (by month,

1936–7).]

Later volunteers were discouraged from joining the militias or

anarchist-dominated units; indeed, a government decree in June 1937

banned foreigners from service outside the International Brigades. It

should also be noted that the recruiting networks of the anarchist

movement were far less centralized and sophisticated than those of the

Comintern, and anarchists were not actively encouraged to travel. The

CNT-FAI was more concerned with arms than recruits, preferring comrades

to agitate for an end to non-intervention than come to Spain.[41] In

many ways, the informal nature of recruitment to the International Group

echoes the experience of other early volunteers who joined the

non-anarchist formations that later became incorporated into the

International Brigades, once the Comintern gained Stalin’s blessing for

more widespread mobilization. When the brigades became more

institutionalized, enlistment procedures became more rigorous.[42]

Also like the International Brigades, there was a pluralism of political

views within the International Group, with communists (both orthodox and

anti-Stalinist), socialists, anarchists and largely apolitical

volunteers—even self-professed pacifists—fighting alongside one another.

Many had already agitated or been imprisoned for their stance opposing

fascism in their own countries. According to Lätt, many of the German

volunteers had been sent to concentration camps by the Nazis, or ‘hunted

like animals from one “democratic” country to another.’[43] There were

at least 33 current or former Communist Party members in the

International Group (from parties in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland,

France, Estonia and the US), although the actual number is probably

higher. Graf and Nelles suggest that as many as 40 per cent of German

volunteers were members of the KPD. One group of 18 German volunteers

had initially joined the Thälmann Centuria (affiliated to the

communist-led Karl Marx Column) but left after Hans Beimler of the KPD

replaced their elected political commissar, Kurt Lehmann, with one of

Beimler’s own choosing. Lehmann, who had been expelled from the KPD for

leading a breakaway group of ITF sailors in Antwerp (for which the party

labelled him a ‘Trotskyist’ and ‘Gestapo agent’) then led a similar

breakaway group to join the Durruti Column at the end of October

1936.[44]

The Communist Party were critical of the ‘revolutionary proclivities’

(to borrow E.H. Carr’s phrase) of the anarchists, preferring to wage a

conventional war to defeat fascism first as opposed to the more

widespread social struggle favoured by the CNT-FAI and the POUM.

Communist policy thus consisted of rebuilding the Republican state

apparatus that had crumbled in the chaotic first weeks following the

military rebellion. For this reason, Anglo-Italian anarchist Vernon

Richards later described the communists as the ‘spearhead of the

counter-revolution in Spain.’[45] A fractious relationship with the

party was not uncommon among the International Group; at least six

volunteers had either left or been expelled from the party. Two Russian

volunteers had fought against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil

War; one on the side of the Whites, another alongside the Ukrainian

anarchist Nestor Makhno. Two German volunteers, Heinrich Eichmann and

Georg Gernsheimer, allegedly transferred from the International Brigades

after being forcibly released from a communist prison by an FAI

commando.[46]

Four volunteers had joined the Socialist Party, one was a member of the

Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (Socialist Workers’ Party of

Germany, SAPD), whilst several others allied with the POUM. Political

debate within the group was permitted, even encouraged, up to a point.

Edi Gmür, a Swiss volunteer, claimed that: ‘Nearly every day there are

discussions and arguments between the anarchists and us three

communists.’[47] The political delegate of the group, Rudolf ‘Michel’

Michaelis, was particularly eager to propagandize within the group,

prompting several Marxist volunteers to join other units in February

1937 after constantly clashing with him over political matters.[48]

Despite these quarrels, the relatively high proportion of non-anarchist

volunteers within an ostensibly anarchist unit suggests that the

sectarian nature of the militias has been overstated somewhat.[49]

Anti-fascist unity was far from absolute, as discussed below, but

political differences in this anarchist unit, at least, were largely put

to one side when the fighting commenced.

Studies of foreign war volunteering (including those in Spain) have

focused overwhelmingly on the motivations of the volunteers and the

nature of their military service. The relationship between the host

state and their transnational fighters has been less well documented,

but this can act as a ‘unique litmus test to assess the rhetoric of

national causes.’[50] The Spanish Civil War was (and is) often presented

as a distinctively internationalist conflict, yet even those on the left

who were supposedly hostile to manifestations of nationalism frequently

defined the war in explicitly nationalist terms. In a speech to a rally

in Madrid in August 1936, for example, leading anarchist Federica

Montseny attacked the Nationalists as anti-Spanish, ‘because if they

were patriots, they would not have let loose on Spain the regulares

[Indigenous Regular Forces] and the Moors to impose the civilisation of

the Fascists, not as a Christian civilisation, but as a Moorish

civilisation.’[51] The International Group provides insights into how

Spaniards, both anarchist and non-anarchist, viewed foreign fighters in

Spain. The first of these insights can be gleaned through the

internacionales’ views on militarization and, more importantly, the

response of their Spanish commanders to them.

The militias were unique among modern armies in their theoretical

rejection of military discipline. Instead, they followed what they

called ‘revolutionary discipline.’ Rather than simply giving an order, a

commander had to convince the troops of the necessity of a certain

action. If they disagreed, a vote was often taken, and if the motion

failed, the order was revoked. Milicianos also recalled unpopular or

incompetent delegates. As Michele Haapamaki notes, the militias were ‘a

means for the left to accept a warrior role in Spain without

simultaneously accepting the baggage of an outdated military ideal

discredited, in their minds, by the Great War.’[52] The inclusion of

women at the front was a further challenge to traditional patriarchal

military practice, albeit an ultimately fleeting one. The militias were

thus an uneasy attempt to juggle between ideological purity and military

necessity. Simone Weil witnessed the system first-hand the night before

an expedition across the Ebro River in August 1936. Berthomieu asked the

International Group for their opinions on the following day’s battle

plan: ‘Complete silence. He insists that we say what we think. Another

silence. Then [Charles] Ridel: “Well, we all agree.” And that’s

all.’[53] Clearly, not all decisions were hotly debated within the

group.

Even so, this haphazard structure horrified traditionalists, and

historians tend to view the militia system with extreme scepticism.[54]

As Ángel Viñas notes, the Republic’s primary benefactors, the Soviets,

were also uncomfortable with providing military hardware to units

seemingly beyond the authority of either the central or regional Catalan

governments.[55] The Republican high command’s preferred solution to

this problem was to bring the militias under the control of the central

government—as opposed to the various workers’ parties and unions—and

introduce military hierarchy and discipline. The militarization drive

began in September and October 1936 with a series of decrees by Prime

Minister Francisco Largo Caballero that established, firstly, a unified

command and, eventually, the incorporation of the militias into the

regular army. This drive continued until the last of the militia units

succumbed to the new regime, the final one being the anarchist Columna

de Hierro (Iron Column) in March 1937.[56]

Like the wider anarchist movement, volunteers in the International Group

devoted much time to debating the merits and drawbacks of

militarization. For its defenders, the militia system maintained the

revolutionary integrity of the war. Art critic Carl Einstein, speaking

on Radio CNT-FAI to eulogize Durruti in November 1936, said that the

column was ‘neither military nor bureaucratically organised,’ but had

‘grown organically from the syndicalist movement.’[57] As it liberated

territory from the Nationalists, the column encouraged (or forced,

depending on your point of view) peasants to collectivize their land,

striking a blow not only against the military but the capitalist enemy.

