The last American Veteran of the Spanish Civil War has passed away
25 replies, posted
[IMG]http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/03/03/us/03Berg-obit-2/03Berg-obit-2-articleLarge.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]Delmer Berg, the last known American survivor who fought fascists in 1930s Spain, has died in northern California. He was 100 years old. Berg died on Sunday at his home in Columbia, Marina Garde from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives in New York confirmed in a written statement. The Modesto Bee reported on Tuesday that friend Pat Cervelli said Berg, who she knew for three decades, became politically active early in life. Berg was among about 2,800 members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who sought to defend an elected government from a military rebellion led by General Francisco Franco. The rebellion was successful, and Franco led Spain for decades.
Mr. Berg slipped into Spain in January 1938, crossing the snow-capped French border. He went on to install communication lines for front-line antiaircraft artillery near Barcelona, defended the mountain town Teruel and fought at the Battle of the Ebro, the biggest battle of the Spanish Civil War. He was wounded that August when Italian bombers missed a railroad station and instead struck a monastery where he and others were billeted. Shrapnel from the bomb remained in his liver for the rest of his life.[/QUOTE]
Sources:
[url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/02/delmer-berg-dies-last-living-american-fought-fascists-franco-spain]The Guardian[/url]
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/us/delmer-berg-last-survivor-of-abraham-lincoln-brigade-dies-at-100.html?_r=0]New York Times[/url]
Wow. Rest in peace you brave man.
I got this confused with the Spanish-American war and almost crapped my pants
I really recommend people to read about this civil war, its incredibly interesting you have a common front of Communists, Left-wing Radicals, Anarchists and Moderates fighting against Fascist forces. Its also one of the few times towns have actually (albeit for a short period of time) had functioning truly communist societies. The Basque and their guerrilla war is also very interesting. The Germans tested some of their techniques in developing their air force here as well with the Condor Legion and it defiently influenced them toward a CAS role in the Luftwaffe with the Stuka rather than a focus on heavy bombers, the Italians were also involved as well as the Soviets.
I thought there were two the last time I checked?
Damn.
These guys were our last link to the most divisive event in the twentieth century.
[QUOTE=Lone Wolf807;49860070]I really recommend people to read about this civil war, its incredibly interesting you have a common front of Communists, Left-wing Radicals, Anarchists and Moderates fighting against Fascist forces. Its also one of the few times towns have actually (albeit for a short period of time) had functioning truly communist societies. The Basque and their guerrilla war is also very interesting. The Germans tested some of their techniques in developing their air force here as well with the Condor Legion and it defiently influenced them toward a CAS role in the Luftwaffe with the Stuka rather than a focus on heavy bombers, the Italians were also involved as well as the Soviets.[/QUOTE]
The Spanish Civil War was basically the testing ground for what would become the street-fighting and weapons tactics of World War II. Airstrike techniques, house-to-house fighting, insurgency/counter-insurgency, the works.
Also, it was a fucking shame since the Fascists won and we let them sit there until the 70s instead of wiping them out like we did Mussolini and Hitler.
They won't even know who the last Nam' vets are since they fucked them over so hard.
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49860179]TAlso, it was a fucking shame since the Fascists won and we let them sit there until the 70s instead of wiping them out like we did Mussolini and Hitler.[/QUOTE]
Not much we could do about that. They stayed pretty much neutral throughout WW2.
No point in invading country's that aren't actively hostile.
[editline]3rd March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Lone Wolf807;49860070]I really recommend people to read about this civil war, its incredibly interesting you have a common front of Communists, Left-wing Radicals, Anarchists and Moderates fighting against Fascist forces. Its also one of the few times towns have actually (albeit for a short period of time) had functioning truly communist societies. The Basque and their guerrilla war is also very interesting. The Germans tested some of their techniques in developing their air force here as well with the Condor Legion and it defiently influenced them toward a CAS role in the Luftwaffe with the Stuka rather than a focus on heavy bombers, the Italians were also involved as well as the Soviets.[/QUOTE]
Sounds like a Syria-scale clusterfuck.
-sNip-
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49860179]The Spanish Civil War was basically the testing ground for what would become the street-fighting and weapons tactics of World War II. Airstrike techniques, house-to-house fighting, insurgency/counter-insurgency, the works.
