Milton Wolff

Milton Wolff (born October 7, 1915 in New York , † January 14, 2008 in Berkeley, California ), called El Lobo , was a commander in the Spanish Civil War and in his later years a peace activist and book author . Wolff was the last in command of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade , in which the North American volunteers of the international brigades fought in Spain.

biography

youth

Wolff is the son of a family of Jewish immigrants from the working class. At a young age he joins the Young Communist League , a communist youth organization , and becomes a member of the United States Communist Party during the Great Depression .

War years

Originally pacifist in his attitude , after the defeat of the international brigades in the Battle of Jarama , he decided to take part in the Spanish civil war. In March 1937 he arrives in Spain. He takes part in the Battle of Brunete and the battles for Madrid . When the two senior officers David Doran and Robert Hale Merriman lost their lives in the Aragon offensive , Wolff became commander of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Ernest Hemingway describes him from the front in various reports, and the photographer Robert Capa captures him in several well-known portraits. An anecdote tells that Hemingway is piqued at the young New Yorker because the latter does not recognize him as a famous writer, but rather from a brief encounter in which Wolff breaks his female evening acquaintance. Regardless, Hemingway describes him as

". 23 years old, tall as Lincoln, gaunt as Lincoln, and as brave and as good a soldier as any that commanded battalions at Gettysburg. He is alive and unhit by the same hazard that leaves one tall palm tree standing where a hurricane has passed. "

“23 years old, tall as Lincoln, gaunt as Lincoln, and as brave and good as any battalion commander at Gettysburg. He lives and is unharmed by the same coincidence that left a single tall palm tree where a hurricane passed. "

- Ernest Hemingway

At the beginning of the Second World War , Wolff joins the British secret service SOE . He recruited former fighters of the international brigades for commando operations behind the German lines. Some in the American army are suspicious of these "Lincoln" fighters because they consider them immature and subversive. He even has to fight to be allowed to fight on the front lines. He eventually took part in the fighting in Burma and Italy .

At the end of 1944 he was in France. There he meets with opponents of the Francisco Franco regime who are planning an invasion of Spain. When he tries to stash weapons and ammunition for his anti-fascist comrades, his superiors prevent him from putting this plan into action.

Later years of life

The fight against what he perceives as injustice becomes his life's work. He appears before the Committee on Un-American Activities to prevent the Association of Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) from being ostracized as a communist organization. He justifies his participation in the civil war with his origins: “I am Jewish, and knowing that as a Jew we are the first to suffer when fascism does come, I went to Spain to fight against it.” (German: I am Jude and because As a Jew I know that we must be the first to suffer, when fascism comes, I went to Spain to fight against it )

He publishes manifestos against the Vietnam War . He takes a stand against the actions of the government of Richard Nixon against the Sandinista in Nicaragua . During that conflict, he and other Lincoln veterans collected donations and used them to finance around a dozen ambulances in Nicaragua. He is also publicly committed to the Iraq war .

After Franco's death, he often returned to Spain, which became his second home.

In two autobiographical stories he describes his youth in New York and his experiences as a communist and a civil war fighter.

family

Wolff was married to and divorced from Anne Gondos. He later married Frieda Irene Salzman, who died before him.

His first marriage had a daughter and a son, both still alive. Furthermore, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren survived him.

Literary works by Milton Wolff

• Member of the Working Class , iUniverse, 2005, ISBN 978-0-595-37267-6
• Another Hill, An Autobiographical Novel , University of Illinois Press, 2001 reissue, ISBN 978-0-252-06983-3

literature

• Robert S. Coale: Milton Wolff , Le Monde, February 5, 2008, p. 23

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ http://www.specialforcesroh.com/gallery.php?action=view_image&id=6639
2. ^ "Lui-même dut batailler durement pour qu l'envoie au feu", Robert Coale in Le Monde, February 5, 2008, p. 23
3. ↑ JEWISH VOLUNTEERS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 29, 2008 ; accessed on February 5, 2008 . 
4. ↑ February 2008

Web links

• New York Times obituary