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p In the thirties, Sweden, like other capitalist countries, was hit by a wave of unemployment in the wake of the world economic crisis. A high tide of strike struggles swept the length and breadth of Sweden. Pulp-and-paper industry enterprises, building sites and the merchant marine were a scene of bitter struggle for the working people’s rights. Scabs acted under police protection, but this was not enough for the Swedish bourgeois liberal government, so troops were called in.

p In May 1931, a military patrol opened fire on workers in Odalen, killing five. Violent protest demonstrations swept the country. Police used truncheons and swords, many demonstrators were arrested and jailed. Under pressure from public opinion, however, the government had to pull out the troops. While in one place the strike movement was at an ebb, in another if flared up with renewed vigour. The struggle was the most relentless where employers refused to negotiate with the workers and cut down wages.

p The bankruptcy of the Kreiger concern exposed the bleeding ulcers of the economic system of free enterprise and led to a political crisis which exposed the involvement of the top leadership of the ruling bourgeois parties, including the head of state, in the profiteering of monopoly capital.

p The political situation in the country was unstable. Rival movements of free-thinkers and liberals emerged within the " bourgeois Left" party as far back as the early thirties. Groups of profascist orientation broke away from the Right parties. The Left wing of the working-class movement was weakened by numerous splits which had been in evidence since the twenties. The victory of the Social-Democratic Party at the election to the Riksdag (parliament) in 1932 and the establishment of a Social-Democratic government put an end to the domination of the country’s political life by the bourgeois parties.

p These political processes occurred in an atmosphere of anxiety and apprehensions which prevailed in Sweden and other 271 Scandinavian countries as the muddy waves of nazism flooded Central Europe.

p Within the reformist wing of the working-class movement quite a few sombre forecasts were made about the inevitable defeat of the working-class movement and imminent long decades of a bloody reign of terror. The world was threatened by a mortal danger. Rumours of monstrous atrocities in the German concentration camps leaked through the smoke of the Reichstag fire in Berlin. The Western powers were retreating before nazism and pursued the disastrous policy of appeasement, while the world’s only socialist state, the USSR, was surrounded by enemies.

p That is why the victories of the Left in the parliamentary elections in France and Spain sparked hope in every honest Socialist and democrat. On the other hand, the establishment of the Popular Front in these countries aroused apprehensions and caused a hostile reaction not only among the rightists but also within the Swedish liberal bourgeoisie. This may seem strange since the leading role in the election bloc of the Popular Front parties in Spain and in the Republican Government was played by the Left-wing bourgeois Republicans. It will be recalled, however, that for the Swedish bourgeoisie of every shade socialism was something like the devil in the flesh, while fascism was a socially kindred phenomenon and perfectly tolerable, particularly in its Italian variant, although some of Mussolini’s actions, for example, the invasion of Abyssinia, produced of course an unpleasant impression, while the brutality of the German nazis repelled the liberal circles to a certain extent. But to make up for it, those of the Right-wing bourgeois camp were beside themselves with glee and justified any means to suppress the German working-class movement, regarding nazi concentration camps as a perfectly rational way to deal with it.

p These basic points of view were thrown into salient relief by the appearance of Franco and his lieutenants on the political scene. The bourgeois press with few exceptions published Franco versions of current developments. Information was sifted: provocations and murders perpetrated by reactionaries and the Falange were as a rule hushed down, while the defensive counter-measures taken by Republican anti-fascists were presented under a "Red terror" rubric. "Swedish Engineer Describes Terror in Barcelona”, "Terror in Valencia!" were typical headings in the two biggest liberal newspapers. The Svenska Dagbladet yearbook (1936-1939), claiming a business-like and accurate presentation of facts, published the following comment of the release of 35,000 political prisoners after the victory of the Popular Front at the election to the Cortes in 1936: "The numerous gang of murderers—organisers of the rebellion in Asturias—have returned in triumph to where they committed their crimes.”

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p The same yearbook published the following description of the situation in Spain in the spring of 1936: “The Reds have burned down churches and monasteries, robbed banks and attacked those holding other political views than their own. In mid-March, the whole of Spain was a boiling witch cauldron. Massacres were in progress in many localities. All of Granada where the Reds were in control was governed by martial law. In the Badajoz province, thousands of farm labourers forcibly seized private property....”

p The editorial offices of bourgeois newspapers did not confine themselves to tendentious selection and presentation of information, but they also published deliberate lies supporting Franco and damaging the Republican cause. Since bourgeois papers accounted for about 85 per cent of the entire press circulation it is easy to imagine how distorted was the idea of Spanish events a large share of the people had at the time.

