Writer Sees 80 Americans Held in Spanish Rebel Camp (7/11/38)

Instead of finding only eighteen Americans there, as I expected, I found eighty. Thirty-seven were from New York. Thirty-one were captured in or near Gandesa early in April, thirty were taken at Belchite on March 10 and the rest were picked up on fronts scattered from Tortosa or around Alcaniz all the way to the Biscayan coast.

Among the prisoners were a Florida Negro and an equally dark-skinned Filipino Chinese-American with a Spanish name.

There seems to be good reason to believe that these eighty prisoners include all the captured Americans belonging to the International Brigades who are still alive in Nationalist Spain, with the single exception of Bernard Lemke, who is badly wounded and is now in a hospital at Caceres. The fact that International Brigadesmen captured on every front where Americans have fought since the Spanish civil war began are now incarcerated at San Pedro De Cardena would indicate that no others are being held anywhere else.

The dean of this group, Louis Ornitz of New York, has been a prisoner for nearly a year. He was captured at Brunete July 27.

The young and diminutive Andrew Casa of Philadelphia, captured at the close of the Asturian campaign last October, assured me he was now in his “eleventh and worst place of confinement.”

Robert Merriman, a California college professor and agricultural economist, and a captain in the Republican [Loyalist} Army, about whom the Nationalist authorities have received many inquiries, was not among these prisoners. He was reported several weeks ago to be in a prison at Bilbao. A group of American and British scientists then sent Generalissimo Francisco Franco a telegram expressing concern about his fate and the temporary United States Embassy at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France, tried unsuccessfully to verify whether he was really being held anywhere in Nationalist territory.

Several of Captain Merriman’s companions who were near him immediately before their capture in the vicinity of Gandesa between April 3 and 5 and were probably the last persons to see him alive are at San Pedro De Cardena. They told me he was cut off with a group of his men while valiantly striving to defend a hopeless position.

These witnesses were recently in a provisional prison camp at Bilbao for a short period, which may explain the rumor that Captain Merriman is there, too.

My investigation in Bilbao disclosed that all American and British prisoners had been removed thence a few weeks ago. I am informed by the official registrar of war prisoners in Burgos that Captain Merriman had never been on his list.

ANTHIROS, PETER, New York.
BALAGURCHIK, ELIAS, 255 East Tenth Street, New York.
BANGO, LUIS BUSTO, Grasselle, W. Va.
BARR, CHARLES A., Steubenville, Ohio.
BELAN, CARL, St. Paul, Minn.
BERMAN, LEOPOLD, Brooklyn.
CHASE, VAN, 149 First Avenue, New York.
DELICH, GEORGE, 141 East Eighteenth Street, New York.
DIAZ ARRANS, AVELINO, 973 Tiffany Street, Bronx.
EARL, HOWARD, Santa Monica, Calif.
GARCIA, M., Canton, Ohio.
GARCIA, MARSHALL, Los Angeles.
GEISER, CARL, 222 West Twenty-third Street, New York.
GOODWIN, MICHAEL, New York.
GRIGAS, JOSEPH, Wercester, Mass.
HALL, CHARLES A., Chicago.
HANNIGAN, WALTER, Des Moines, Iowa.
HIGGINS, JOHN, New York.
JOHNSON, EDWARD, Columbus, Ohio.
KONESKI, SAM, Russellton, Pa.
LOAK, SAMUEL G., Lexington, Ky.
MAKEI, MARTTI, Minneapolis, Minn.
PARDO, IGLESIAS, Tampa, Fla.
PRINGLE, CLAUDE, Bellaire, Ohio.
ROSENBLATT, SIDNEY, 119 Cannon Street, New York.
SEVERIA, GEORGE, New York.
STIX, FREDERICK, Suring, Wis.
STONE, WILLIAM, Rockford, Ill.
TENOR, LEON, 11 Hillside Avenue, New York.
TOBMAN, MORRIS, New York.
ZIEGLER, ALBERT, 340 West Fifty-seventh Street, New York.