Caciques (large landowners), clergy and Francoist sympathizers were

shot, land registers burned, tools placed under common ownership and, in

many places such as Pina de Ebro, money abolished. Julián Casanova

describes this process as ‘the radical elimination of the symbols of

power, be they military, political, economic, cultural or

ecclesiastical.’[58] For Einstein, then, the militias were no less than

‘the exponents of the class-struggle.’[59] Artillery colonel Ricardo

Jiménez de Beraza, the military adviser to the Durruti Column, argued

that ‘Militarily, it’s chaos, but it’s a chaos that works. Don’t disturb

it!’[60]

Other volunteers were less convinced. Weil gave an assessment of the

arrangement in her diary: ‘Organisation: elected delegates. Without

competence. Without authority…Peasants complain…that the sentries fall

asleep.’[61] Two milicianos were executed on the orders of the chairman

of the column’s war committee, the Argentine Lucio Ruano, for retreating

and abandoning their weapons during a battle in December 1936.[62] After

a meeting on militarization later that month, the Swiss volunteer Edi

Gmür wrote in his diary that he ‘had difficulty grasping that they could

be arguing about something so urgently needed.’[63] German volunteer

Arthur Galanty criticized the ‘absolute incompetence and

irresponsibility of the headquarters, the missing of officers that are

capable to lead the company, the lack of arms and the inadequate

instruction of the people’ manifested in the militias.[64]

Even those in favour of militarization, however, had reservations.

According to a letter sent from the German grouping (affiliated to the

DAS), many anarchists were unhappy with the top-down nature of

militarization, without any dialogue between the troops and those

creating the new military code. In their own suggestions, the DAS viewed

the symbolic gesture of saluting to officers as their number one

priority. This was hugely controversial to anarchists and seen as an

acceptance of authoritarian, regressive structures. In addition, the DAS

emphasized freedom of the press and freedom of discussion as important

guarantees in any new military code.[65] This was less of a symbolic

issue than saluting, but reflected a worry among anarchists that by

losing control of their militias they could find themselves subject to

repression, as well as emphasising the role of the militias as a vehicle

for political education.

The reaction of some Spanish anarchists to the concerns of their

international comrades was unhelpful. The International Group, in

accordance with previous agreements, had the right to appoint a delegate

to represent them after militarization was complete. The new general

delegate of the column, José Manzana, however, informed the

internacionales that general headquarters no longer recognized their

delegate. The group then published a manifesto on 10 January 1937

calling for autonomy for delegates to act on matters directly concerning

them and requested accreditation to take the manifesto to the regional

committee of the CNT in Barcelona. Manzana denied the request, replying

‘Barcelona, soy yo’ (‘I am Barcelona’). He then banned any more meetings

on the subject and informed the group that they could either submit to

the new regime or be discharged. Consequently, 49 (mainly French)

milicianos left the front. Following the acceptance of militarization in

January 1937, the International Group became known as the International

Company of the 26^(th) (Durruti) Division.[66]

This episode highlights the often ambivalent attitude of the Spanish

movement to international anarchists within Spain. Helmut Rüdiger, who

served as assistant secretary of the International Workingmen’s

Association (IWMA) for Spanish affairs during the war, characterized the

CNT (affiliated to the IWMA) as a ‘national socialist movement’ that had

only the ‘terminology of the common program’ of the international

anarchist movement.[67] Certainly, some Spanish anarchists were

unimpressed by the International Group’s requests for a level of

independence from wider (national) structures, regardless of their

contribution to the anti-fascist cause. Transnational units were

ultimately subservient to the Spanish organization (the CNT) under whose

banner they fought. This was also true of the International Brigades,

even if some volunteers claimed that as foreigners they were not under

the jurisdiction of the Spanish Republican Army.[68] Manzana’s reaction

is even more surprising when we consider that in his own correspondence

to CNT headquarters, he identified the tactless imposition of

militarization as the primary reason behind a drop in morale within the

column.[69] He was clearly aware of the adverse effects of the issue on

Spanish anarchists but seems ambivalent to these same concerns when

voiced by foreigners. Ultimately, the process of militarization was one

of centralization, but it was also one of nationalization—one which

sought (among other things) to ‘dilute’ the importance of foreign

volunteers.[70]

The simmering tensions between the different wings (broadly speaking,

statist and anti-statist) of the anti-fascist camp, of which

militarization was a key part, came to a head in the infamous ‘May Days’

of 1937. During this outburst of fratricidal conflict, anarchists and

their allies fought against supporters of the Republican government

(including the communists) throughout Catalonia. The International Group

was on leave in Barcelona when the fighting began on the 3^(rd) of May

and became embroiled in subsequent events. One volunteer, Francisco

Ferrer (using the pseudonym Jean Ferrand), the grandson of the famous

anarchist educator of the same name, was murdered on the street for

refusing to relinquish his rifle. Camillo Berneri, who had organized the

Sezione Italiana of the Ascaso Column, was assassinated (most likely by

communists) alongside his comrade Francesco Barbieri, causing widespread

shock among the international anarchist community. After a week of

fighting and repeated appeals from the leadership of both sides to cease

hostilities, 218 people lay dead, with hundreds more injured.[71]

In the subsequent roundup, international anarchists became the target of

the Republican authorities. In June 1937, a contingent of 50 police

officers twice raided the Casa International de Voluntarios, the

headquarters of foreign anarchist volunteers in Barcelona. Martin Gudell

of the CNT-FAI Foreign Language Division believed that the officers were

searching for weapons, but did not find any.[72] Several foreign

volunteers were arrested for their activities during the May Days;

indeed, what is striking about the International Group is how many of

them were subsequently arrested by Republican authorities: at least 31

volunteers (over 8 per cent). They included FAUD member Helmut Kirschey,

who the Comintern accused of shooting communists during the fighting and

described as a ‘counter-revolutionary element ready for all political

crimes.’[73] Swiss socialist Jacop Aeppli was arrested in July 1937 and

subsequently ‘disappeared’—his wife was told in December that he had

died in an ‘unknown manner.’[74] Also in July 1937, the International

Group (which by now had been reorganized as the IWMA Battalion) refused

to mount an attack on Quinto without adequate air or artillery support,

as did four Spanish battalions. Headquarters (‘beside themselves with

anger,’ according to Gmür) then made the decision to disband the IWMA

Battalion, marking the end of (semi)independent foreign anarchist

participation in the war.[75]

Following the collapse of the International Group and the decree

outlawing foreign service in Spanish units, many volunteers transferred

to the International Brigades. At least one International Group member,

Rudolf Michaelis, obtained Spanish citizenship so that he could continue

to serve in an anarchist unit.[76] Some volunteers found the change

relatively seamless: Emanuel Fischer, a KPD member since 1931, appears

to have been unaware of the anarchist nature of the Durruti Column when

he joined in August 1936. He later transferred to the International

Brigades, where he was promoted to sergeant.[77] Another volunteer,

Norbert Rauschenberger, joined the brigades in August 1937 and

eventually became lieutenant and company commander.[78] The fact that so

many International Group volunteers later joined the brigades suggests

that many rank-and-file militants made little distinction between the

anti-fascism of the Comintern-led unit and the ‘revolutionary’

anti-fascism of the militias. Indeed, around half of the anarchists who

came to Spain from the United States, Britain and Ireland during the

course of the war served in the brigades, many without prior service in

anarchist units.[79] This fluidity in self-identification did not mean,

however, that they received the same treatment from their superiors as

other volunteers. Military setbacks within the brigades were frequently

seen as a result of political failings: a report for the 15^(th) Brigade

complained that military questions were not given ‘political answers,’

and senior Comintern agents viewed a lack of political consciousness as

a key reason for the Republican reversal at Brunete in July 1937.[80]

Military reliability went hand in hand with political orthodoxy.

As a result of this perception (combined with the fact that they had not

been previously ‘vetted’ through official channels), anarchist

volunteers were kept under close watch by the brigade authorities, with

several imprisoned for indiscipline, political subversion, even treason.

