Among the most interesting gravestones in the Fossar de la Pedrera is that of about German brigader Hans Beilmer who had managed to escape from the Dachau concentration camp in 1933, after throttling an SA guard and putting on his uniform, earning him a huge popularity in anti-fascist circles. Three years later, he came to Spain as commissar of the first contingent of the International Brigaders, where he was killed during the defense of Madrid on 1 December 1936. There has been speculation that the NKVD were involved due to Beilmer’s criticism of the treatment of the POUM???. Whatever the case, his body like that of Durruti who had died 11 days earlier, was brought to Barcelona for a huge public funeral and buried at Montjuïc Cemetery. The German tenor Ernst Busch recorded a famous song about Beimler in Barcelona during a bombardment in 1938. Recorded in barracks somewhere in the city together with a choir from Thälmann battalion and first broadcast on Radio Barcelona, the tribute to Beilmer was an adaptation of the German military song “The Good Comrade” also sung by the Nazis, but with new lyrics (“Before Madrid on the barricades / In the hour of danger / In the international Brigades / his heart loaded full of hate / Stood Hans the commissar). It was one of six tracks on the legendary album “Six Songs For Democracy”. The original record bore a sticker stating “”the defective impression of this recording is due to the interruptions of of electric current during an air raid”
Australian nurse Agnes Hodgson attended Beimer’s funeral in Barcelona:
“Marched in the funeral procession of Hans Beimler, an ex-German Communist deputy who was killed fighting at the front here. A man very able and evidently much loved, it was a great loss to the party. We assembled outside the Karl Marx building, and waited there until all were ready. Lowson carried flowers, and we all joined in with the women’s brigade – international women, English, German and Swiss.”
An edited version of this will go in the Montjuic section of my book (A guide to Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War, anarchism and anti-Francoism.
Voucher for a packet of tobacco issued by the CNT/FAI, 1936. Some villages went as far as banning paper money, but that certainly wasn’t the case in Barcelona.
A wonderful new bar called La Llibertària has just opened in El Raval, Barcelona. The walls are decorated in dozens of original posters, newspapers, drawings and photos from the anarchist history of Barcelona and the Spanish Civil War. It’s a veritable museum. Sergio, one of the cooperative members, is an ex? CNT member whose family history is steeped in anarchism which he’ll happily tell you about – ask him about the photo of his father taking over the factory in 1978.They serve good authentic tapas.
Highly recommended. Will now form part of at least one of my routes.
Original edition of Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. The Barcelona police took his draft copy in June 1937 from his wife’s bedroom at the Hotel Contiental. Where did this copy end up? As a foreign socialist, it may well have been passed onto the NKVD and then to Moscow. I think it would be a literary bombshell to fund the original draft, perhaps forgotten and gathering dust somewhere in a box. When he got back to Britain he had to re-write it from memory. His usual publisher, Gollancz didn’t want it. Nobody else did. Left-wing publishers were either in the control of the communists or did not want to rock the Republican’s boat. The rightwing for obvious reasons. It was finally published after 18 months of rejections and setbacks in 1939? by small publisher’s Secker & Warburg. It was a commercial flop and the first edition did not sell out to 1951.
Here’s some more background on its publication from Eric Hobsbawn
“Among the losers, polemics about the Civil War, often bad-tempered, have never ceased since 1939. This was not so while the war was still continuing, although such incidents as the banning of the dissident Marxist POUM party and the murder of its leader Andrés Nin caused some international protest. Plainly a number of foreign volunteers arriving in Spain, intellectuals or not, were shocked by what they saw there, by suffering and atrocity, by the ruthlessness of warfare, brutality and bureaucracy on their own side or, insofar as they were aware of them, the intrigues and political feuds within the Republic, by the behaviour of the Russians and much else. Again, the arguments between the Communists and their adversaries never ceased. And yet, during the war the doubters remained silent once they left Spain. They did not want to give aid to the enemies of the great cause. After their return, Simone Weill, though patently disappointed, said not a word. Wystan Auden wrote nothing, though he modified his great 1937 poem Spain in 1939 and refused to allow it to be reprinted in 1950. Faced with Stalin’s terror, Louis Fischer, a journalist closely associated with Moscow, denounced his past loyalties – but he took trouble to do so only when this gesture could no longer harm the Spanish Republic. The exception proves the rule: George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. It was refused by Orwell’s regular publisher, Victor Gollancz, ‘believing, as did many people on the Left, that everything should be sacrificed in order to preserve a common front against the rise of Fascism,’ which was also the reason given by Kingsley Martin, editor of the influential weekly New Statesman & Nation, for accepting a critical book review. They represented the views overwhelmingly prevalent on the left. Orwell himself admitted after his return from Spain that, ‘a number of people have said to me with varying degrees of frankness that one must not tell the truth about what is happening in Spain and the part played by the Communist Party because to do so would prejudice public opinion against the Spanish government and so aid Franco,’ (Hugh Thomas, p. 817). Indeed, as Orwell himself recognized in a letter to a friendly reviewer, ‘what you say about not letting the Fascists in owing to dissensions between ourselves is very true.’ More than this: the public showed no interest in the book. It was published in 1938 in 1500 copies, which sold so poorly that the stock was not yet exhausted thirteen years later when it was first reprinted (Orwell in Spain, pp. 28, 251, 269-70). Only in the Cold War era did Orwell cease to be an awkward, marginal figure”
Children playing on a shot-down German plane. Robert Capa, top of Passieg de Gràcia, Barcelona, January 1939, two weeks before the city fell. One thing strikes me is that the Republic did eveything it could to keep the chidlren well fed as can be seen here, when many adults were on half rations.