Others, who were captured in the vicinity of Gandesa between March 30 and April 10, were:

ACKER, E. L., 632 Second Street, New York.
ASEVEDO, SERVANDO, Brooklyn.
BRALEY, ROGER, Ayer, Mass.
FAVARDO, MARK, 61 East 121st Street, New York.
FERNANDEZ, ILDEFONSO, Tampa, Fla.
GRANT, SAMUAL A., Los Angeles.
GRAVER, WILLIAM, New York.
GRODZKI, FRANK, 317 Eckford Street, Brooklyn.
GURKO, MAURICE, Chicago.
HABER, COHN, 799 158th Street, New York.
HEINRICHER, STANLEY, A., Pittsburgh.
HODGE, EDWARD, London.
JENKINS, JOHN HOLLIS, Seattle, Wash.
KELLY, DAVID, 410 Madison Avenue, New York.
LERNER, SOL, 1,169 Second Street, Brooklyn.
LOPEZ, HERMAN, New York.
MAIL, JACK, 410 Madison Avenue, New York.
MEGGUIER, H. B., Los Angeles.
MILLER, FRED R., Bay City, Mich.
MOZUERES, CRISTOS, Canton, Ohio.
PANASZEWICZ, JOHN, Minneapolis.
PIEKARSKI, JOHN, 145 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn.
POLANSKY, SAM, Bronx.
RABINOVITZ, I., 1,113 Grant Avenue, Bronx.
STANLEY, FRED, National Maritime Union, New York City.
STEINBERG, JACK, Philadelphia.
STEVENSON, ALWYN, Bridgeport, Conn.
THOMPSON, RICHARD, Newport, N. H.
WALLACH, HYMAN DAVID, 1,145 Lenox Road, Brooklyn.
YOUNG, JOSEPH, L., New York City.

Still others, taken prisoner at different places, are listed below with the point of capture and time:

BLAIR, CLARENCE A., Little Falls, Minn.; Hijar, March 13, 1938.
BROWNE, RICHARD, New York City; near Alcaniz, March 14, 1938.
CASA, ANDREW, Philadelphia; Asturias, Oct. 26, 1937.
CONWAY, MAURICE, San Francisco; Calaceite, March 31, 1938.
DORLAND, NORMAN, San Francisco; Lecera, March 12, 1938.
DYKSTRA, MATTHEW S., Los Angeles; Calaceite, March 31, 1938.
FERNANDEZ, AVELINO, 150 Third Avenue, New York City; Asturias, Oct. 26, 1937.
KEITH, CHARLES L., 104 East Seventeenth Street, New York City; Tortosa, March 31,
1938. LOGAN, JOHN M., Lynn Mass.; Calaceite, March 31, 1938.
MOSKOWITZ, IGNATZ, New York City; Tortosa, April 11, 1938.
ORNITZ, LOUIS, 896 Bryant Avenue, Bronx; Brunete, July 27, 1937.
PARKER, MAX, 51 Norfolk Street, New York City; near Alcaniz, March 30, 1938.
ROMER, SAMUEL, 250 West Tenth Street, New York City; Hijar, March 12, 1938.
STECK, ROBERT, Rock Island, Ill.; near Tortosa, April 9, 1938.

Adjoining the Church of San Pedro de Cardena there is an old, disused monastery where 2,000 war prisoners now sleep without being overcrowded, it is declared. About 500 of these, I was told, are foreigners who belonged to the International Brigades of the Republican Army, the rest being Spanish.

An extensive paved courtyard fits into the angle formed by the church and the monastery. Upon my arrival this courtyard was deserted, but I saw a group of healthy looking men going in for athletics in a large field near by bordered on one side by a small river where other men were bathing and washing their clothes.

When a prison official approached to see what I wanted, I asked whether the men in the field wee prisoners. I was told that they were French, British and Scandinavian internationals who from the time of their capture had not only conducted themselves with exemplary discipline but had asked to be put to work immediately. Some were helping in the kitchens, while others had turned out to be good barbers and gardeners.

However, an elderly major in command of the camp informed me with evident regret that not one of his eighty American prisoners had ever shown anything like similar willingness to make the best of the situation. Rather, he said, they had combined sulky rebelliousness against all discipline with a perpetual inclination to complain about their treatment and unsatisfactory “accommodations.”

“They will protest to you,” he warned, “that sanitary conditions here are terrible, that they do not get enough exercise and that all the varieties of vermin with which they were covered when taken prisoner have since multiplied. But we still have to force most of them to bathe and wash their clothes in the river, although I am sure they had only such outdoor facilities for cleaning up most of the time when they were serving in the enemy’s army.

“The few we could trust to exercise as they pleased in that open field haughtily declined to join other prisoners in simple sports.

“They all objected to attending church services on Sunday morning with other prisoners because, they said, not one of them is Catholic. Apparently those not having other religious beliefs have renounced Catholicism or profess strong irreligious feelings.