Oskar Heinz was sentenced to two and a half months in prison for causing

‘dissent’ and making anarchist propaganda within the brigades. Johann

Schwarz was sent to a punishment battalion for indiscipline and

allegedly recruiting deserters. Some of the assertions in the Comintern

files verge on the fantastic. Fritz Vogt, for example, was arrested on

suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities because he often ate in

restaurants with those under police surveillance. Five volunteers were

accused of being Gestapo agents, with scant evidence. Some Comintern

agents assumed that any connection with the POUM meant collusion with

German intelligence; this was the reason for poumista Hermann Gierth’s

arrest after joining the brigades in 1937.[81] Paul Preston argues that

the internationalist nature of the POUM—which supposedly made them more

susceptible to infiltration by foreign agents—placed them under

suspicion from the authorities. Yet at the same time we must

acknowledge, as Tom Buchanan does, that for many in the Communist Party,

anti-Trotskyism was a key part of their anti-fascism, with all the ugly

consequences this entailed.[82] Foreign anarchists similarly fell under

the suspicion of heterodoxy, and although many volunteers were able to

remain inconspicuous, others were less lucky.

The mass arrests and resultant disarming of the rearguard after May 1937

was, as James Yeoman notes, the final act in the ‘reassertion of “social

order” over “revolutionary order” in Republican Spain.’[83] The

existence of both the revolutionary militias and the land and factory

collectivisations of earlier in the war (enabled in many places by those

same militias) were anathema to those wishing to fight a conventional

military conflict. The targeting of foreign anarchists shows how, like

their Spanish comrades, they too were viewed as ‘uncontrollable’ by the

Republican government. In this case, the dividing lines between rival

factions of the anti-fascist camp also cut across national lines.

Post-conflict trajectories of foreign volunteers have been of ‘secondary

concern’ in many studies of transnational fighters.[84] This is

unfortunate, since it isolates the experience of war volunteering from

the wider societal context in which the volunteers found themselves.

This can tell us more about how states deal with demobilized

transnational fighters, but also the potentially radicalizing and/or

demoralizing impact of foreign military service. In general, the story

of the International Group volunteers at the war’s end is a sombre one.

The attitude of states both democratic and authoritarian towards

combatants from Spain ranged from suspicion to outright hostility. This

was largely irrespective of their political background; even the Soviet

Union effectively abandoned its communist cadres after 1939.[85] Foreign

volunteers in Spain (particularly exiles) were what Nir Arielli calls

‘substitute-conflict volunteers, who see service in a conflict abroad as

a precursor to fighting the regime in their home state.’ This meant

that—to other states—they were potentially troublesome, and the

intricacies of Republican war policy mattered little.[86]

Like thousands of other Spanish refugees and foreigners, International

Group volunteers who survived the end of the war were often held in

concentration camps in southern France or North Africa. Somewhat

remarkably, seven German volunteers ended up in the same camp in Gurs in

1940.[87] At least 20 volunteers spent time in the camps, including the

only Portuguese volunteer, Julio Mescareuhas (described by the

authorities as a ‘bitter enemy’ of the Communist Party).[88] Most of

them were held in southern France, but one, Alfred Berger, was captured

by the Nationalists and taken to the infamous San Pedro de Cardeña

prisoner of war camp.[89] Carl Einstein’s story is perhaps the most

tragic. Having been imprisoned briefly in the south of France for his

role as a civil war combatant, he came to Paris, but after the start of

the Second World War he was interned as an enemy alien in a camp near

Bordeaux. He managed to escape, but following the fall of France, he was

now subject to persecution as a Jew. He fled to the south again, but,

having given up all hope of escaping across the Pyrenees, he drowned

himself in a river flowing through the village of

Lestelle-Bétharram.[90]

Following the defeat of the Republican cause, several volunteers’

anti-fascist pasts came back to haunt them. Former KPD member Helmuth

Bruhns was handed over to the Gestapo by the Vichy Regime in 1941 and

sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Kurt Lehmann, who before 1936 had

helped to smuggle Jews from Germany to Britain and the US, soon found

himself under intense scrutiny. Having returned to Belgium with his

brother Werner (also an International Group member) in 1937, the pair

were arrested and expelled from the country in 1938. After several more

arrests in France and an unsuccessful attempt to enter Britain, the

brothers were delivered to the Nazis. Werner’s arteries were cut and he

bled to death (it is unclear whether this was a suicide or an

execution), whilst Kurt survived Gestapo torture and was sent to various

prisons in Germany before being liberated by the US Army on his way to

Dachau concentration camp. He became disillusioned with postwar West

Germany and declared that it was ‘not worth fighting for these people’

towards the end of his life.[91]

Other volunteers were able to continue their fight against fascism.

Belgian communist Mathieu Corman joined the French Resistance, launching

sabotage operations in southern France until his capture whilst in

Barcelona in 1942. He was later released and returned to Belgium. French

communist Aimé Turrel, after supporting his party’s endorsement of the

Nazi-Soviet Pact, also eventually joined the French Resistance.[92]

Fritz Benner enrolled in the Norwegian Resistance and was arrested for

espionage by the Swedish authorities in April 1940, alongside fellow

International Group volunteers Hans Vesper and Karl Löshaus. Olov

Jansson worked with the Swedish Resistance, co-founding the

Swedish-Norwegian Press Bureau in Stockholm alongside SAPD member and

future Chancellor of West Germany Willy Brandt (who had also spent time

in Spain). Jansson later moved to Britain and became a journalist with

the BBC.[93] French Algerian volunteer Saïl Mohamed, who at one point

led the International Group before being wounded, produced counterfeit

papers for Algerian workers during the German occupation of France, and

after 1945 agitated against French colonialism through the UA and its

successor, the Fédération Anarchiste.[94] It is clear, then, that for

these volunteers their experience in Spain did not dampen their

enthusiasm for the cause. There was a continuity between interwar and

wartime anti-fascism; it may be more useful for many volunteers, even,

to characterize the entire period from 1933 to 1945 as one of

transnational anti-fascist resistance.[95]

As a military unit, the International Group of the Durruti Column was

relatively insignificant. It survived less than a year (under six months

as part of an ‘unmilitarized’ column), and probably contained no more

than a hundred individuals at any given time. Service was short; few

volunteers served from its inception in August 1936 all the way through

until its dissolution in July 1937. Nevertheless, the group is a

microcosm of anti-fascist activity during the interwar period. It was a

moment of activism for many volunteers, but this activism extended both

before and after the Spanish Civil War. Most German volunteers had a

history of anti-Nazism well before Spain, and others continued their

activism well into the Second World War and beyond. The decision to come

to Spain, in most cases, was not exceptional, but a logical extension of

a wider political commitment. As the co-founder of the International

Group Charles Ridel later wrote:

To many of the revolutionaries who rushed to a Spain in flames and in

battle, it was not an aspiration but the ultimate sacrifice relished as

a gauntlet thrown down to a complicated world that made no sense, as the

tragic outworking of a society wherein human dignity is trampled

underfoot day in and day out.[96]

This fight crossed and re-crossed national boundaries, showing that

anti-fascism in the 1930s was not only an international, but

transnational phenomenon. The fluidity of national borders encapsulated

in the group is mirrored by a diversity of political views, from

anarchists, communists and socialists to generic anti-fascists. In a

sense, then, the Spanish Civil War acted as an ‘anti-fascist melting

pot,’ where anti-fascists of different stripes came together. For many

volunteers, this experience reinforced their own anti-fascist identity,

whilst for others Spain was the peak of their anti-fascist

commitment.[97]

Unlike most of those who fought with the International Brigades,

milicianos in the International Group witnessed first-hand the debates

over militarization, women at the front and arguably the most

controversial episode of the civil war: the May Days and subsequent

repression. The difference in views over militarization between members

of the group is an antidote to the idea that all rank-and-file

anarchists were hostile to the process, even if many were unhappy with

its execution. The reaction of the CNT to the International Group’s

concerns also helps us to gauge the overall treatment of non-Spaniards

by Spaniards during the civil war period, and questions the

characterization of the conflict as distinctively internationalist.

