Clara Thalmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Clara Thalmann (* as Clara Ensner September 24, 1908 in Basel ; † January 27, 1987 in Nice , France ) was a Swiss anarchist and fighter in the Spanish Civil War .

Life

Youth in Basel and Paris

Clara Thalmann was one of ten children in a working-class family. Her parents, Elisa Margaretha Thudium and Friedrich Franz Ensner, came from a social democratic background. Her father was a German internationalist and fled to Switzerland because of the Franco-Prussian War . At the age of 14, after graduating from school, she moved away from home because she found her father too authoritarian and worked as a waitress, maid and watch worker in Leysin , Neuchâtel NE and Geneva . In 1925 she went to Paris illegally, found work in metal works and lived there with the birth certificate of an anarchist work colleague. Since she was already politically organized in Basel as a member of the “Socialist Youth” and from 1918 of the Swiss Communist Party , she joined the PCF youth in Paris . Thalmann worked for the French communist magazine L'Humanité during her stay in Paris and broke with Orthodox Marxism in 1924 with Lenin's death and the rise of Stalinism in 1928 . Back in Basel in 1929, she met her future husband Paul Thalmann , who was also born in Basel and had studied for four years in Moscow, from where he returned disaffected and joined the dissident group of Schaffhausen. In 1929 the two were expelled from the KPS because they criticized the Stalinist policies of the Soviet Union and the party. Clara and Paul married in Basel in 1931. In the same year the Second Republic was proclaimed in Spain and the two went on a five-month journey across the country. They returned to Basel via North Africa and Italy. After Hitler came to power , Thalmann smuggled banned documents that were printed in Switzerland across the border into Germany. In 1934 she joined the Trotskyist MAS (Marxist Action of Switzerland), which moved to the Basel SP in 1935 and there became part of the left wing of the party. Thalmann was a member of the Swiss Workers' Swimming Club and, as its delegate, traveled to Barcelona in 1936 for the People's Olympics .

Spanish Civil War

One day before the opening of the People's Olympics, on July 17, 1936, Francisco Franco's generals put on a coup in Spain and the Spanish Civil War broke out. Thalmann was not yet in Spain at that time, she only reached the border on July 18, and there she met CNT militias . They let this pass without any problems. As a result of the general strike called by left-wing parties and unions, all public transport was out of order. She was able to drive from Port-Bou to Sant Feliu de Guíxols in a French businessman's private car with two other Basel residents whom she met by chance . On this route they were checked several times by militias. From there, the people of Basel traveled on to Barcelona with anarchists . Thalmann was given preferential treatment several times in Spain because of her blonde hair, so Paul was able to travel to Spain because the militiamen at the border remembered his wife. He was able to ride to Barcelona on a militia truck.

Barcelona and La Zaida

In Barcelona all the big parties and unions had occupied houses and set up offices where one could find out about the organization and political orientation. Thalmann decided to go to the POUM and joined one of their militias. She turned down offers for an office position or a job in the hospital. She wanted to go to the front and marched off to the Aragon front three days after Paul's arrival in Barcelona . Their hundred was divided into Barbastro , a kind of headquarters of the front section, to La Zaida , a village on the Ebro with then about 3,000 inhabitants. Clara Thalmann justified her wish to fight with the gun later in an interview by saying that she could shoot. This is because after the Russian Revolution she had learned how to handle weapons with Swiss army weapons , which every soldier had at home, and with blind cartridges in the forest, in order to support a second “Russian” revolution if it had broken out. There were frequent skirmishes with the fascists at the front; however, the breaks in between lasted longer than the fighting. They were used to train the militias or to help the farmers in the fields. The militias were poorly equipped and often had out-of-date equipment, so the Thalmanns had only one machine gun, while the fascists on the other side of the Ebros had several. In addition to the material-dependent disadvantages of the Republican side, there was the fact that many militia members had no military training. Paul traveled to the front to see Clara as a correspondent for Swiss workers' newspapers, at which time there were two other women in her hundred in addition to her. The troops consisted of German, French and Italian volunteers , but most of the militiamen in this hundred were Spanish. Hundreds took part in the social revolution , so the militia was organized democratically; there were no officers, only elected representatives, and everyone received the same pay.