p Lies of the bourgeois press, its open hostility to Spanish democracy, its active support of the treacherous mutiny against a lawful government elected by the people on the part of preachers of “loyalty to the homeland, the officer’s honour and the military oath" naturally aroused protests from the democratic forces, above all, from the organised working class.

p The worker press, handicapped as it was by a shortage of funds, consistently supported the Spanish Republic. News items and articles it published gave the Swedish people the true picture of Spanish events and laid bare the lies of the bourgeois press.

p In February 1936, the worker press carried this report: “A landslide victory for the Left in Spain. The absolute majority of the people supports the Popular Front.” Printing daily reports on street clashes with Falange thugs, on plans of the Spanish military to declare a state of siege, Ny Dag, the central organ of the Communist Party, nevertheless made this optimistic conclusion: “ Anti-fascist winds are sweeping the world".  [272•1 

p Meanwhile, the Swedish anti-fascists launched a campaign for aid to victims of reaction: a group of Swedish seamen arrested in nazi Germany, the famous leader of the Finnish workers, Antikainen, put on trial in Helsinki, Ernst Thaelmann languishing in a nazi dungeon. It was decided to boycott the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin in protest against the nazi atrocities. Most trade unions forbade their members to attend it, and many leading athletes decided to go to the People’s Olympiad to be held in Barcelona July 22-26.

p The fascist revolt in Spain contributed to the consolidation of different groups within the Swedish anti-fascist solidarity movement. The mass meeting held on Ostermalmstorg Square in Stockholm on July 28 was attended by members of all political workers’ 273 organisations, 83 trade unions, cultural, youth and other associations. Initially, this meeting was conceived as a demonstration to demand the release of the Swedish seamen arrested in Germany and to protest against the Berlin Olympics. The events in Spain, however, became the central issue at the meeting, which sent this message of greetings to the Spanish people: “We are closely following your struggle and we earnestly hope that you will uphold freedom and democracy in the struggle against the armed onslaught of reaction."  [273•1 

p Since then, the movement of assistance to Spain had an organised character. The Swedish Red Cross, individual trade unions, some women’s associations started raising funds. Various organisations expressed in resolutions the moral and economic solidarity of the Swedish proletariat with the Spanish working class fighting for democracy, freedom and peace throughout the world.

p On October 9, 1936 Sweden’s Central Committee for Aid to Spain was set up, and an appeal was issued in defence of the Spanish Republic. It was signed by 50 distinguished personalities —trade-union leaders, professors, factory directors, writers, political leaders of various affiliations. The Committee was headed by Senator Georg Branting, a lawyer, the son of Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting, who founded the organised labour movement in Sweden. Georg Branting was already known to the international anti-fascist public as a defence counsel at the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in America, the sponsor of the London counter-trial in defence of Georgy Dimitrov, a defender of Finnish fighters against the Lapua fascist coup d’etat in Finland. He regarded assistance to Spanish democracy as one of the most important tasks in his life.

p The setting up of the Central Committee for Aid to Spain contributed to a rapid growth of the solidarity movement in Sweden. Meetings of solidarity were held throughout Sweden. Spanish relief committees were set up in its various regions and "Spanish Sundays" were held, with hundreds of volunteers going from house to house to collect money for Spanish relief. Women’s groups were set up everywhere to sew clothes for Spanish children. Kiruna miners donated their one day’s earnings to the Spanish relief fund and called on other workers to follow suit: more than a thousand volunteers made rounds of 600 housing estates and collected in a matter of few hours a thousand bundles of clothing; medicines and dressing supplies were shipped to Spain. Within a few weeks of foundation the Central Committee handed over to the People’s army six ambulances and sent three lorryloads of food to the Basque country. The Swedish S.S. Sil chartered by the Aid Committee delivered to Spain 200,000 kroner worth of foodstuffs, followed by shiploads of milk powder and condensed milk, sugar, cheese, 274 tinned meat, flour and groats, footwear, cigarettes and other goods worth 240,777 kroner. The aid, however, was not limited to this.

p The fate of Spanish children was a matter of particular concern for members of the solidarity movement. They proposed that 1,000 Spanish children be taken to Sweden, but Spanish authorities wanted to accommodate them in more habitual climatic conditions, nearer to their homeland. Therefore, the children were settled in France. Throughout the war, Sweden’s Aid Committee met all the costs of maintenance of ten orphanages in France and two in Spain. The first Swedish orphanage staffed with Swedish personnel was opened in France in Chateau de la Breviere, the palace of the Swedish banker Asberg. Relief to children also took the form of patronage: factories, organisations and individuals maintaining one or several Spanish children. For example, personnel of the ScaniaVabis Motor Factory maintained 13 children during a year; women workers of a tobacco factory, 12; a railwaymen’s childcare committee, 30. Newspaper editorial offices, teachers’ groups, youth organisations and abstinence societies, as well as hundreds of individuals showed parental concern for Spanish children. In November 1937, when a large fund was raised for opening a new orphanage in France, Sweden’s Aid Committee received the following message from the Spanish Minister of Education: “On behalf of the Republican Government I express my gratitude to you for this new proof of solidarity. Please convey our thanks to all members of your Committee and all Swedish organisations and anti-fascists working for this great cause.”

