The Cult of the Spanish Civil War in east Germany

Abstract

The Spanish Civil War of 1936–39, particularly the role of the International Brigades, was of enormous importance in the literature, history and lore of communist East Germany. Despite the loss of the leftist Popular Front republic to Franco’s repressive fascist dictatorship, the war in distant Spain waselevated to near-mythic proportions in the GDR. In the early days of its postwar existence the communist government found itself without historical roots beyond the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe — the only point of political and ideological origin to which East Germany could point. The Peasant Uprising and Thomas Münzer were considered, and discarded, as were the revolutions of 1848, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, and the leftist parties of the Weimar years. The Spanish Civil War, however, was perfect. Guns had been raised in communist hands against fascists, while the capitalist West stood helplessly by. The International Brigades became the first armed opposition to Hitler and were seen as the embryo of the invading Red Army. From government officials to authors, schoolbooks to popular history, the importance of the myth of the Spanish Civil War was surpassed in importance only by that of the October Revolution. High-ranking leaders in the Politburo, military, media, education and literature had all fought in Spain. The problem was that the myth never changed, despite the opening of western archives and the periodic publication of memoirs which disclosed communist errors and ideological murder. The East German public grew bored and confused with their model of socialist obedience and sacrifice at a time when the very foundations of the artificial state were beginning fatally to erode. In the end, the GDR went to its grave clinging to an ossified myth which had become as much a burden as it once had been an inspiration.