“Catholic services are all we can offer here, and I thought this would be better than no spiritual comfort at all. We must all worship the same God, I reasoned, but I was mistaken in hoping that just the church atmosphere might soften their antagonism a little.

“After considering my report on this subject the authorities in Burgos now are in favor of excusing all foreign prisoners from church services if they prefer not to attend.

“There are several ardent Communists who are easily able to keep their Red flag flying among these men, because they discuss political and social doctrines almost to the exclusion of every other topic of conversation. One remedy for this, of course, will be to mix them with other prisoners who do not hold such firm political convictions, but we have been obliged to keep the English-speaking officers available for duty in concentration camps.

“Nevertheless, 100 of 190 Britons whom we had here have been transferred recently to Plasencia, in Caceres Province, near the Portuguese border, to await their probable exchange for prisoners held by the Reds [Loyalists]. Frank Ryan, an Irish Communist, who used to make speeches to his comrades here daily, was among those taken away.

“Many of the Americans know enough of our language to exasperate their guards with remarks about our leader, politics or religion. Although we do not beat prisoners for any infraction of discipline and it is strictly forbidden for guards on their own responsibility to punish them in any way, I have been obliged on several occasions already to discipline short-tempered sergeants who decided a ‘North American’ had gone too far with his provocative taunts.

“These stupid private rows, I understand, often are a sequel of something no more serious than our flag being saluted with upraised fist instead of open palm or in the conventional military manner.

“They will complain, too, about the food we give them. So before I have them brought out here I want you to see what they will have for their next meal, which is being prepared now.”

In the camp kitchens I saw fish being fried in oil and huge caldrons in which red beans were being stewed with chorizo, a Spanish sausage made from ham and red peppers. This was served with bread, I was told, and exactly the same rations were given to the soldiers doing guard duty in the camp.

Then the eighty shuffled out into the courtyard, and the prison officials all withdrew, leaving me to converse freely with the men as long as I liked. Having previously interviewed about a dozen Americans soon after their capture, I was not prepared for the rough aspect of the ragged, dirty, mostly unshaven crew confronting me.

I subsequently learned that most of those having boots or good shoes had been required to make an unequal exchange with their less elegantly shod captors, and later they had sold their clothing bit by bit to be able to buy tobacco, until some were left with only a few tatters that barely concealed their bodies.

I asked them to write their names on sheets of paper and seventy-five, including the thirty-seven New Yorkers, did so. The five others maintained a sullen and unfriendly attitude throughout the visit.

Most of the prisoners, however, seemed glad to see some one in touch with the outside world, particularly the United States, and eagerly asked questions. In fact, to my surprise, I learned the visit had been expected and that the delay in arranging it apparently had tried their patience.

It was explained that when the men realized that none of the three United States consuls in Nationalist Spain or the attaché of the embassy in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, were likely to call on them, six men I had previously seen in Saragossa shortly after their capture had proposed asking the military authorities to permit the visit.

This plan was approved by most of the others, and when Sir Robert Hodgson, the British Agent in Burgos, visited the British prisoners in the camp about ten days ago the Americans urgently renewed their request.

On my meeting the prisoners two spokesmen for the crowd were agreed upon and a list of the chief grievances was drawn up along with a statement of the things they particularly hoped might be done for them soon.

I had anticipated their shortage if not complete lack, of tobacco, but the modest supply of cigarettes I took for eighteen men was a pitifully inadequate offering for the eighty.

The spokesmen were Ornitz and Acker. The latter said he was a member of the American Newspaper Guild. He had been on the staff of The Newark Ledger when its news employes went on strike several years ago. Several others indicated proudly that they, too, were veterans of labor conflicts in the United States and that therefore they felt they should be “fighting on the side of the Spanish workers.”

Heinricher and Barr wanted to tell about a steel workers’ strike they had been in, while Early was anxious to give the “inside” story of a sit-down strike at the Douglas aircraft factory in California. But their spokesmen, seeing that the interview was about to get out of control, reminded the others of their promise that they would not all try to talk at once.

What they were most interested in knowing was what had happened to the 100 British prisoners recently removed from San Pedro, and they were eager for information about how negotiations for exchanging International Brigadesmen for prisoners held by the Barcelona authorities were being conducted.

I told them that, according to Sir Robert Hodgson, the British Government had proposed the exchange of its subjects held prisoner for Italians held by the Republicans. The International Red Cross is handling the negotiations, I added, and it appears that they will be concluded satisfactorily, inasmuch as both the British and the Italian Governments are willing to pay all expenses connected with the return of their nationals to their respective countries and are willing to undertake to prevent them from ever going back to fight on either side in the Spanish war.

