Spanish Civil War

To Community News  (6/9/05)

I  knew nothing about the Spanish Civil War except that at one time or another there was a civil war in Spain which was won by Franco. It was the chronicle Sozialdemokratischer Verein Mering und Umgebung l9l9-l933  which gave me the impetus to delve  into the Spanish conflict. I wondered: were there parallels connecting the communistic uprisings under Jewish leadership in Germany  after W.W.I  which  amounted to a short lived civil war,  to the drawn out civil war in Spain starting in l936 and ending  in l939.

Let me recapitulate what happened in Mering, a small community in Bavaria. On April 7,  l919 the Central Soviets  consisting of members of the USPD, anarchists and far leftists had highjacked the duly elected government of Bavaria  - no freedom and democracy there. Three would-be revolutionaries, intellectually, socially and economically at the bottom of  Mering society had done  likewise to the legal government of Mering.

And so to Spain where many more strands contributed to the length and viciousness of its civil war. Let me try to sort out the strands as best as I can.
 
On the side of the Red Republic were:
The anarchists in an uneasy alliance with the socialists and the communists.
The fractured socialists in an uneasy alliance with the communists and anarchists.
The Catalonians: The Red Republic was supportive of their  movement for independence.
The Basques: The Basques, devout Catholics, nevertheless joined the fight for the Red Republic  in spite the fact that the regime  was murderously anticlerical and anti Christian.. The lure again was the promise of  Basque independence
The communists: The communists were split into two factions, the Stalinists and the followers of Trotsky. Both factions  were  mistrusted by the socialists and anarchists. After Lenin’s death (l924) there was a power struggle between Stalin and the Jew Trotsky, alias Bronstein. Trotsky wanted to carry on the world revolution, with the end goal of  Jewish world dominance . Stalin was the nationalist. His goal was: everything for Russia. These two factions fought each other on  Spanish soil, with Stalin winning since he had the resources to supply the Red Republic with war material. Stalin’s support  did not come cheap. His ambassador to Spain, Marcel Rosenberg, oversaw  the transfer of the Spanish gold to Russia. An aside. George Orwell who had  joined  POUM, Trotsky’s faction,  based his book Animal Farm on his experience in the Spanish civil war.
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On the side of the Nationalists under the leadership of Franco were:
The parties of the middle class.
The Monarchists
The Fascists of the Falange
The Catholic Church

Now to the parallels between the short civil war in Germany and  the drawn out civil war in Spain.

After the Jew, Eisner, had ousted the Bavarian monarchy November l918, he tried to separate Bavaria from Germany. In Germany however  there were no separatist movements neither in Bavaria nor in any of the other states.  After Bismarck had unified Germany in 1871, the loyalty of the Germans was to Germany first. The attempt to break Germany apart  always came from the outside.  In Spain the quest for independence by the Catalonians and the Basques was innate. The  Red Republic used these separatist movements for its own end. It  was  willing to see Spain fractured. Only the victory of the Nationalists kept Spain together.

The Red Republic just like the communists in Germany used the bottom of society to achieve power. The disenfranchised, the uneducated and unimpowered were incited to class warfare. In Hugh Thomas’ book  The Spanish Civil War  the author writes: “For no one, and no group, possessed that greatness and magnanimity which could alone have prevented disaster (p. 74).” In Adolf Hitler, Germany did have one who possessed this required greatness. Hitler reconciled the classes by lifting the worker class up and mingling the classes in the Reichsarbeitsdienst. 

After Adolf Hitler had come to power (1/30/1933), the communist no longer welcomed in Germany, found a new field of action in Spain. Fighting for the Red Republic were a number of international brigades among them the Thaelmann brigade which was made up of former German communists. Promoting the Red Republic and creating relentless German atrocity propaganda from their base in Paris, were  two German  Jews, Willie Muenzenberg, alias red Hugenberg, and Otto Katz, alias Andre Simone. Guernica was part of this atrocity propaganda. Guernica, a small  Basque city was bombed by German and Italian airplanes. The target was meant to be the Renteria  bridge in order to prevent the retreat of the Republican army to Bilbao. Unfortunately the brige was missed, bombs falling unintentionally on parts of the city. The number of casualties  was between 200 and  maximum 250  which the propaganda increased tenfold. Guernica became the symbol of German depravity. That  Italian pilots took part in the attack is never mentioned. Likewise the bombing of cities in nationalist hands by the Russians is left out.

This civil war  was a murderous war. No quarter was given on either side. I wonder if  the ruthlessness with which it was fought had something to do with the Spanish love for  bullfighting. Show me how you treat an animal and I show you how you treat  your fellow human being. During the Nazi period humane treatment of animals was writ large. Animal experimentation and kosher  butchering were  outlawed. In school we were taught “Quaele nie ein Tier zum Scherz, denn es fuehlt wie du den Schmerz – Never hurt an animal for the fun of it, because it feels like you the pain.”  In the meanwhile animal experimentation’s and kosher butchering are allowed again in Germany.. 

The twelve year Nazi period beckons to me like a lovely dream. How hypocritical, ugly and cruel the world has become in the meantime.

Christine B. Miller