Also, it was a fucking shame since the Fascists won and we let them sit there until the 70s instead of wiping them out like we did Mussolini and Hitler.[/QUOTE]
Anarchist circles complain all the time about the USSR ultimately abandoning their alliance with the National Confederation of Labour and Iberian Anarchist Federation, leaving the territories to be taken over by fascists. They tend to cite the Bolshevik's opposition to non Marxist-Leninist leftist groups.
[editline]5th March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Lone Wolf807;49860070]I really recommend people to read about this civil war, its incredibly interesting you have a common front of Communists, Left-wing Radicals, Anarchists and Moderates fighting against Fascist forces. Its also one of the few times towns have actually (albeit for a short period of time) had functioning truly communist societies. The Basque and their guerrilla war is also very interesting. The Germans tested some of their techniques in developing their air force here as well with the Condor Legion and it defiently influenced them toward a CAS role in the Luftwaffe with the Stuka rather than a focus on heavy bombers, the Italians were also involved as well as the Soviets.[/QUOTE]
I'd have to second this notion (admittedly, with political bias). It's fascinating to see the republican front's dynamics. Also, if you have the time, I recommend watching [URL="https://youtu.be/jPl_Y3Qdb7Y"]this documentary[/URL] called Living Utopia. It's about the anarchists specifically in the Spanish revolution.
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;49860271]
Sounds like a Syria-scale clusterfuck.[/QUOTE]
Both sides ended up being the bad guys. The Republicans became dominated by a communist faction (backed by Stalin :sick:) and the Fascists were Fascists.
It was the Communists that wanted to centralize power that lost the Republic the war as Basques, Catalonians, Liberals, Anarcists and other idealistic groups stopped wanting to fight once they realized that none of them would get anything they wanted under the communists. Whats interesting is that Franco did the same thing with his conservative coalition but the conservatives stuck by him, preferring him to whatever evil the left had.
[QUOTE=Lone Wolf807;49860070]I really recommend people to read about this civil war, its incredibly interesting you have a common front of Communists, Left-wing Radicals, Anarchists and Moderates fighting against Fascist forces. Its also one of the few times towns have actually (albeit for a short period of time) had functioning truly communist societies. The Basque and their guerrilla war is also very interesting.[/QUOTE]
People from the west also fought for the Fascists. Alot of Catholics seemed to have viewed it as a crusade of sorts.
[QUOTE]“I was a worker,” Berg told the newspaper. “I was a farmer. I was in support of the Spanish working people, and I wanted to go to Spain to help them.”[/QUOTE]
Thats pretty admirable.
I had no idea the Spanish Civil War was a thing. Huh. Time to read up!
Make sure to especially check out the CNT when reading about the war, they're interesting as fuck
Thanks for defending the Spanish republic, RIP.
His willingness to go across the world and fight for a country he owed nothing to shall never be forgotten. A true hero, like many others that put themselves in the same circunstances. Rest in peace.
By the way, all of you interested in the Spanish Civil War should read the book of the same name by Hugh Thomas, it's one of the greatest reads about it if not the best one.
Manuel Azaña's speeches are also worth checking, specially "Paz, piedad y perdón", which goes about a lot of things, but contains a strong message calling for reconciliation and the building of a tolerant nation after one side loses and the other wins. It's a long read and probably a hard one for non-native speakers, but absolutely worth it if you are interested in the SCW. Here's the last part of it, hand translated by me so it might contain some errors, but I think it gets the message across just fine:
[I]"[...] I don't have the optimism of pangloss nor am I going to apply to this spanish drama the most simplistic adagio which goes "Every cloud has a silver lining". Not true, not true. But it's the moral obligation, of all those suffering the war, when it ends, as we want it to end, of getting out of this lesson and the muse of chastisement the greatest good possible, and when the torch passes on to other hands, to other men, to other generations, they will remember, if they ever feel their blood boiling with rage and once again the spanish temperament is upset by intolerance and hatred and appetite for destruction, to think of the dead and listen to their teaching: that of those men, who have bravely fallen in battle fighting magnanimously for a grand ideal and that now, sheltered by the motherly earth, have no hatred and hold no grudges, and send us, with the blinking of their light, peaceful and remote like that of a star, the message of the eternal homeland that tells all of its children: peace, mercifulness and forgiveness."[/I]
In the same vein, "Homage to Catalonia" is another excellent book written about the Spanish Civil War by George Orwell.