Ornitz and Acker evidently voiced the collective sentiments of their companions in declaring that they all hoped they might be allowed to return to the Government army in exchange for an equal number of prisoners held on that side. I pointed out that the Non-Intervention Committee in London was making strenuous efforts to get all foreign volunteers out of Spain and that, moreover, neither Burgos nor Barcelona could be expected to offer Spanish prisoners in exchange for foreign volunteers, as both sides were more interested in getting their own people back than they were in recovering their respective foreign volunteers.

I told the prisoners I had recently seen Claude G. Bowers, the United States Ambassador, in Saint-Jean-de Luz and that he had said the United States Government would not take the initiative with either Barcelona or Burgos in negotiations for an exchange of prisoners. The Nationalists recently proposed to Mr. Bowers that he try to arrange the exchange of fifteen aviators they held together with fourteen of the Americans at San Pedro for twenty-nine Nationalist fliers taken prisoner by the Republicans. The Ambassador agreed “only to act as a postoffice” for passing the proposition on to Barcelona and then relaying to Burgos whatever answer he received.

He stressed he had had nothing to do with the selection of the fourteen Americans whose names were on the list presented by Burgos with those of twelve Spanish Republican and three Soviet Army fliers held by the Nationalists. Also Mr. Bowers said the United States Government would not bear the cost of transporting its nationals either back to the United States or from Nationalist to Republican territory by way of France and would not undertake to guarantee that they would not return to Spain if they were simply put across the frontier by Nationalist authorities.

However, Barcelona already has replied to the proposal submitted by Mr. Bowers on behalf of Burgos, and the Republican Government offered to exchange only “aviators for aviators, officers for officers, privates for privates.”

Hence the fourteen Americans have been eliminated from the exchange list proposed by Burgos and the remaining fifteen fliers have been offered for an equal number of Nationalist aviators selected from the twenty-nine held by Barcelona.

Ornitz and Acker said they thought that those in the United States who had raised enough money to send most of them to Spain ought to finance their return transportation.

They estimated that it had cost about $200 to ship each one of them as far as the Franco-Spanish border, and as not more than five of the eighty said they had taken care of these expenses themselves, the agencies that recruited the seventy-five others must have furnished the money necessary for their overseas journey.

They said they were sure that 9,000 was too high an estimate of the number of Americans who had come over to fight with the Internationals. They declared 4,000 to 4,500 was nearer correct. Hence it is quite possible that at least $800,000 was provided by some agency or agencies for traveling expenses, for not more than 200 or 300 are likely to have paid or worked their own way.

The prisoners were hesitant about answering a question as to just who had supplied the funds for them to come to Spain. They explained that they understood that the responsible persons in the United States might be liable to prosecution and that they had all sworn never to give this information. But when they were informed that nobody could be prosecuted unless the contract executed in the United States between them and the agency that had recruited them could be presented in court and that, furthermore, they would be required by any consulate in Europe to which they applied for passports to state under oath who had sent them to Spain, they answered the question. They declared that with the exception of the five who had paid or worked their way over, all had been sent by the Communist party in the United States, or “one of the organizations working with the party such as the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy or the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.”

They said the organization known as the American Friends of Spanish Democracy was simply “a propaganda outfit” connected somehow with the United States Communists, because party members were on its office staff, but that it never did any actual recruiting. Some had been recruiting [sic] by answering advertisements in Communist publications in New York.

If they were not already members of the Communist party, they said, they had to be vouched for by party members when they sought enlistment at the offices of a well-known committee aiding the Republicans. There, they said, “to keep within the law we were told to pretend that instead of fighting we were going to drive ambulances or do some kind of work in Spain.”

The men who had previously told me in Saragossa that this committee had sent them to Spain also insisted at that time that they either were unemployed or looking for adventure when they enlisted. They have since changed their stories and all eighty now affirm that they enlisted primarily because of their political convictions.

Some of their companions on the Atlantic crossing, they said, were veteran Communists and were sent directly to an officers’ training camp in Tarragona as soon as they arrived in Spain.

I asked how many of the eighty belonged to the American Communist party. Ornitz and Acker said they both were merely anti-Fascists and added:

“Although half the crowd may be Communists and the other half more or less sympathetic with communism, the walls have ears around here and we do not want to make any admissions which might make our treatment worse.”

Ornitz said that in almost all the interrogations to which he had submitted in the past year attempts were made “to force me to admit I was a Communist and that rather than bother with guarding Fascist prisoners I occasionally might have shot them.”