Militarization was a centralizing, but also a nationalizing (and

masculinizing) process, something which became more explicit when

non-Spaniards were banned from serving in Spanish units. The heightened

repression of foreigners after the May Days was, similarly, a political

attempt by state forces to counter the revolutionary internationalism of

anarchist volunteers. It would be facile to assert that Spaniards did

not appreciate the efforts of these international milicianos. There was,

nevertheless, an underlying tension between Spaniards and non-Spaniards

throughout the course of the war, symptomatic of a tendency of the

former to characterize the war in national terms.[98]

Although differences between foreign service in the Durruti Column and

the International Brigades have been highlighted, we should also

recognize their similarities. Initial mobilizations shared several

features, although these diverged as the Comintern took greater control

over recruitment. Many volunteers fought in both formations, and at the

war’s end, many faced similar perils. Like foreign volunteers in other

conflicts, they may have become caught up in political intrigues during

the war, but there was a shared commitment to the cause regardless of

the tensions caused by differing ideological viewpoints.[99] Equally,

though, this shared commitment had its limits: for many anarchists,

militarization marked the end of their foreign service, whilst for

others, being ordered to fight under unacceptable combat conditions at

Quinto was the final straw. The International Brigades had problems

maintaining morale too, particularly after bloody reverses like at

Jarama in February 1937.[100] The propensity to characterize the Spanish

Civil War as a romantic conflict—symbolic of a transnational commitment

to defeat fascism during a period of profound societal uncertainty—can

seem irresistible, but service for foreign volunteers was significantly

less rosy than is frequently depicted. Internationalist anti-fascist

rhetoric was often curtailed by nationalist practice. Through studying

these transnational fighters, we have a more comprehensive understanding

of the complex nature of twentieth century anti-fascism.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Fern Towers for her comments on an earlier

draft of the manuscript and the Belfast Anarchist Bookfair for hosting a

talk based on the paper in 2019.

ORCID iD

Morris Brodie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6638-2465

Biographical Note

Morris Brodie is a historian at Queen’s University Belfast. He achieved

a BA in History and Politics (First Class Honours) from the University

of Strathclyde in 2013 before completing his MSc in History (with

Distinction) at the University of Glasgow in 2014. He received his PhD

at Queen’s in 2018. He specialises in the history of international

anarchism during the interwar period and has published his research in

several journals, including Radical Americas, Anarchist Studies and the

Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. His first book,

Transatlantic Anarchism during the Spanish Civil War and Revolution,

1936–1939: Fury Over Spain, is available now as part of Routledge’s

Studies in Modern European History series. He is currently researching

Spanish anarchist exiles in Britain after the civil war.

[1] For the International Brigades, see R. Baxell, British Volunteers in

the Spanish Civil War: The British Battalion in the International

Brigades, 1936–1939 (London 2004); A. Castells, Las brigadas

internacionales en la guerra de España (Barcelona 1974); P. N. Carroll,

The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish

Civil War (Stanford, CA 1994); M. Jackson, Fallen Sparrows: The

International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War (Philadelphia, PA 1994);

B. Mugnai, Foreign Volunteers and International Brigades in the Spanish

Civil War (1936–39) (Zanica 2019); R. D. Richardson, Comintern Army: The

International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War (Lexington, KN 1982).

For foreign anarchists, see D. Berry, ‘French Anarchists in Spain,

1936–1939,’ French History, 3, 4 (December 1989), 427–65; D. Nelles,

‘Deutsche Anarchosyndikalisten und Freiwillige in anarchistischen

Milizen im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg,’ Internationale Wissenshaftlich

Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 4 (1997),

500–19; A. Graf and D. Nelles, ‘Widerstand und Exil deutscher

Anarchisten und Anarchosyndikalisten (1933–1945),’ in R. Berner (ed.),

Die unsichtbare Front: Bericht über die illegale Arbeit in Deutschland

(1937) (Berlin and Cologne 1997), 50–152; K. Zimmer, ‘The Other

Volunteers: American Anarchists and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939,’

Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 10, 2 (Fall 2016), 19–51; T. R.

Nevin, Simone Weil: Portrait of a Self-Exiled Jew (Chapel Hill, NC

1991); S. Zeidler, Form as Revolt: Carl Einstein and the Ground of

Modern Art (Ithaca, NY 2015).

[2]

N. Arielli and B. Collins, ‘Introduction: Transnational Military

Service since the Eighteenth Century,’ in N. Arielli and B. Collins

(eds), Transnational Soldiers: Foreign Military Enlistment in the

Modern Era (Basingstoke 2013), 5.

[3] For simplicity’s sake I refer to the company as the ‘International

Group’ throughout.

[4] Anonymous, ‘Die Internationale Gruppe,’ Die Soziale Revolution (1

January 1937).

[5] See N. Arielli, ‘Foreign Fighters and War Volunteers: Between Myth

and Reality,’ European Review of History, 27, 1–2 (March 2020), 54–64.

[6]

M. N. Ngae, ‘Promises and Perils of Transnational History,’

Perspectives on History, 50, 9 (December 2012). Available online

at:

https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/december-2012/the-future-of-the-discipline/promises-and-perils-of-transnational-history

(accessed 17 June 2015).

[7]

H. García, ‘Transnational History: A New Paradigm for Anti-Fascist

Studies,’ Contemporary European History, 25, 4 (November 2016), 566.

See M. Seidman, Transatlantic Antifascisms: From the Spanish Civil

War to the End of World War II (Cambridge 2017); H. Graham, Lives at

the limit: Dealing with Defeat in the Dark Twentieth Century

(provisional title, in preparation as of 2020). The Leverhulme

Trust-funded international research network entitled ‘Transnational

Resistance, 1936–1948’ is headed by Gildea and comprises academics

from seven institutions across Europe. See also K. Braskén, N.

Copsey and J. A. Lundin (eds), Anti-fascism in the Nordic Countries:

New Perspectives, Comparisons and Transnational Connections (London

2019).

[8]

J. Marco, ‘Transnational Soldiers and Guerrilla Warfare from the

Spanish Civil War to the Second World War,’ War in History, 27, 3

(July 2020), 387–407; L. A. Kirschenbaum, International Communism

and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity and Suspicion (Cambridge

2015). See also N. Arielli and E. Acciai, ‘Trajectories of

Transnational Antifascist Volunteers from the Spanish Civil War to

the Second World War,’ War in History, 27, 3 (July 2020), 341–5 and

the remainder of this special issue. On the prevalence of communists

in the anti-fascist narrative, see H. García, M. Yusta, X. Tabet

and C. Clímaco, ‘Beyond Revisionism: Rethinking Antifascism in the

Twenty-First Century,’ in H. García, M. Yusta, X. Tabet and C.

Clímaco (eds), Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics,

1922 to the Present (New York 2016), 3–5; N. Copsey and A.

Olechnowicz (eds), Varieties of Anti-Fascism: Britain in the

Interwar Period (Basingstoke 2010), particularly the preface.

[9]

C. Bantman and B. Altena, ‘Introduction: Problematizing Scales of

Analysis in Network-Based Social Movements,’ in C. Bantman and B.

Altena (eds), Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis

in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies (New York 2015), 7.

[10] See, for example, J. Casanova, Anarchism, the Republic and Civil

War in Spain: 1931–1939 (London 2005) and De la calle al frente: El

anarcosindicalismo en España (1931–1939) (Barcelona 2010); C. Ealham,

Class, Culture and Conflict in Barcelona, 1898–1937 (London 2005); D.

