Memorial to the German International Brigaders, East Berlin

After 1945, strengthened by their experiences of war and persecution, many former members of the International Brigades (IBs) loyal to Moscow took up careers—sometimes very important ones—in the political and military life of the Central and Eastern European countries under Soviet domination. This was especially true of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Founded in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupation, the GDR derived its military tradition and its very historical legitimacy from the role of German socialists and communists in the International Brigades. From the beginning, the “struggle against fascism” was its foundation and the basis for its differentiation from the Federal Republic (FRG), which had been founded a few months earlier. While official propaganda attacked the FRG as a sort of hidden continuation of the Hitler regime under the auspices of US imperialism, the Stalinist GDR presented itself as the morally pure counterimage, the epitome of antifascist statehood. In this context, the struggle of the brigaders in Spain served as a foundational myth.

This myth was systematically constructed by both the former combatants themselves and the East German authorities, many of whom were IB veterans. Veterans organized their first meetings in Berlin immediately after the end of WWII, and these quickly assumed the character of periodic public events. Moreover, after the creation of the GDR, state authorities built up a cult of the hero based on the dead and surviving brigaders, whose names appeared on postage stamps, medals, official decorations, factories, shipyards, and especially on barracks and army units. This hero cult was formalized in 1965 with the creation of the “Spanish Veterans’ Section” within the “Committee of Veterans of the Anti-Fascist Struggle.” Shortly afterward, this Section commissioned a memorial to the German brigaders.

The East German celebration of the IB veterans’ myth reached its peak the following year, marking the thirtieth anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War. The regime invited former brigaders from around the world, celebrated their valor, and gave them medals. The mayor of East Berlin solemnly announced that the name of a central traffic artery would be changed to Hans-Beimler-Straße, in honor of one of the organizers and the first political commissar of the German battalions, who was murdered in 1936. Erwin Kramer, transport minister and IB veteran, laid the first stone of the monument to the German brigaders in Friedrichshain Park.

The inauguration of the monument two years later was also the occasion for much ceremony. The monument, shown in the photo above, consists of a larger-than-life figure of a brigader rising from a trench holding a sword, along with a bronze plaque portraying scenes from the Civil War. The monument was the site of regular marches and commemorative events until the GDR ceased to exist in 1989. In 1992, it was damaged in a bomb attack but restored and re-inaugurated the following year.

In 1993, the Berlin municipal government created a commission to determine how to deal with monuments in the former East Berlin. The commission decided that because the monument to the members of the IBs was unique in Germany and of artistic merit, it should be preserved. It also recommended that the plaque with the inscription be removed due to its problematic reference to the history of the GDR. It was replaced with a new inscription that reads: “Memorial to the German members of the International Brigades, Spain, 1936–1939.”

SB