“We were often told,” he continued, “that we should not expect kindness from people we came so far to kill if we could, but most of the fellows will tell you they came over here to fight Italians rather than Spaniards, whom we have learned to like.

“The boys who were captured in Belchite have been accused of participating in a massacre, after that town was taken by the Loyalists last September, of a few hundred Fascist prisoners who belonged to the defending garrison. However, they say the Americans were not among the internationals who took part in that operation, but only went to Belchite later.”

Acker remarked that Frank Ryan was manacled and led away separately by three special guards when the 100 British prisoners left the camp the other day. Acker also said that on the night preceding the departure of the Britons a Scottish Communist who had bee taken prisoner by the Nationalists for a second time had been executed.

He had returned to fight again for the Republicans after having been among fifty captured internationals liberated unconditionally by General Franco a year ago in the hope that they would discourage others in their respective countries from enlisting in the Spanish government Army.

Ornitz was captured two weeks after the parachute of Harold Dahl, American flier from Champaign, Ill., came down on July 12 of last year behind General Franco’s lines on the Madrid front. As the two men were together for a while in the Salamanca provincial jail, Ornitz asked what had happened to Dahl and why the Nationalists had not offered him in exchange for one of their own aviators now held by the Republicans.

I replied that, according to the Marquess del Merito, who had defended Dahl and obtained his reprieve from General Franco after a court-martial had condemned him to death, the Nationalists felt this was another case where their leniency had bee abused.

The Republicans indicated long ago their disinclination to offer any captive Nationalist aviator in exchange for Dahl, so the American flier was transferred from his jail cell to a private room in Salamanca’s modern Red Cross hospital. The Marquess Del Merito said that Dahl had been allowed frequently to walk around in Salamanca during the day when accompanied by an aviation officer and that Dahl had acknowledged that he had gained about fifteen pounds since his “imprisonment.” But Dahl recently has been returned to his jail cell because he is said to have repeatedly absented himself from the hospital at night without permission to visit bars, cafes and dance halls.

The Marquess del Merito said that Dahl’s “wife in Paris, who sends him money and wrote directly to the Generalissimo appealing for his freedom apparently could not accept the invitation to visit him in Spain because she could not obtain an American passport in the name of Mrs. Harold Dahl.”

Ornitz declared that he, as well as all his companions, would have to apply to United States consular agents for passports because theirs had been taken away by Spanish Republican authorities as soon as they arrived in Barcelona.

Acker said their greatest need was competent surgical service in the prison hospital, “which has only twenty-six beds, although the general medical attention we get is adequate and good.”

“One fellow, who has already lost an eye, still has a tiny piece of shrapnel in his face near the other eye and the doctors here say that unless it is removed by a surgeon soon a hard jolt may cause him to lose his sight altogether,” Acker added. “Several others have bullets still in their hands, arms, legs or feet, which only a surgeon can take out, and meanwhile they are developing festering sores.

“Since we have been here one American died of pleurisy and two died of appendicitis because there are no surgeons in this camp. Another died from too many iodine injections and still another from dysentery before we arrived here.”

I immediately spoke to the major in command of the camp and he said that military surgeons were so urgently needed at the front that it was difficult to get their services for concentration camps. But he finally as received a promise of one for San Pedro and his arrival is expected any day.

Ornitz criticized the prison officials for having allowed some guards to solicit contributions from the Americans for a coffin in which to bury one of their comrades. He added that coffins were denied those who refused to have last rites administered by a priest and that they were not buried in the old monastery cemetery but “just dumped in a hole in a field by the river.”

Steck pulled his shirt over his head to show several red welts on his bare back that had resulted, he said, from his having been beaten with a rubber hose earlier in the morning by “a tough sergeant who objected to my not giving the Fascist salute to their flag and always refusing to kneel in church.”

Casa had heard of a badly wounded American in a hospital at Santona Prison on the north coast when he was up there about seven months ago, but he did not learn the man’s name. However, the registrar of prisoners in Burgos said later that he had no record of this case.

As the major in charge predicted they would, the Americans complained loudly about their food and the generally unhealthy conditions that they said existed in the camp.

Acker said that they had received fish only since Sir Robert Hodgson’s visit to the British prisoners. He declared that there never was any sausage or meat in the “bean soup we get with one small roll, twice daily, and every morning all we have for breakfast is a bowl of garlic soup made with bread and olive oil.”