Madrid

Clara allowed himself to be persuaded by Paul to leave the militia and go with him to Madrid , since he assumed that important military and political decisions would soon be made there. After a discussion among the hundreds about their vacation, she was able to leave the front. Before they went to Madrid, however, the two made a trip to Gelsa to the headquarters of the " Durruti column" of which their hundred belonged. They arrived in Madrid shortly before the Popular Front government under Francisco Largo Caballero was formed , in early September 1936. By this time the first rifts had already opened on the Republican side. These tensions arose from the various opinions about whether and when the social revolution should take place. The bourgeois republicans and communists opposed the revolution promoted by the anarchists of the CNT- FAI , socialists and the POUM. In order to counteract the internal republican opposition, Stalin built up a police apparatus in Spain that was outside the Spanish jurisdiction. The POUM had occupied a radio station in Madrid and from there was sending information about the course of the civil war abroad. The communists did not like this possibility of uncensored reporting, they tried again and again to raid the station and watched the employees. Clara spoke the texts written by Paul in German and French, so they were monitored by Stalinist informers. During this time Franco's generals occupied the suburbs of Madrid. The city was attacked with artillery and airplanes. Clara and Paul stayed in the city anyway and saw the arrival of Buenaventura Durruti and the Thalmann company . The PCE with its Soviet supporters took power in the city. The Popular Front government consisted of all republican parties, except for the anarchists and the POUM, as these were considered uncontrollable. Only later did two anarchist ministers join the government. The anarchist base disapproved of participation in the government and internal quarrels subsequently paralyzed the CNT-FAI. The anarchists' hope that their cooperation would also enable them to profit from the Soviet arms deliveries was not fulfilled. In return, the PCE rose from an insignificant party to an important hub in the arms distribution and in the power system of the Republicans through the arms shipments. Stalin actively influenced the events in Spain through his Soviet officers and secret service agents. He tried to suppress any criticism of his system. He established a state within the state and was thus able to persecute his political opponents abroad. The various communist parties, which monitored their members in Spain and kept fishing, did him good service. There was also one about the Thalmann couple, created by the KPD .

Stay in Switzerland and Pina de Ebro

On November 8, 1936, the government moved from Madrid to Valencia because government business in the old capital was no longer running properly and the threat from the fascists' proximity was too great. All foreign journalists had to accompany the government. Clara and Paul wanted to stay in Madrid. But when Clara was no longer accepted into the POUM militia because she was a woman, they decided to leave Spain for a certain time. In Switzerland they wanted to organize help for Spanish children. Back in Basel, they learned that Clara was wanted for smuggling a communist journalist across the border. So she hid with a friend. Paul was interrogated on this matter. Clara campaigned in Romandie for support of the Spanish Republic, Paul in the German-speaking Switzerland . During the two months in Switzerland, Paul wrote a pamphlet on the social revolution in Spain, strongly criticizing the communist attitude. Clara successfully negotiated with Swiss Children's Aid to accept Spanish children. They drove back to Barcelona via Paris . In connection with their trip to Spain, they asked themselves questions about the further course of the social revolution. They wanted to go to the Aragon Front or to Catalonia to join an anarchist militia. For this reason they met with Augustin Souchy , DAS representative in Barcelona. They argued about the anarchists' participation in government, as Clara and Paul rejected them and Souchy defended them. He considered Clara's chances of being deployed to the front as slim, but he still wrote her a letter of recommendation. Clara and Paul were dressed up, were given a Czech rifle and 50 rounds of ammunition and drove to the front in Pina de Ebro by bus . Their new hundred was also part of the Durruti column and consisted of German, Dutch, Luxembourg and Spanish volunteers; a Spanish worker was there too. Clara won the vote to stay on the front lines. Pina de Ebro was a village with about 2000 inhabitants. The militiamen slept on the straw in an empty farmhouse, and there were two blankets for each. The hundred was divided into groups of ten, each assigned to a family in the village. The militia officers took care of themselves there and the family ate at the expense of the militia. Clara and Paul stayed in Pina de Ebro for three months. Money had largely been abolished in the village and the militia. In addition to the collectivization of agriculture, the militia in Pina de Ebro was also democratically organized. Each position in the departments was filled by election and the elected person could be removed immediately by a resolution of the general meeting. Since there was no fighting in the front line, the militiamen helped the farmers in the fields or had training units. The militia had four different models of rifles, and the militias had to sort out the ammunition that went with their rifles. There were always heated discussions among the militiamen. Although they were in an anarchist hundred, there were also Trotskyists, Marxists and KPO supporters. The political leader of the Hundred represented the official position of the CNT-FAI, this led to a conflict with Clara and Paul, as they attacked them. The political leader announced that he could no longer ensure the security of the Thalmanns, and they left the front with others and went to Barcelona. They suspected that this was simply an excuse to get rid of the uncomfortable critics.