Evans, Revolution and the State: Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War,

1936–1939 (London 2018); F. Godicheau, La Guerre d’Espagne: République

et revolution en Catalogne (1936–1939) (Paris 2004); D. Marín Silvestre,

Ministros anarquistas. La CNT en el gobierno de la 11a República

(1936–1939) (Barcelona 2005); J. Peirats, La CNT en la revolución

española, 3 Vols (Toulouse 1951–3).

[11]

E. Acciai, Antifascismo, volontariato e guerra civile in Spagna. La

Sezione Italiana della Colonna Ascaso (Milan 2016); The Giménologues

(eds), The Sons of Night: Antoine Gimenez’s Memories of the War in

Spain (Edinburgh 2019).

[12] See M. Brodie, ‘Crying in the Wilderness? The British Anarchist

Movement during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939,’ Anarchist Studies,

27, 2 (Autumn 2019), 21–40. Further information can be found in C.

Dolan, An Anarchist’s Story: The Life of Ethel MacDonald (Edinburgh

2009); M. Feu, Fighting Fascist Spain: Worker Protest from the Printing

Press (Urbana, IL 2019); D. Porter, Vision on Fire: Emma Goldman on the

Spanish Revolution (Edinburgh 2006).

[13]

J. A. Baer, Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina (Urbana, IL

2015); M. A. Ackelsberg, ‘It Takes More than a Village!:

Transnational Travels of Spanish Anarchism in Argentina and

Cuba,’ International Journal of Iberian Studies, 29, 3

(September 2016), 205–23; F. Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit

(London 1937), 273; P. Preston, The Spanish Civil War: Reaction,

Revolution and Revenge (London 2006), 170–1.

[14]

M. Alpert, ‘The Popular Army of the Spanish Republic, 1936–39,’

in W. H. Bowen and J. E. Alvarez (eds), A Military History of Modern

Spain: From the Napoleonic Era to the International War on Terror

(Westport, CT 2007), 97–8; M. White, ‘Wobblies in the Spanish Civil

War,’ Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, 42/3 (Winter 2006), 42; Anonymous,

‘Un vecchio milite della colonna Ascaso,’ Il Martello (21 February

1938); D. Nelles, The Foreign Legion of the Revolution: German

Anarcho-syndicalist and Volunteers in Anarchist Militias during the

Spanish Civil War (2008), available online at:

https://libcom.org/library/the-foreign-legion-revolution (accessed

24 January 2020); A. Souchy, Nacht über Spanien:

Anarcho-Syndikalisten in Revolution und Bürgerkrieg 1936–1939

(Grafenau 1986), 181. It should be noted that anarchist sources were

inclined to inflate their own numbers: Casanova, Anarchism, the

Republic and Civil War in Spain, 109.

[15]

P. Broué and É. Temime, The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain

(London 1970), 67; J. Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution,

Vol. 1 (Hastings 2001), 97; S. Christie, We, the Anarchists! A Study

of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), 1927–1937 (Hastings

2000), 78; A. Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution (Oakland, CA

2006), 759; ‘Salvo Conducto’ for Sylvan Oziol, 10 February 1937

(Archivo General de la Guerra Civil Española, Salamanca,

Político-Social Madrid, Carpeta 321, Legajo 2954); B. Belcher,

Shipwreck on Middleton Reef: The Story of a Tasman survivor

(Auckland 1979), 18; J. Albrighton, ‘Spain Diaries,’ 5 October 1936

(Marx Memorial Library, London, Spanish Collection, Box 50, File

Al/12).

[16]

J. Mira, Los Guerrilleros Confederales: Un hombre: Durruti (Barcelona

1938), 102–3; Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, 473;

Richardson, Comintern Army, 22. For more on the militias, see G.

Berger, Les milícies antifeixistes de Catalunya. Voluntaris per la

llibertat (Vic 2018); R. Brusco, Les milícies antifeixistes i

l’exèrcit popular a Catalunya (Lérida 2003); E. Romero García, El

ejemplo de la columna Durruti: De milicianos libertarios a soldados

del ejército popular de la República (Bilbao 2017).

[17] Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, 486; Berry, ‘French

Anarchists in Spain,’ 445; C. Marzani, The Education of a Reluctant

Radical, Book 3: Spain, Munich, and Dying Empires (New York 1994), 20.

[18] In particular: List of comrades in International Group of Durruti

Column, n.d. (IISH, Archivo de la Propaganda Exterior CNT-FAI (FAIPE),

1C.3b); ‘Ermittelungen ueber die von der Gruppe DAS controlierten

Kameraden in der Miliz,’ 20 January 1937 (IISH, FAIPE, 1B.2); ‘Liste del

Miliciens Français,’ n.d. (IISH, FAIPE, 20.3c). Memoirs and first-hand

accounts include: The Giménologues, The Sons of Night; E. Gmür, Spanish

Diary: A Swiss ‘Miliciano’s’ War Diary of the Aragón Front and

Barcelona’s ‘May Days,’ trans. Paul Sharkey (Hastings 2015); N. Lätt,

Som Milisman och Kollektivbonde i Spanien (Stockholm 1938); Mira, Los

Guerrilleros Confederales; P. and C. Thalmann, Combats pour la liberté

(Quimperlé 1997); S. Weil, Le Journal d’Espagne de Simone Weil [Bonnes

Feuilles], 18 August 1936 [2018], available online at:

https://lundi.am/Le-journal-d-Espagne-de-Simone-Weil-Bonnes-feuilles

(accessed 24 January 2020). I have also incorporated studies that

mention individual volunteers but which do little to assess the

International Group in its broader context.

[19] Berry, ‘French Anarchists in Spain,’ 445–6, 461–2; Anonymous, ‘Die

Internationale Gruppe,’ Die Soziale Revolution (1 January 1937); Paz,

Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, 488; The Giménologues, The Sons of

Night, 69. Foreign milicianos were frequently used as shock troops,

which often led to heavy casualties (the Battle of Perdiguera in October

1936 was particularly bloody). This has parallels with the International

Brigades, which suffered higher casualty rates than both local troops

and foreigners serving under Franco (and, indeed, Allied losses in both

World Wars): N. Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden: A History of Foreign

War Volunteers (Cambridge, MA 2017), 157.

[20] Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, 486–8; The Giménologues,

The Sons of Night, 107; D. Nelles, Widerstand und internationale

Solidarität: Die Internationale Transportarbeiter-Föderation (ITF) im

Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus (Essen 2001), 196; Zeidler,

Form as Revolt, 6–7; Gmür, Spanish Diary, 2 March 1937.

[21]

C. J. Esdaile, The Spanish Civil War: A Military History (London

2019), 103. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that

Lamotte was in fact a communist spy, although seemingly not a

very good one. According to his Comintern file, he was sent to

the column on the orders of the German Communist Party but was

subsequently reassigned to the 27^(th) (formerly Karl Marx)

Division in 1937. Although brave and disciplined, he had a

drinking problem, and his membership was not transferred to the

Spanish Communist Party. In hindsight, the election of Cardeur

also seems ill-judged; in July 1937, he was imprisoned for

siphoning money from the column’s payroll: Lists with

characteristics, biographies of German volunteers (K–Q), 14

February 1940 (RGASPI 545/6/352/59); Gmür, Spanish Diary, 2

March, 15–16 July 1937.

[22] Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, 473, 486–8; Weil, Le

Journal d’Espagne de Simone Weil, 18 August 1936; Anonymous, ‘Die

Internationale Gruppe,’ Die Soziale Revolution (1 January 1937); The

Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 51. French was also the lingua franca

of many early volunteers who joined the International Brigades: J. Marco

and M. Thomas, ‘“Mucho malo for fascisti’: Languages and Transnational

Soldiers in the Spanish Civil War,’ War & Society, 38, 2 (May 2019),

143.