“We have five toilets in our quarters,” Acker continued, “for nearly 200 men, including the remaining Britishers. There is only one hydrant giving water to the lot of us for all purposes and it really is not fit to drink. A man who recently took some measurements here told me that he calculated that each one of us had about three cubic feet of air to breathe at night when we slept. Is it any wonder we cannot get rid of our lice?”

I drank some of the water and it tasted all right, while the floor space allotted the prisoners for sleeping on blankets and straw appeared as ample as that in the adjoining barracks for Nationalist soldiers.

Ornitz and Acker said that postal cards sent by many of their comrades to their families in the United States never had been delivered but had been returned because more than the military censors allowed had been written on them. The prisoners are permitted only to inform their families that they are safe and well, it seems.

Some have received mail from home recently, they said, while others believe that money and tobacco sent to them by relatives must have been lost or stolen on the way.

When this was checked with the major in charge, he pointed out that these prisoners had been moved around a great deal and that their letters and packages might not have been able to catch up with them because the wartime postal service was being much overworked. He said that it would be best for the prisoners to have all their mail sent in care of the International Red Cross in Burgos.

They are permitted now by the prison censors to read only Spanish newspapers published in Nationalist territory, but I was told that there would be no objection to their receiving fiction in English.

They revealed that from reading the Nationalist press they knew something about recent military operations and also that a number of prisoners had escaped from a concentration camp near Pamplona. They questioned me as to whether there were any foreigners among those who had made the prison break and whether all had been recaptured.

One wanted to know whether there were any signs yet of collapse resulting from demoralization in “Red Spain, as you probably call it.” But he added rather scornfully that I “probably know little enough about what is really happening behind the scene in fascist Spain and could not be expected to know anything about what is happening on the other side.”

Others asked me who Joe Louis would fight next, who was leading in the American League, whether steel production in the United States was up or down, whether John L. Lewis, Senator Robert M. La Follette and Mayor La Guardia had formed a third party yet, and finally why I was not wearing my “fascist Uniform.”

When I asked whether they really believed that I was a Fascist or had ever worn any fascist trappings, most of them grinned and one just said, “Skip it.”

As I was leaving I wished them all good luck. One of the hostile five who would not give their names was standing nearest my car, and he spoke then for the first and only time.

interesting. thanks.

the writer provides more description, and not much analysis, than our contemporary j-school grads.

the latter are more interested in a politically correct ideological overlay.

wonder where ernest hemingway was?

DIE THAELMANNKOLONNE

(The Thaelmann Battalion, named for German Communist Party leader Ernst Thaelmann, who would die in Buchenwald in 1944)

Spaniens Himmel breitet seine Sterne
über unsre Schützengräben aus,
und der Morgen grüßt schon aus der Ferne,
bald geht es zum neuen Kampf hinaus

Die Heimat ist weit,
doch wir sind bereit,
zu kämpfen und siegen für dich,
Freiheit

2.
Dem Faschisten werden wir nicht weichen,
schickt er auch die Kugeln hageldicht.
Mit uns stehn Kameraden ohnegleichen,
und ein Rückwärts gibt es für uns nicht.

Die Heimat ist weit,
doch wir sind bereit,
zu kämpfen und siegen für dich,
Freiheit

3.
Rührt die Trommel, fällt die Bajonette!
Vorwärts Marsch ! Der Sieg ist unser Lohn!
Mit der roten Fahne brecht die Kette!
Auf zum Kampf, das Thälmann - Bataillon!

Die Heimat ist weit,
doch wir sind bereit,
zu kämpfen und siegen für dich,
Freiheit

—Ernst Busch, 1938

TRANSLATION:
Spain spreads its stars
Over our trenches
And as morning approaches in the distance,
Another battle is about to start

(Refrain)
Our home’s far away, but we are prepared
We’re fighting and winning for you, Freedom.

We will not quail before the fascist,
Though he sends out bullets thick as hail.
With us stand peerless comrades,
And a backward glance is not for us

(Refrain)

Beat the drum! Fix bayonets!
Forward, march, victory will be our reward.
With the red flag, smash their column!
Into battle, Thaelmann Battalion!
(refrain)

No sympathy for commies.

Me neither. All these guys are commies.

Are you sure? The five who wouldn't give their names could have been Party stalwarts, but it sounds like most of them answered newspaper advertisements. OK, maybe in Communist papers, but how many were card-carrying Commies? Maybe the ads offered to send them abroad to fight fascism and earn big dollars. That would have appealed to unemployed young men during the depression.

I always wondered why there was such a need for ambulance drivers in Spain. The article cleared that up for me anyway.

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