By Robert Capa, Barcelona August 1936. I wonder if this militia woman would have had access to such magazines just a few weeks before. (July 19th) An intimate appropiation of bourgouis life
Window protections in Barcelona 1936 or 1937. Instructions for paper tape to be glued on all house windows in neat criss-crosses. Art in times of conflict. Found the late Valerie Powles’s site http://refugi307.blogspot.com/
A large number of churches have been burning in the city since yesterday, including Santa Maria del Mar, (photo) but not the Cathedral which is being protected by assault guards. There have also been widespread and rather grotesque desecrations. An attempt to destroy the mystical power of the Church perhaps? Unfortunately a number of priests have been murdered…it is difficult to convey and understand the depth of hatred towards the church, fueled by its instant support for the coup and its support for the semi-feudal society across much of Spain.
Dispatch 2 (rolling Twitter news)
I’m at the bottom of the Rambles. The military are all but defeated, and are holed up in Drassanas barracks and a couple of other sites. The CNT have surrounded the barracks, and have trained artillery on the walls. An hour ago, a falangist, perched at the top of Colon monument with a machine gun (there’s a lift), and was pining down everybody in Les Rambles, but somebody managed to pick him off. from a building facing. Ascaso and Durruti are about to lead the charge…
Someone has had the idea of using a truck on which the German anarchist group have set up a machine-gun. They’ve protected it with mattresses, they’re going to drive the vehicle towards barracks with the militants running behind, protected by mattresses.
I’m sorry to say CNT leader Ascaso has just been shot, a bullet ripped through his forehead, as he ran behind the truck…the workers are now storming the barracks
Events unfolding rapidly, white flag over barracks
Lots of smoke, gunfire is continuing, can’t see what’s happening
My reception is going down. Will get back ASAP. Things may have ugly at the barracks…
Carlos: I saw an interview to an old woman that painted with chalk every week the name of Joaquin Ascaso in his own grave. Fascists wanted his burial to be anonymous and took off the letters that identified it. This woman risked her life, weekly to maintain Ascaso memory alive. VIVA LA LIBERTAD!!!
Me: My father-in-law told me a similar story. When he was a kid he lived next to Montjuic cemetery, and used to play there. In the 1940s they put a guard during the day around Durruti and Ascaso’s graves (bones were removed in 1939) to stop people paying homage, but every morning fresh flowers appeared.
It’s 600am. A cool morning after a hot night. Troops woken 1 hour ago by their officers, given a double ration of rum and told they are to crush an anarchist revolt in centre. As troops leave, spies get word to CNT which call a general strike (Sunday today) and set off all factory and ship sirens. Military have lost element of surprise. Workers begin to attack military columns.
Update 7.20: Shooting everywhere in the streets. Much confusion. Military risings in other cities in Spain it seems.
Dispatch 2
Pitched battles in Barcelona’s streets. Hospital report at least 100 (hundred) dead. Military stopped by barricades in Parallel. Situtation is confusing but combined forces of workers’ militia (mainly CNT) and loyal assault guards may be gaining upper hand. STOP PRESS. Reports that Guardia Civil may have come out on Republic’s side. More soon.
Dispatch 3
The workers and the Republican police forces are definitely defeating the military who have been driven into a few strongholds. Rebels driven from Telefónica and Plaça Catalunya which saw bloody battle earlier today. Dead everywhere. Corpses piled up in Catalunya metro station stairs. Moans of wounded horses. Hospitals +200 dead, 1000+ wounded. Unlikely and truly remarkable scenes of Guardia Civil fraternizing with CNT and other workers. First photos being released.
Dispatch 4
Bad news coming in from Sevilla – city has fallen to Queipo de Llano’s troops – broadcast on Sevilla radio. “Red soldiers, lower you arms. The Caudillo forgives and redeems. Follow the example of those comrades before you who have joined our ranks. Only like that will you achieve victory. Happiness in your homes and peace in your souls.”
Dispatch 5
It seems a group of CNT/FAI militants has stormed the Pedrables barracks which was left poorly defended and got hold of a large number of weapons (photo). They are proceeding to distribute the arms around working class quarters. Many soldiers and guards are in the street shouting with workers, Viva el CNT!, Viva la FAI! You have the feeling anything could happen. The energy of the people really is to experienced.
I’ve just heard more barracks have fallen to the workers, If true this is stunning news. It means the working class are suddenly “armed to the teeth”. They are: Alcántara barracks at 5:30 pm; Lepanto at 6:00 pm; the Montesa barracks at 8:00 pm; the Docks shortly before midnight, just 5o minutes ago, and the Sant Andreu Central Artillery Barracks just now. The mechanics at the naval base have also taken over and arrested the officers there. The soldiers in the Montjuich fortress have deposed their officers. Worker and Soldier Committees have already been formed. We may on the verge of a revolution, something which the CNT had predicted in the event of an attempted coup.
