Hans Beimler (original) (raw)
Hans Beimer was born in Germany in 1895. A member of the German Communist Party, Beimer was elected to the Reichstag but was arrested when Adolf Hitler took power. He was sent to a Concentration Camp but managed to escape.
On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War Beimer joined the International Brigades. The journalist, Esmond Romilly, met Beimer during the war. He later argued that Beimer was "a rigid disciplinarian, a member of the Communist Party, interested in all the technical aspects of warfare, and lacking in any such selfish motive as fear or reckless courage."
Another journalist, Claude Cockburn, added: "It is sadder still for the Nazis, for international Fascism, for the enemies of the people everywhere, that they should have been up against a man like Hans Beimler, who, when they thought they had him for sure, with five hours to decide between forced suicide and murder, yet had the willpower, the training, the discipline, the knowledge, to break out and to insist that he should live to fight new battles against them."
Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit, head of the British Medical Aid Unit, was also very impressed with Beimer when he met him in Barcelona: "Beimler set to with imposing authority and without any preliminary greeting. His words were heavily translated, word-for-word, by a female German comrade who seemed scared of loosing the slightest mite of meaning. She spoke slowly, checking back with him on several occasions. Beimler's voice indicated the shades of his meaning by heavy changes of emphasis and of tone. The interpreter trudged on with monotonous weight. Two of the leaders of the Thaelmann Centuria had come down from the front; they looked oddly uneasy. Beimler was clear. "We are here to fight the fascists, and you are wasting time fighting each other; if this continues you shall be sent back to wherever you came from." Hans Beimler's interventions in the Reichstag had been famous, but there was no oratory in what he had to say to us. He worked around his theme a few times which, while it reflected a certain truth, overstated our faults and neglected our positive qualities in such a hard-line manner as to be singularly unendearing.
Hans Beimer was political commissioner of the Thaelmann Battalion when he was killed defending Madrid in December 1936. Agnes Hodgson attended his 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. An English party was joining the procession so Mary Lowson offered us to join in. 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."
Primary Sources
(1) Esmond Romilly, Boadilla (1937)
I put him (Hans Beimler) immediately in my mind into the category of Real Communists. This was a purely personal definition I applied instinctively; to fit it you had to be a serious person, a rigid disciplinarian, a member of the Communist Party, interested in all the technical aspects of warfare, and lacking in any such selfish motive as fear or reckless courage.
(2) Kenneth Sinclair Loutit, Very Little Luggage (2009)
Dr Bone was in her early forties - a wonderful woman, dressed invariably like a Gibson Girl with trim leather belt, light-blue shirt and long dark-blue skirt. She was always hard at work with her Leica and spoke beautiful English with a fine Viennese accent. She went everywhere; she was always alone and seemed to know everybody. I never understood her status or functions. When she was asked by Thora (or maybe by me) for some insight into this inspection, she replied that she was going to break a self-imposed rule, and she would risk giving us some advice. "Someone in the Hotel Colon is being disobliging about your Unit in general and about you two in particular. There is no halfway house with the people you will be seeing; you either bow before the wind like grass in summer or you stand up straight as a tree and tell what you see as the facts without intellectualising." She told us that we both needed a rest. We had to get to Barcelona when this inspection was over. She would see to it that we were put up in comfort. The visitation when it came had dual leadership. First there was Ralph Bates, author of the "Olive Tree", whose wife Winifrid was to be immensely helpful to us later. He was wearing a uniform of a deep burgundy colour which displayed no badges or rank-markings. In reply to my enquiry, he said that it was the uniform of a Political Commissar and that his rank was such that it could not be expressed in gold braid. He certainly wore his rank lightly, as he took no part whatsoever in the subsequent proceedings. The second element was Hans Beimler who had been a leading communist deputy in the Reichstag and became the Political Commissar of the 11th (Thaelmann). Brigade. He had immense prestige within international Communist circles and later fell in action on the Madrid front. We all sat down in the mess-room recreation space.
Beimler set to with imposing authority and without any preliminary greeting. His words were heavily translated, word-for-word, by a female German comrade who seemed scared of loosing the slightest mite of meaning. She spoke slowly, checking back with him on several occasions. Beimler's voice indicated the shades of his meaning by heavy changes of emphasis and of tone. The interpreter trudged on with monotonous weight. Two of the leaders of the Thaelmann Centuria had come down from the front; they looked oddly uneasy. Beimler was clear. "We are here to fight the fascists, and you are wasting time fighting each other; if this continues you shall be sent back to wherever you came from." Hans Beimler's interventions in the Reichstag had been famous, but there was no oratory in what he had to say to us. He worked around his theme a few times which, while it reflected a certain truth, overstated our faults and neglected our positive qualities in such a hard-line manner as to be singularly unendearing.