May events

In Barcelona public life had changed dramatically, the PSUC (Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya, Catalan Communist Party) had developed into a powerful party and suppressed all opponents. Civilians dominated the cityscape again and the blue militia overalls were no longer seen that often. The black market flourished in the city and long lines formed in front of grocery stores. Clara and Paul could not clearly assign themselves to any political direction - and that in a society in which political opinion had played an important role. In their joint autobiography, Paul Thalmann wrote about their situation at the time: “Politically, we were in no man's land. We had broken away from Trotskyism ideologically. We were critical of the official anarchist politics [...]. The POUM? It was a minority, shaken by violent changes of direction, exposed to the daily slanderous attacks of the communists [...]. In addition, she [...] met with sharp rejection from the anarchists. " Despite everything, they decided to join the POUM and wanted to rejoin the militia. Paul was able to enter, Clara was refused entry because she was a woman. Paul came to Fañanás, a place in the municipality of Alcalá del Obispo , on the Aragon Front. Clara accompanied him for a day and then traveled back to Barcelona. When his troops wanted to submit to the regular army, Paul resigned from the militia and returned to Barcelona before May 1st. While Paul was at the front, Clara met various anarchists, including acquaintances and members of the Amigos de Durruti. Towards the end of April 1937, tensions between the communists and the anarchists reached a serious level. The PSUC and the youth organization of the CNT led an almost open power struggle. There were several murders on both sides. In addition, the Amigos de Durruti and part of the anarchist base rebelled against their own leadership and policies. Joint May Day celebrations were intended to calm the situation and unite the opposing parties. This government request did not come true. The situation escalated during the May events that lasted from May 4th to 8th . They were triggered by the attempted assault by the communist-run Guardia Civil and Guardia de Asalto on the CNT-occupied switchboard in Barcelona. The anarchists went on a general strike and barricades arose in the streets. The anarchists were able to occupy the working-class neighborhoods, while the communists controlled the city's center of power, the inner city. The POUM sided with the anarchists. Clara warned the officials of the FAI of a storm at the switchboard as she watched the Guardia de Asalto march. She didn't come back until the shooting started. Together with other anarchists, she and Paul disarmed several officers of the People's Army and spent the night behind the barricades on the Rambla de Flores, from where they shot at the Guardia de Asalto. The events themselves were very chaotic and no one knew exactly what was going on. The situation in Barcelona was similar to that of the generals' uprising. The POUM and the anarchists took control of almost the entire city, and several social revolutionary militia units set out from the front to Barcelona. These were attacked by the Republican Air Force and forced to turn back. At the same time, the government in Valencia withdrew troops from the front and sent them to Madrid. In support of the Generalitat in Barcelona, ​​she sent two cruisers with units of the Guardia de Asalto on board to Barcelona. With the arrival of these ships and when the Guardia de Asalto took control of the city, the anarchists surrendered. The CNT-FAI remained in government, but its militias were disempowered and disarmed. Clara and her husband were arrested by the POUM during the May events while distributing a leaflet by the Amigos de Durruti, later recognized by a friend and released. After the events, they gave their views on what had happened to Erwin Wolf, Trotsky's secretary. They were visited three times by the police at their apartment, who interrogated them and then withdrew after the couple were able to identify themselves as foreign journalists with their papers. As the communists and the Soviet secret service were looking for the author of Paul's brochure, it became too unsafe for them, especially since their motivation to stay in Spain had sunk significantly after the defeat of the social revolution.