[23] 23 The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 51; Lätt, Som Milisman och

Kollektivbonde i Spanien, 13; Marco and Thomas, ‘Mucho malo for

fascisti,’ 158–60.

[24] Berry, ‘French Anarchists in Spain,’ 433; The Giménologues, The

Sons of Night, 238, 336; ‘Liste del Miliciens Français,’ n.d. (IISH,

FAIPE, 20.3c); Lätt, Som Milisman och Kollektivbonde i Spanien, 8; A.

Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 (London

2006), 141; Anonymous, ‘Die Internationale Gruppe,’ Die Soziale

Revolution (1 January 1937); Zimmer, ‘The Other Volunteers,’ 30, 47.

[25]

R. Skoutelsky, L’Espoir guidait leurs pas: Les volontaires français

dans les Brigades internationales, 1936–1939 (Paris 1998), 330;

Nelles, Widerstand und internationale Solidarität, 197. Although

much smaller in number than that of Spain, the French anarchist

movement was probably the second most powerful in Europe at the

time. Alexandre Skirda calls France the ‘homeland of anarchy’ and

Paris was a popular location for anarchist exiles escaping

repression in other countries such as the Soviet Union: A. Skirda,

Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon

to May 1968 (Edinburgh 2002), 144, 118–22. See also D. Berry, A

History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917–1945 (Westport, CT

2002).

[26]

J. McLellan, Antifascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the

International Brigades 1945–1989 (Oxford 2004), 18–9; Nelles, The

Foreign Legion of the Revolution. The German anarchist movement had

been relatively influential in the early twentieth century, with

several anarchists involved in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet

Republic in 1919. The FAUD had a membership of 150,000 at its peak

but was suppressed following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933.

After this, most German anarchists were either arrested, went

underground or fled the country: see G. Kuhn (ed.), All Power to the

Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of

1918–1919 (Oakland, CA 2012), 167–263; H. M. Bock,

‘Anarchosyndicalism in the German Labour Movement: A Rediscovered

Minority Tradition,’ in M. van der Linden and W. Thorpe (eds),

Revolutionary Syndicalism: An International Perspective (Aldershot

1990), 59–80; A. Graf, Anarchisten gegen Hitler: Anarchisten,

Anarcho-Syndikalisten, Rätekommunisten in Widerstand und Exil

(Berlin 2001).

[27]

A. Searle, ‘The German Military Contribution to the Spanish Civil War,

1936–1939,’ in G. Johnson (ed.), The International Context of the

Spanish Civil War (Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2009), 136–7; Jackson, Fallen

Sparrows, 105; The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 96–9; Berry,

‘French Anarchists in Spain,’ 432.

[28] The Sezione Italiana was formed on the initiative of socialist

anti-fascist Carlo Rosselli and the anarchist Camillo Berneri, who also

published the journal Guerra di Classe: R. Alexander, The Anarchists in

the Spanish Civil War, Vol. 2 (London 1999), 1135–6; The Giménologues,

The Sons of Night, 236–7; E. Acciai, ‘L’esperienza della Rivista «Spain

and the World». La guerra civile spagnola, l’antifascismo europeo e

l’anarchismo,’ in C. De Maria (ed.), Maria Luisa Berneri e l’anarchismo

ingles (Reggio Emilia 2013), 76.

[29] The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 11–2, 387. See also P. Huber

and N. Ulmi, Les Combatants suisses en Espagne républicaine, 1936–1939

(Lausanne 2001).

[30]

J. Byrne, ‘From Brooklyn to Belchite: New Yorkers in the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade,’ in P. N. Carroll and J. D. Fernandez (eds), Facing

Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War (New York 2007), 75.

[31] Lätt, Som Milisman och Kollektivbonde i Spanien, 3–7.

[32] Notebook of Volunteers, 1936–1937 (IISH, FAIPE, 15A.2); Carroll,

The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 61; Nelles, Widerstand und

internationale Solidarität, 196–7.

[33] Lists with characteristics, biographies of German volunteers (R–S),

28 February 1940 (RGASPI 545/6/353/99).

[34] The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 135. For example: Anonymous,

‘Britons Lured to Red Front,’ Daily Mail (18 February 1937). See

Kirschenbaum, International Communism and the Spanish Civil War, 106.

[35] The CGTSR was a split from the reformist CGT and had a membership

of around 4,000 during the late 1930s. Its organ, Le Combat

Syndicaliste, had approximately 5,300 subscribers: Berry, ‘French

Anarchists in Spain,’ 428–34; W. Thorpe, Anarchosyndicalism in Inter-war

France: The Vision of Pierre Besnard (2011), available online at:

https://libcom.org/library/anarchosyndicalism-inter-war-france-vision-pierre-besnard-%E2%80%93-wayne-thorpe

(accessed 24 January 2020). For the SAC and IWW, see L. K. Persson,

‘Revolutionary Syndicalism in Sweden before the Second World War,’ in

van der Linden and Thorpe, Revolutionary Syndicalism, 81–99; P. Cole, D.

Struthers and K. Zimmer (eds), Wobblies of the World: A Global History

of the IWW (London 2017).

[36]

J. Cabaud, Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love (London 1964), 139; Nevin,

Simone Weil, 104.

[37]

L. M. Lines, Milicianas: Women in Combat in the Spanish Civil War

(Lanham, MD 2012), 43. See also M. Nash, ‘“Milicianas” and

Homefront Heroines: Images of Women in Revolutionary Spain

(1936–1939),’ History of European Ideas, 11 (1990), 235–44; A.

Martínez Rus, Milicianas. Mujeres republicanas combatientes

(Madrid 2018).

[38] Weil, Le journal d’Espagne de Simone Weil, 18 August 1936; R.

Lugshitz, Spanienkämpferinnen: Ausländische Frauen im Spanischen

Bürgerkrieg, 1936–1939 (Vienna 2012), 40–1; Lines, Milicianas, 81, 137;

P. Sharkey, ‘Anarchist Lives: Georgette Kokoczinski (la mimosa),’

Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library, 73 (February 2013), 6; The

Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 85–6, 94, 97, 239–41, 304–11.

[39]

J. Matthews, Reluctant Warriors: Republican Popular Army and

Nationalist Army Conscripts in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

(Oxford 2012), 94.

[40] Richardson, Comintern Army, 48–9; Marzani, The Education of a

Reluctant Radical, 16; Berry, ‘French Anarchists in Spain,’ 432. See

Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, first part. The closing of the

French frontier in February 1937 also undoubtedly played a role.

[41]

R. D. Richardson, ‘Foreign Fighters in Spanish Militias: The Spanish

Civil War 1936–1939,’ Military Affairs, 40, 1 (February 1976),

10; A. Prudhommeaux (Barcelona) to G. Aldred (Glasgow), 14

September 1936 (Mitchell Library, Glasgow, Guy Aldred

Collection, 107); P. Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History

of Anarchism in America (Oakland, CA 2005), 458; Nelles,

Widerstand und internationale Solidarität, 197.

[42]

D. Kowalsky, ‘The Soviet Union and the International Brigades,

1936–1939,’ Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 19, 4 (December

2006), 687–8; D. Malet, ‘Workers of the World, Unite! Communist

Foreign Fighters, 1917–91,’ European Review of History, 27, 1–2

(March 2020), 38–9.

[43] Lätt, Som Milisman och Kollektivbonde i Spanien, 8.

[44] Graf and Nelles, ‘Widerstand und Exil,’ 122; Nelles, Widerstand und

internationale Solidarität, 158, 196.