Hans Beimler finally asked if any comrade wished to add to what he had had to say. There was a long silence. I remembered Edith Bone's advice about standing up straight and telling the facts as I saw them without intellectualising. So I got up and said that what Comrade Beimler had been totally logical but, before the meeting closed, I would like to suggest that he have someone check the kilometer readings on our ambulances which would convince him that they had not been idle. He might also have a word with Comrade Aileen, who would show him the Registers where he would find how many wounded and sick we dealt with each day. "We may talk too much but we do also work". His interpreter translated me sentence by sentence; I was very much shorter than he had been. There was another silence. No atmosphere of collaborative discussion had been generated. We got up; Hans Beimler said he would eat with the Thaelman at the front. This gave me the chance to say that we too appreciated Abrasha's cooking and that he would find our Ambulance crew up there if, as had been my own experience, he got shot at. We shook hands and our eyes met for the first time. Once you met them, his eyes were in fact both penetrating and kind. I noticed that at least one of his fingers was clubbed and bent with the nail wrongly set; I later learnt that this was a legacy from Gestapo interrogation.
The intellectual bomb he had been carrying went away defused. Subsequently, our awe-struck silent friends from the Thaelmann told us that over Abrasha's meal Hans Beimler had spoken well of us and that they had told him how valuable the Unit's services were to the Centuria.
(3) Claude Cockburn, The Daily Worker (5th December, 1936)
I see by the papers that Hans Beimler was killed in Madrid on Tuesday.
Eighteen days ago we were sitting in a front line position on the Casa de Campo front outside the city, and he eased himself up to pull a map or something out of his pocket, and a bullet missed his head by millimetres.
I remarked it was a narrow shave.
He said he had seen narrower.
For instance, he was arrested by the Nazis in Munich in 1934, and after being savagely beaten at the Brown House, was taken up to the Dachau concentration camp. What happened to him there he has told in his remarkable book, In the Hands of Hitler's Hell Hounds.
It is sad for us that Hans Beimler has been killed.
It is not possible for us ever to express fully our sadness and our respect for the men who have lost their lives - Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen and a dozen other nationalities - fighting for the peace and the progress of the world in one of the greatest movements of genuine international solidarity the world has ever seen.
It is sadder still for the Nazis, for international Fascism, for the enemies of the people everywhere, that they should have been up against a man like Hans Beimler, who, when they thought they had him for sure, with five hours to decide between forced suicide and murder, yet had the willpower, the training, the discipline, the knowledge, to break out and to insist that he should live to fight new battles against them.
You often read in the papers that someone's death has produced an 'irreplaceable loss'.
In our movement it is not so.
Nobody would have been more disgusted than Hans Beimler if you had told him that his place could not be filled. He knew and we know that his place can and must be filled.
(4) Agnes Hodgson, diary entry (6th December, 1936)
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. An English party was joining the procession so Lowson offered us to join in. 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. We followed after the officials and behind a banner declaring "Vengeance for the Death of Hans Beimler" - we gave the salute continuously as we moved slowly down the street. Passing round in front of the Hotel Colon, by means of amplifiers the corpse of Hans Beimler was addressed commovente. We passed on round the square of Catalonia and down the Ramblas - saluting and being saluted as we passed by various committee rooms - Latin American students, Anarchists, young communists and others - until we reached the end of the Ramblas where we international women were called to stand on one side.
We then stood while thousands of people of every party, police and militias, children and women passed by with their myriad banners and bands. The "Internationale" hymn was played with minute intervals, the Anarchists followed playing their hymn, and the "Internationale", till at last came the carriages bearing the magnificent wreaths. Mac not feeling well so we left a little before the others and returned to the hotel for a while before lunch.
All we four have dispensed with hats as hats are considered bourgeois here. Mac developed a bad cold and went to bed early. I went to the Ramblas Cafe - no one there - came back to the hotel and went to dine at Lowson's low restaurant where the waiter speaks English. Company included one English technician and an English ex-soldier - food a little better. Felt very depressed - went to the Ramblas Cafe, Barry joined us and several others. Wilson and I stayed on talking of our lives. John Fisher joined us and accompanied us to our hotel.