Captured in Barcelona and Valencia

They tried to leave Spain on a French steamer, but were stopped behind customs at an irregular checkpoint of the SIM (Servicio de Información Militar), the secret service of the PCE, arrested and taken to the parallel prison, Puerta del Angel. In prison they were first interrogated by Russians and Germans and then taken to a cell together. They were later separated, but they were able to keep in touch using pieces of paper they gave to the trimmers and went on a hunger strike. A little later they decided to cancel this again because it was unsuccessful. After at least five weeks in prison in Puerta del Angel, they were brought together to Valencia in mid-June to the Santa Ursula nunnery, which the communists had converted into a prison. Here, too, they were separated, as the departments were separated by sex. However, Clara found out that Paul was imprisoned on the floor below her, and sang Swiss folk songs that had been repositioned about her prison conditions and about her interrogations. She was in a cell with several other women. She suffered from the extreme heat and fell ill with scurvy because of the inadequate diet . A security guard who recognized her gave her preferential treatment. The interrogations did not take place in the prison itself, but outside, in the city. They lasted all night and the prisoners were taken out of their cells in the middle of the night. The prisoners were beaten and tortured by the guards. On August 29, 1937, Spanish police broke into the prison and took both Clara and Paul out of prison. The two were interrogated for the first time by a Spanish officer. They were released and received a letter from the Interior Minister identifying them as guests of the Spanish government. They were watched over by Spanish police officers and all their expenses were covered by the government.

Released

The Thalmann couple's release was due to the intervention of Louis de Brouckère , the secretary of the SAI . This was supported by Friedrich Schneider , one of the two Basler, who drove with Clara Port-Bou to Sant Feliu de Guíxols and alerted a member of the Executive of the LSI to the problem. In addition, following an intervention by Fenner Brockway , Secretary General of the British Independent Labor Party , the Spanish government decided to no longer tolerate the secret prisons and slowly took them over from the irregular security forces or dissolved them. Clara and Paul felt restricted by the police and they were hostile to the privileges they received. Since the social revolution had been violently suppressed by the communists and they did not want to campaign for "any republic by the grace of Stalin", they traveled back to Port-Bou via Barcelona.

France

In Valencia the Swiss consulate gave them a loan of 300 pesetas , which they never repaid. With the money they got as far as Paris. They could not return to Switzerland because they would face trial in a military court. So they stayed in the French capital, got by with odd jobs and joined an aid committee for Spanish fighters. During the Second World War and the occupation of France , Clara and Paul wrote leaflets and took in Jews. For others they organized escape routes to free areas. After the war, in 1953, they founded a commune , La Séréna, near Nice . Clara died on January 27, 1987 after a long illness on La Séréna, seven years after Paul.

Paul and Clara Thalmann's estate is kept in the International Institute for Social History .

literature

Movies

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Huber, Peter in collaboration with Ralph Hug (2009): Die Schweizer Spanienfreiwilligen. Biographical Handbook , 1st edition, page 389, Rotpunktverlag, Zurich.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Buselmeier, Karin (ed.) (1978): Women in the Spanish Revolution , in: Mamas Pfirsiche: Frauen und Literatur No. 9/10, Verlag Frauenpolitik, Münster.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Thalmann, Clara and Paul (1987): Revolution für die Freedom. Stations of a political struggle Moscow / Madrid / Paris , 3rd edition with an up-to-date epilogue, anyway publishing house, Grafenau-Döffingen.
  4. ^ A b Ruth Ammann: Clara Thalmann. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . October 3, 2012 , accessed July 3, 2019 .
  5. ^ Schneider, Friedrich (1936): Storm over Spain ; In: AZ workers newspaper. Official organ of social affairs. Parties to both Basel, the Basel workers' union and the Baselland trade union cartel , No. 174, Volume 16, July 28, 1936, page 2.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Medienwerkstatt Freiburg (Hrsg.) (1984): The long hope. Memories of another Spain with Clara Thalmann and Augustin Souchy.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Medienwerkstatt Freiburg (ed.) (1985): The long hope. Memories of another Spain with Clara Thalmann and Augustin Souchy, 1st edition, anyway publishing house, Grafenau.
  8. ↑ Huber, Peter in collaboration with Ralph Hug (2009): Die Schweizer Spanienfreiwilligen. Biographical Handbook , 1st edition, page 388, Rotpunktverlag, Zurich.
  9. ↑ Huber, Peter (1994): Stalin's shadow in Switzerland. Swiss Communists in Moscow: Defenders and Prisoners of the Comintern , page 331, 1st edition, Chronos Verlag, Zurich.
  10. ^ A b Huber, Peter (1994): Stalin's shadow in Switzerland; Swiss Communists in Moscow: Defenders and Prisoners of the Comintern , page 332, 1st edition, Chronos Verlag, Zurich.
  11. ↑ Ruth Ammann: Paul Thalmann. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 22, 2012 , accessed July 3, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Thalmann, Clara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss anarchist and fighter in the Spanish civil war
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1987
Place of death Nice , France