Heart of Spain: Thälmann Battalion

[Plynkes]

I think it was Chris posting those pics of his SCW Anglian Miniatures, but I'm starting to get the Spanish bug (Spanish Flu?). I really don't want to get into a new period, but it's starting to feel inevitable. Maybe I'll just confine it to skirmish-gaming, eh?

Anyway, it got me looking back in my book collection and I dug out this book:



It has about 200 pages of the most wonderful photos designed to inspire someone into jumping feet-first into this period. Quite an expensive coffee-table book, but that's okay, as my parents gave it to me as a Christmas gift some years ago. I would say "get this book" if you are interested in photos of this period, and you have some spare cash.










Inside the book is this poem:

This is our moment.
You can hear us singing
Where the earth is brittle under the southern sun
Watch us marching in serried ranks to the death that is our homage
To the unbroken spirit of our dishonoured country.
For here we are showing the world our country's other face,
And the voice that for three years in Germany has been silenced
Utters its songs of freedom under an alien sun.

We were in Barcelona with the masses that stormed the Colon;
We left with the first militia for the Eastern Front;
Then we went to Madrid;
We were at Casa del Campo,
Guadalajara, Brunete, Belchite and Teruel,
Putting to rout the Italians in the name of Thälmann.

Here we have shown to the world our country's other face;
And not the face of the hangman with the sprouting forelock
But the face of the young men who march together singing
Through the southern plains where the clay is brittle under the sun.

Aileen Palmer
Thälmann Battalion

Perhaps not the best poetry in the world, but I still find it moving. These are the guys I shall paint when I start painting. I think for once it will be nice to have the Germans as the Good Guys (besides, there were Brits in the Thälmann Battalion, too). They must get sick of being the evil baddies.

Unfortunately I have yet to find an image of their banner (you've just got to have a standard bearer in a SCW game!). If anybody can locate one, I'd be grateful.

[Plynkes]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, but it doesn't quite fit in "Pulp" to my mind.

[Westfalia Chris]

Ahh yes, the german communist brigaderos... great stuff! Thanks for linking.

I´d prefer being hit by the Spanish Fly rather than the Spanish Flu, though. ::

It´s difficult to place the SCW, eh? It won´t fit to BoB, neither really for Pulp due to the scale of affairs, and it´s neither of WW1 or WW2. But we wouldn´t need an Interwar board, since it´s mainly for adventure... and I planned for some adventurous uses of my SCW stuff, too, like convoys of church gold being intercepted by Nationalist troops etc...

[Neldoreth]

I was also very interested in this period! Particularly the FAI! And, believe it or not, you can get FAI figs, as well as a number of other SCW figs over at Force of Arms! Check out their PDF catalogue here:

http://www.forceofarms.co.uk/catalogue.pdf

Please keep me posted on your progress with this project, as I am also on the edge of beginning a collection! And yes, I would also restrict my collecting to skirmish

Anyway, I think that this is the right category for this post, perhaps it would be more so if the Prof. changed the 'and' in the title to read 'to'

n.

[Neldoreth]

As to the request for the banner, these could be it:





I found it on this page:

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/vexicat/brigades/bi_columnas1936.htm

n.

[Neldoreth]

Mmmm...  the anarchists are my favourite though:



I love the anarchists for sure! The SCW was a great period for socialism, too bad they lost



Anyway, sorry for the channel spam

n.

[Westfalia Chris]

Well, I chose the Int´l Brigades/Militia for my first force, because that´s one way to live out my leftist tendencies without smashing other people´s property (that´s what most "lefties" and "anarchists" here in germany seem to be about, judging from May Day Riots and blistering idiots like the Allgemeine Pogo Partei Deutschlands).

Not to forget the left´s atrocities on the clergy in the SCW, though.

On the state of my project, I´m sitting on hot coals while waiting for my Brigaderos and Milicianos which are in the mail since last week and should arrive any day now... damn damn damn, I can´t wait. I´ll do some "methadoning" with some Pig Iron Infantry today.

[Neldoreth]

Well, I chose the Int´l Brigades/Militia for my first force, because that´s one way to live out my leftist tendencies without smashing other people´s property

I appreciate your sentiment, but from a 'lefties' point of view, property is illegal in the first place

But I digress. I really like this project because not only is it very interesting historically, but it also allows me to use all of my WWII terrain as well!

n.