My great grandfather fought for the Nationalist side with a lot of his friends. Apparently he was so traumatised over the Irish Civil War he couldn't cope with normal civilian life, he hated communists with a passion too and was convinced that if they weren't stopped they would destroy Europe.
[QUOTE=Solomon;49871072]I had no idea the Spanish Civil War was a thing. Huh. Time to read up![/QUOTE]
It was pretty much mini-ww2 but with ww1 arms and Spaniards
The variety of weapons used by both sides were incredible, they even had 1895 pattern Winchester lever guns that had been used in ww1
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49860179]The Spanish Civil War was basically the testing ground for what would become the street-fighting and weapons tactics of World War II. Airstrike techniques, house-to-house fighting, insurgency/counter-insurgency, the works.[/QUOTE]
Considering that it ended on April 1st 1939, and later that year, on September 1st, WW2 started, it was pretty much the prologue.
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;49860271]Not much we could do about that. They stayed pretty much neutral throughout WW2.
No point in invading country's that aren't actively hostile.[/QUOTE]
Spain "officially" was neutral, but it helped the Axis:
[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Division[/URL]
[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_and_World_War_II[/URL]
We helped them at first when they were winning, but later we denied any relationship between us and them as the regime didn't wanted the allies to invade the country. Sadly that worked. The resistance hoped that after finishing Mussolini and Hitler, they would go after Franco, but that never happened.
Then the Cold War happened, and the US, that was seeking allies against the USSR, saw our deep hate to commies as an useful skill, so we become allies, building some american bases and giving millions to rebuild the country (as well as allow the regime to continue existing).
There's a lot of stuff of the civil war and the dictatorship that remains classified, and we hope someday it gets revealed to the world. Their effects keeps being felt nowdays, and is likely it will continue as long we don't truly do justice to all these who died either in combat, for their ideals on purges (especially teachers), or just because they were fleeing away from the war.
[QUOTE=Maestro Fenix;49872728]There's a lot of stuff of the civil war and the dictatorship that remains classified, and we hope someday it gets revealed to the world. Their effects keeps being felt nowdays, and is likely it will continue as long we don't truly do justice to all these who died either in combat, for their ideals on purges (especially teachers), or just because they were fleeing away from the war.[/QUOTE]
Franco had children stripped from their parents and put with right wing parents/Catholic orphanages.
Pretty crazy that the Church loved him so much.
[QUOTE=Solomon;49871072]I had no idea the Spanish Civil War was a thing. Huh. Time to read up![/QUOTE]
There's a documentary called 'The Good Fight' which has interviews with survivors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which gives a really good overview and also very interesting. Many of the international brigadiers (Though I don't think any of the ALB did) and other volunteers ended up going through concentration camps like Mauthausen including Italian and German refugees who went to Spain to get revenge against fascism.
I studied it at university and had to write about Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. Really interesting book for understanding Orwell's thinking as well as details about the militias in Barcelona during the early days of the war. I'd also recommend anything by Paul Preston if you're ok with more dry writing but christ some of the anecdotes within the books are heart breaking. Also, check out Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour's photography of the war. Taro is woefully under appreciated as the first female war photojournalist to die doing her job. The fact that some of the most famous artists like Orwell, Capa, Picasso and Hemingway all covering the same events and in some cases rubbing shoulders is interesting in and of itself. The International Brigades, like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, are also incredible to read about and there's monuments to them pretty much all over the world. Soviet involvement in general is also interesting like how they assisted Republican orphans who fled in the last days of the war.
Honestly, the Spanish Civil War is by far one of the most apocalyptic and fascinating events in the 20th century that is unfortunately overshadowed by the Second World War as well as buried due to the political convenience of having a fellow cold warrior against the soviets during the cold war. There's also the fact that the Western powers watched as Fascists in Nazi, Italy, Portugal and Spain united to crush a democratic republic in Spain with Nazis literally blowing up Spanish villages using the Condor Legion and Italian infantry and tanks rolling around Spain as well as blowing up ships with their submarines.