[45]

E. H. Carr, The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War (London 1984),

33; V. Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution (London

1972), 112. A detailed analysis of the tension between defenders

and opponents of this process can be found in J. Antoni Pozo,

Poder legal y poder real en la Cataluña revolucionaria de 1936

(Seville 2012). For a critique of the ‘war versus revolution’

paradigm, see Preston, The Spanish Civil War, 237–9.

[46] The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 79, 146–7, 355–6; P. von zur

Mühlen, Spanien war ihre Hoffnung: Die deutsche Linke im spanischen

Bürgerkrieg, 1936 bis 1939 (Bonn 1983), excerpts available at:

https://www.anarchismus.at/texte-zur-spanischen-revolution-1936/spanienkaempfer-innen/7722-patrik-von-zur-muehlen-deutsche-anarchosyndikalisten-in-spanien

(accessed 24 January 2020); Gmür, Spanish Diary, 26 December 1936.

[47] Gmür, Spanish Diary, 18 January 1937.

[48] Von zur Mühlen, Spanien war ihre Hoffnung; Thalmann, Combats pour

la liberté, 141–3.

[49] Matthews, Reluctant Warriors, 21–2.

[50]

N. Arielli and D. Rodogno, ‘Transnational Encounters: Hosting and

Remembering Twentieth-Century Foreign War Volunteers—Introduction,’

Journal of Modern European History, 14, 3 (August 2016), 319. See

also S. O’Connor and G. Piketty, ‘Introduction—Foreign Fighters and

Multinational Armies: From Civil Conflicts to Coalition Wars,

1848–2015,’ European Review of History, 27, 1–2 (March 2020), 1–11.

[51] Anonymous, ‘Federica Montseny habla en Madrid ante el micrófono de

Unión Radio,’ Solidaridad Obrera (2 September 1936). See also X. M.

Núñez and J. M. Faraldo, ‘The First Great Patriotic War: Spanish

Communists and Nationalism, 1936–1939,’ Nationalities Papers, 37, 4

(July 2009), 401–24; M. Baxmeyer, ‘“Mother Spain, We Love You!”

Nationalism and Racism in Anarchist Literature during the Spanish Civil

War (1936–1939),’ in Bantman and Altena, Reassessing the Transnational

Turn, 193–209.

[52] Alexander, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, Vol. 2, 255; M.

Haapamaki, ‘Writers in Arms and the Just War: The Spanish Civil War,

Literary Activism, and Leftist Masculinity,’ Left History, 10, 2 (Fall

2005), 39–40.

[53] Weil, Le Journal d’Espagne de Simone Weil, 18 August 1936.

[54] Michael Alpert claims that the consequences of the ‘militia epoch’

were ‘indiscipline,’ ‘disorganization’ and ‘political infighting,’ while

R. Dan Richardson argues that whilst the militias were useful when

defending stationary positions in a village or town, out on the field,

most battles consisted of ‘sporadic tenacious defense by the militia, an

outflanking movement by the Nationalists, and panic and retreat by the

militia’: Alpert, ‘The Popular Army of the Spanish Republic,’ 97;

Richardson, ‘Foreign fighters in Spanish militias,’ 8. See also

Matthews, Reluctant Warriors, 19–23, although he notes that the militias

fared better when offered natural cover.

[55] Á. Viñas, El escudo de la República. El oro de España, la apuesta

soviética y los hechos de mayo de 1937 (Barcelona 2010), 174.

[56]

M. Alpert, The Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

(Cambridge 2013), 66–8; A. Paz, The Story of the Iron Column:

Militant Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War (Oakland, CA 2011), 177.

[57] CNT-FAI, Buenaventura Durruti (Barcelona 1936), 25–6. Einstein must

surely be the only person to have given eulogies to both Durruti and

Rosa Luxemburg (at her funeral): Zeidler, Form as Revolt, 3.

[58] Casanova, Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain, 107. See

also V. Alba, Los colectivizadores (Barcelona 2001); W. L. Bernecker,

Colectividades y Revolución Social: El anarquismo en la guerra civil

española, 1936–1939 (Barcelona 1982); F. Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit:

An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Economic Conflicts of the

Spanish Civil War (Ann Arbor, MI 1963), 98, 103; S. Dolgoff (ed.), The

Anarchist Collectives: Workers’ Self-Management in the Spanish

Revolution, 1936–1939 (Montréal 1974); S. Juliá Díaz, ‘Víctimas del

terror y de la represión,’ in E. Fuentes Quintana and F. Comín (eds),

Economía y economistas españoles durante la Guerra Civil, Vol. 2 (Madrid

2008), 385–410; F. Mintz, Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in

Revolutionary Spain (Oakland, CA 2013); P. Preston, The Spanish

Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain

(London 2012), 242–50; M. Seidman, ‘Agrarian Collectives during the

Spanish Revolution and Civil War,’ European History Quarterly, 30, 2

(April 2000), 209–35.

[59] CNT-FAI, Buenaventura Durruti, 25–6.

[60] Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, 470.

[61] Weil, Le Journal d’Espagne de Simone Weil, 16 August 1936.

[62] The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 52–4.

[63] Gmür, Spanish Diary, 31 December 1936.

[64] Nelles, The Foreign Legion of the Revolution.

[65] Resolution of DAS in Durruti International Group, Velille, 22

December 1936 (IISH, FAIPE, 1B.3).

[66] Durruti International Group to CNT regional committee (Barcelona),

13 January 1937 (IISH, CNT, 94E.1); Nelles, Widerstand und

internationale Solidarität, 196.

[67] Nelles, The Foreign Legion of the Revolution.

[68] Carroll, The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 184.

[69] Report by J. Manzana submitted to the CNT regional committee

(Barcelona), 21 December 1936 (IISH, CNT, 94E).

[70] Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden, 177.

[71]

U. Marzocchi, Remembering Spain: Italian Anarchist Volunteers in the

Spanish Civil War (London 2005), 36; Gmür, Spanish Diary, 7 May

1937; M. Aguilera Povedano, ‘Los hechos de mayo de 1937: efectivos y

bajas de cada bando,’ Hispania, 73, 245 (September-December 2013),

799; B. Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and

Counter-Revolution (Chapel Hill, NC 1991), 875–7. For more on the

May Days, see H. Graham, ‘“Against the State”: A Genealogy of the

Barcelona May Days (1937),’ European History Quarterly, 29, 4

(October 1999), 485–542; Viñas, El escudo de la República, 487–548.

[72] Casa International de Voluntarios (Barcelona) to CNT national

committee (Valencia), 21 June 1937 (IISH, FAIPE, 40A.1a); M. Gudell

(Barcelona) to CNT national committee (Valencia), 21 June 1937 (IISH,

FAIPE, 40A.1a). For more on the subsequent repression, see F. Godicheau,

‘Los Hechos de Mayo de 1937 y los presos antifascistas: identificación

de un fenómeno represivo,’ Historia Social, 44 (2002), 38–63; Viñas, El

escudo de la República, 575–604.

[73]

N. Heath, (2004) Kirschey, Helmut, 1913–2003, available at:

https://libcom.org/history/kirschey-helmut-1913-2003 (accessed 24

January 2020); Lists with characteristics, biographies of German

volunteers (K–Q), 13 February 1940 (RGASPI 545/6/352/18).

[74] The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 508.

[75] Gmür, Spanish Diary, 22–4 July 1937; A. Aguzzi, ‘Italian Anarchist

Volunteers in Barcelona,’ in Kate Sharpley Library (ed.), Pages from

Italian Anarchist History (London 1995); Nelles, Widerstand und

internationale Solidarität, 198.

[76] Von zur Mühlen, Spanien war ihre Hoffnung.