[Plynkes]

Yes, atrocities were common currency used by both sides, unfortunately.

Still, fool that I am, I still stick with the defenders of a democratic government  as "good guys" over the perpetrators of a military coup d'etat.


Crikey! It's getting like TMP's Current Affairs Board in here! Sorry about that, it was not my intention to start arguments.

[Westfalia Chris]

Yeah, I guess I´m more of a "salon socialist" or "very liberal left-wing conservative" (now that´s indecision!). ::

[Grimm]

OK Boy´s you get me !!
I diden´t know much abaut the SCW but you and the miniatures from Anglian have convince I need that miniatures .
But I am a kind of a Rebell so if you all play the ``good`` left´s .I will make the ``bad`` Guys .
Chris do you know a good german book abaut that war ?

.....Dam I think I need all Miniatures from all sides  

Grimm

[Westfalia Chris]

OK Boy´s you get me !!
I diden´t know much abaut the SCW but you and the miniatures from Anglian have convince I need that miniatures .

Grimm

Dios lo manda! (Pulp spanish strikes again!)

It´s hard to resist those marvy Anglian miniatures, isn´t it?

But I am a kind of a Rebell so if you all play the ``good`` left´s .I will make the ``bad`` Guys .

.....Dam I think I need all Miniatures from all sides  

Hey, I´ll get a Falangist/Foreign Legion force once the Republicans are painted, too! ::

Chris do you know a good german book abaut that war ?

I´m currently reading "Kampfplatz Spanien", by Franz Borkenau, which is an eyewitness account from about 1937-38 (Borkenau being a german expatriate working as a journalist in Britain and traveling to Spain to report home). A very compelling read, definitely left-wing, but very fair and sensible in his account of the war´s reasons and the characteristics of the various factions - and his account of the various left-wing and anarchist groups is incredible.

Other books are hard to come by, since my local library only has Interwar-Books with some chapters on the SCW, at most. If you can find it, Raymond Cartier´s "Vom ersten zum zweiten Weltkrieg" has some very good chapters on the SCW, as well.

Crikey! It's getting like TMP's Current Affairs Board in here! Sorry about that, it was not my intention to start arguments.

Hey, I guess we can discuss this matter in a civilized and decent manner, without all that political-correctness-stuckuppityness. Don´t get me wrong, I really like TMP, but sometimes they go all nuts over that PC thing.

[KeyanSark]

I´m sitting on hot coals while waiting for my Brigaderos and Milicianos which are in the mail since last week and should arrive any day now...

Just a note for the sake of correctness (is this phrase good english, BTW?):

"Brigaderos" is not correct, it should be "Brigadistas"
"Milicianos", on the other hand, is perfect.

Basically, the Republican Army was made of Brigadistas (from the International Brigades), the Army/Navy and the irregular forces of Comunistas and Anarquistas (Milicianos, as a whole). There were also civil militias who should be Milicianos as well.

In the so-called Nationalist Army there were also Army/Navy (some units remained loyal to the Republic, other were Rebels) and then the Falangistas, Requetés and Carlistas (and the troops sent by Germany and Italy to help them)

The Falange were (more or less) a fascist movement armed, like the Italian Black Shirts... To talk openly about this issues here sometimes removes some old wounds (it depends on where and how you talk, of course). I think civil wars are nasty things (under a concept nasty by itself as war is)

[Westfalia Chris]

That´s exactly what I was about - just because my favourite faction would be the Republicans, I won´t ignore their faults and shortcomings.

Interesting to hear about the "Brigadistas" - in german, it´s "Interbrigadisten" as a plural form, but I thought "Brigadistas" sounded a wee bit feminine. But it´s "dinamiteros" for those nutty commie activists, right, not "dinamitistas"?

Muchas gracias, senor! I guess I´ll buy that Pons spanish dictionary, after all - I´ll also need it for the pirates sailing the spanish main.

[Plynkes]

Just a note for the sake of correctness (is this phrase good english, BTW?)

That is perfect English, old boy.




I see the banners spell it "Thaelmann." I've seen it spelled that way and also "Thälmann." I wonder how the fellow (Ernst Thälmann, German Communist leader) spelled it himself?

I forgot to thank Neldoreth for finding those banners. So here we go:

Thanks, Neldoreth!