What I want to do today, briefly, is shine a light on the group in the war that is often pushed to the margins. You see, on the Republican side of the war were not simply Spaniards fighting the Fascist takeover of their homeland, but the International Battalions. People from all over the world who poured into Spain to try to stem the tide of Fascist takeover. Many people who know about the International Battalions know about the Abraham Lincoln Battalion – the American contingent, which was largely made up of Jewish men from New York and surrounding environs – and their history is fascinating and important. There was also a German contingent on the Republican side, and they’ve been an object of fascination for me recently. They were called the Thälmann Battalion.

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