[77] Lists with characteristics, biographies of German volunteers (F–J),

7 February 1940 (RGASPI 545/6/351/13).

[78] Rauschenberger does, however, hold the dubious honour of being the

only member of the International Group to have been formally executed by

the brigade authorities after disobeying orders by retreating during the

Battle of Batea in March 1938. This does not seem to have been related

to his earlier service in the Durruti Column; his personnel file calls

him a ‘good, disciplined soldier.’ It is possible he was used as a

scapegoat for wider divisional incompetence: Lists with characteristics,

biographies of German volunteers (R–S), 23 February 1940 (RGASPI

545/6/353/10).

[79]

M. Brodie, Transatlantic Anarchism during the Spanish Civil War and

Revolution, 1936–1939: Fury Over Spain (London 2020), 34.

[80] Report on the Political Development of the XV International

Brigade,’ 1 January 1939 (RGASPI, 545/6/21/1–26); R. Stradling,

‘English-speaking Units of the International Brigades: War, Politics and

Discipline,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 45, 4 (November 2010),

751–2.

[81] Lists with characteristics, biographies of German volunteers (F–J),

10 February 1940 (RGASPI 545/6/351/92); Lists with characteristics,

biographies of German volunteers (R–S), 29 February 1940 (RGASPI

545/6/353/105–6); Lists with characteristics, biographies of German

volunteers (T–Z), 4 March 1940 (RGASPI 545/6/354/24); Lists with

characteristics, biographies of German volunteers (F–J), 8 February 1940

(RGASPI 545/6/351/40).

[82] Preston, The Spanish Holocaust, 402; T. Buchanan, ‘“Beyond Cable

Street”: New Approaches to the Historiography of Antifascism in Britain

in the 1930s,’ in García et al., Rethinking Antifascism, 66–7.

[83]

J. Yeoman, ‘The Spanish Civil War,’ in C. Levy and M. S. Adams (eds),

The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism (Cham 2019), 438.

[84]

F. Raeburn, ‘The “Premature Anti-fascists”? International Brigade

Veterans’ Participation in the British War Effort, 1939–45,’ War in

History, 27, 3 (July 2020), 408–32. Notable exceptions include

Seidman, Transatlantic Antifascisms; E. Acciai, ‘Traditions of Armed

Volunteering and Radical Politics in Southern Europe: A Biographical

Approach to Garibaldinism,’ European History Quarterly, 49, 1

(January 2019), 50–72; T. Buchanan, ‘Ideology, Idealism, and

Adventure: Narratives of the British Volunteers in the International

Brigades,’ Labour History Review, 81, 2 (July 2016), 123–40.

[85] Kowalsky, ‘The Soviet Union and the International Brigades,’ 700.

[86] Arielli defines four categories of volunteer-state relations:

‘self-appointed ambassadors, who see themselves as fulfilling a task

that should have been carried out by their own government; diaspora

volunteers, whose willingness to enlist is tied to a military crisis in

their country of heritage; cross-border volunteers, who share national

or ethnic ties with a neighboring group engaged in conflict; and

substitute-conflict volunteers’: Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden, 95,

119.

[87] Karl Brauner, who also fought with the Batallón de la Muerte, was

held alongside Rudolf Honecker, Waldemar Krafft, August Wienhold, Georg

Gernsheimer, Oskar Heinz and Otto Toewe: McLellan, Antifascism and

Memory in East Germany, 186; ‘Camp de Concentration—Ex-Combattants

d’Espagne; Section: Brigades Internationales, Groupe 2. (allemands,

autrichiens, etc…),’ c. 1940 (RGASPI/6/59/99–115); Nelles, The Foreign

Legion of the Revolution. Hermann Gierth was held in Gurs, Saint-Cyprien

and Argelès-sur-mer in France, then Djelfa in Algeria, before being

handed over to the Gestapo and transferred to Dachau then Auschwitz: The

Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 503.

[88] Lists with characteristics of Portuguese volunteers in Spain, c.

1939 (RGASPI 545/6/816/7). For more on the camps, see F. Cate-Arries,

Spanish Culture behind Barbed Wire: Memory and Representation of the

French Concentration Camps, 1939–1945 (Cranbury, NJ 2010).

[89] Lists with biographies and characteristics of German volunteers, c.

1940 (RGASPI 545/6/349/41). See D. Convery, ‘At Their Most Vulnerable:

The Memory of British and Irish Prisoners of War in San Pedro de

Cardeña,’ in A. Raychaudhuri (ed.), The Spanish Civil War: Exhuming a

Buried Past (Cardiff 2013), 51–63.

[90] Zeidler, Form as Revolt, 7.

[91] Nelles, Widerstand und internationale Solidarität, 192, 318–51,

388.

[92]

P. Aron, ‘Salud Camarada! Un reportage sur la guerre d’Espagne par

Mathieu Corman,’ Revue italienne d’études françaises, 1 (2011), 2;

The Giménologues, The Sons of Night, 283–4.

[93] Nelles, Widerstand und internationale Solidarität, 324, 365;

Anonymous, ‘Jansson, Olov,’ available online at:

https://www.willy-brandt-biography.com/contemporaries/h-k/jansson-olov/

(accessed 24 January 2020).

[94]

S. Mohamed, ‘Réponse a Terre Libre,’ Terre Libre (25 February 1938); D.

Porter, Eyes to the South: French Anarchists and Algeria (Oakland,

CA 2011), 20–1.

[95] Several German volunteers swallowed their anti-communism and

settled in East Germany after the Second World War. Rudolf Michaelis,

the political delegate of the International Group who had obtained

Spanish citizenship to avoid serving under communists, even joined the

communist ruling party. His anarchist past could not be hidden, however,

and he was expelled for former membership of the FAUD and

‘anarcho-syndicalist tendencies’ in 1951. He then worked as a teacher

(but was barred from teaching older children for political reasons),

later publishing his memories of the war under a false name. Michaelis

was among seven volunteers who were awarded the Hans Beimler Medal given

to Spanienkämpfer (Spanish Civil War veterans).The irony could not have

been lost on those familiar with Beimler’s role in prompting the

transfer of volunteers from the Thälmann Centuria to the Durruti Column

in October 1936: McLellan, Antifascism and Memory in East Germany,

186–7; H. Bronnen [Rudolf Michaelis], Mit der ‘Centuria Erich Mühsam’

vor Huesca. Erinnerungen eines Spanienkämpfers, anläßlich des 100.

Geburtstages von Erich Mühsam (Berlin 1996).

[96]

L. M. Vega, ‘Rejecting the Legend’ (1956), trans. Paul Sharkey, KSL:

Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library, 91–2 (October 2017),

available online at: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/573p98

(accessed 6 February 2020).

[97] García notes that ‘Antifascism probably succeeded in Spain thanks

to its conceptual vagueness, its ability to explain the 1930s in terms

familiar to very different people, as well as its obvious political

advantages…’: H. García, ‘Was there an Antifascist Culture in Spain

during the 1930s?, in García et al., Rethinking Antifascism, 102. The

notion of an anti-fascist melting pot is inspired by Michael Goebel’s

‘anti-imperial metropolis’ in Paris during the interwar period: M.

Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third

World Nationalism (Cambridge 2015), 9–10.

[98] Several scholars have noted how Spaniards were resentful of the

perceived overemphasis that propagandists placed on foreign units like

the International Brigades: Kirschenbaum, International Communism and

the Spanish Civil War, 86; Stradling, ‘English-speaking Units of the

International Brigades,’ 748.

[99] Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden, 186–7.

[100] The desertion rate amongst Dutch volunteers in the brigades, for

example, was as high as 25 per cent in late 1937: S. Kruizinga, ‘Fear

and Loathing in Spain. Dutch Foreign Fighters in the Spanish Civil War,’

European Review of History, 27, 1–2 (March 2020), 142.