As for the idea both sides being as bad as each other, there's honestly not much evidence. The Soviets did try to organize with a far too heavy hand and in typically Stalinist manner, but it was pretty important to have an organized army against professional armies like the Italians and Nationalists. Orwell's book is very much from the perspective of the militias who refused to join the popular army and subjected to mistreatment and attacks as a result. But in comparison to the Nationalists who did things like bombarding a busy market town with explosive and incendiary bombs from the air before strafing the survivors fleeing the town with airplane machine guns then they had the audacity to accuse the anarchists of being responsible for blowing up their own town, the Republic offered without doubt the less brutal and hopeless future. Churchill even went from accusing the republic of communist atrocities to personally writing advice and encouragement to the head of the republic.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49871035] A Lot of Catholics seemed to have viewed it as a crusade of sorts[/QUOTE]
Funny you brought that up. I found this in a British newspaper from my campus library.[img]https://www.dropbox.com/s/h0juxv3nd2t60db/File%20Mar%2005%2C%2011%2011%2003%20PM.jpeg?dl=1[/img]
[QUOTE=adamsz;49876105]Funny you brought that up. I found this in a British newspaper from my campus library.[/QUOTE]
Not sure about the claim of Catholics being persecuted in Germany but this was almost certainly not the case for Catholics in Spain. Franco loved Catholicism and had the blessing of the Church. If anything the radical leftists were the ones attacking churches and the like.
[QUOTE=Vengeful Falcon;49875728]
As for the idea both sides being as bad as each other, there's honestly not much evidence.[/QUOTE]
The "red terror" is well documented.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49871035]People from the west also fought for the Fascists. Alot of Catholics seemed to have viewed it as a crusade of sorts. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49874873]Franco had children stripped from their parents and put with right wing parents/Catholic orphanages.
Pretty crazy that the Church loved him so much.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49876498]Not sure about the claim of Catholics being persecuted in Germany but this was almost certainly not the case for Catholics in Spain. Franco loved Catholicism and had the blessing of the Church. If anything the radical leftists were the ones attacking churches and the like.[/quote]
One of the reasons about why the Civil War happened was because the republic stripped all the power that the church had almost everywhere (schools, hospitals, work centers...) and forced them to pay taxes. They saw it as "THE REDS ARE GOING TO CONVERT SPAIN INTO A COMMUNIST COUNTRY" and then they backed the coup d'etat.
Ironically, the war made the republic resort to the USSR, as they were the only ones who offered to help ([URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_gold"]in exchange of our gold[/URL]), since the other countries like the UK or France didn't wanted to intervene as they feared they would trigger WW2.
They only delayed the inevitable a couple of years.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi]The "red terror" is well documented.[/QUOTE]
Is not fully clear at all, due the nature of how it happened. Depending of the historians you read, the numbers flow up or down, and according to a few unclassified reports, it could have been greatly exaggerated as another way to discredit the republic.
These reports must be disclosed no matter what, even the UN has repeatly insisted us to do it since the democracy returned.
[QUOTE=Maestro Fenix;49877720]the UK or France didn't wanted to intervene as they feared they would trigger WW2.[/QUOTE]
If I'm not mistaken the UK and France preferred Franco a bit since they were worried the socialists and anarchists had too much influence. Sorta a, better them than the reds thing. The USSR backing the Republicans didn't help much.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49876498]Not sure about the claim of Catholics being persecuted in Germany but this was almost certainly not the case for Catholics in Spain. Franco loved Catholicism and had the blessing of the Church. If anything the radical leftists were the ones attacking churches and the like.
The "red terror" is well documented.[/QUOTE]
By largely Francoist historians and literal catholic/nationalist propaganda. Whilst terror was a strategy for the nationalists, terrorism in republican zones was largely as a result of break down of order at the beginning of the war by the more extreme militias. Look at Republican news sources and commands of higher ups in comparison to people like General Queipo De Llano who boasted over radio about mass rape and murder of reds or Franco's use of the Army of Africa([url]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-morocco-spain-war-idUSTRE50E0NT20090115[/url] got an interesting interview with one of the afrikanistas who's still proud of what he did) who wiped out anything in their path on road to Madrid. The most systemic terror by the organized popular army was that used against their own allies in the Barcelona May days and later. The effects and reasons for that terror are also up for debate.
Obviously the fact that the nationalists were doing worse shit doesn't completely excuse those in the republic responsible for atrocities e.g. Murder of Nationalist prisoners and suspected 'collaborators' during night time passeos. But who was actually carrying out the atrocities and with what mandate is pretty important. It was a civil war, it's impossible to ensure that no one participates in war crimes especially when you've got politically extreme organizations doing large amounts of the fighting in 1936 but the Nationalists didn't even try to keep it under control and the scale of their crimes far wider and many times with direct orders or acceptance from generals. Meanwhile the republican leadership actively encouraged their own people to not imitate the opposition.
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