p The Swedish and Norwegian aid committees jointly organised a well-equipped hospital in Alcoy, initially having 125 beds and later expanded to 650. Swedish and Norwegian doctors worked there. In a letter of thanks from the chief of the sanitary corps of the Republican Army, the hospital was described as exemplary. "This gift is not only great material aid but also a moral encouragement to our heroic People’s Army,” the letter said. "We express our special thanks for this gift as an expression of the Swedish people’s sympathy and solidarity with the struggle waged by the Spanish people.”

p Within the first year Sweden’s Committee for Aid to Spain collected more than one million kroner, while during its existence several million kroner was collected besides large sums supplied by as many as 400 local committees.

p The solidarity movement was not confined to material aid but combined it with broad-scale ideological work. In one year, more than 2,000 meetings were organised. This movement extended even to the army. Three regiments sent in a resolution signed by many soldiers and addressed to the “Embattled Youth of Spain”. It ended with these words: “Long live international fraternal solidarity of the youth in the struggle for peace and freedom!”

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p Booklets having such titles as Storm Over Spain, Spain for Peace, Life for Spain and the like were published in scores of thousands of copies. Exhibitions and sales of paintings donated by artists to the Committee were arranged in the country. Prominent authors, many of them members of the Swedish Academy, published books about embattled Spain and the heroic Madrid. Spanish events inspired verses, which are considered classical today in Swedish literature.

p The Spanish Aid Committee won the battle for Swedish public opinion. Voices in favour of Franco gradually died down. Editors of Social-Democratic and bourgeois newspapers, as well as many delegations went on fact-finding tours of Republican Spain. A delegation of Riksdag deputies followed suit.

p The second anniversary of the civil war in Spain was marked by a mammoth demonstration and a meeting in Stockholm. The Spanish Ambassador, Signora Isabel de Palencia, was presented with a banner, sewn by Swedish women, which bore the embroidered inscription, "To Madrid”. Speaking at the meeting Georg Branting said: "Today, we convey to the working Barcelona, to the proud Madrid, to the beautiful Valencia, to the entire courageous Spanish people greetings from the Swedish workers, our firm handshake, a pledge to help them invariably to the best of our abilities.”

p The Swedish solidarity movement continued until the end of the war. On his return from Spain in the last months of the difficult and fierce struggle, Georg Branting said at a mass meeting in Stockholm: “I have come back from my visit to Spain with a heavy heart but with a firm conviction that at this difficult hour of trial the workers of all countries are staunchly supporting the cause of Spanish democracy. International solidarity has never been so strong as it is in these days so grim for Spain.” One of the last appeals of the Aid Committee said: "Leaning on historical experience, we believe that the seizure of power by the reaction in Spain is an accidental and transient event.... We welcome the Spanish people in their present situation of a severe defeat, we regard their courage, their militant spirit and love of freedom as an example to be emulated by the international working class.”

p The Swedish movement of solidarity with Spain was expressed not only in material aid and moral encouragement without precedent in Sweden’s history, but was also the people’s conscious contribution to the struggle for democracy and peace.

The first Swedish volunteers arrived in Republican Spain in November 1936. The most distinguished of them were Karl Ernstedt and the student of theology, Olle Meurling who fell in the fighting near Guadarrama in December covering with machinegun fire his retreating unit. "Watch out that the red flame remains bright"—these words from Olle’s last letter to a leader of the Swedish Communist youth became the latter’s slogan.

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Herman Wohlin, John Swensson, Raul Sederman, Sixten Rogeby

p On the first day of 1937, a small group of people boarded a tramcar on Masthuggstorget Square. The group swelled at every station. On Jarntorget Square, Holger Ekstrb’m jumped into the moving tramcar at the last moment. He was not expected to come: a fortnight ago he had announced his refusal to go; he was said to be infatuated with a girl.

p The whole group gathered at the terminal: 12 Swedish seamen and one German emigre. On the platform, some news hunter attempted to find out what it was all about: Were the gentlemen going to Spain? No, of course not, some were going to Copenhagen, others to Dunkirk, two to Paris. When going away, he grinned maliciously. Those who remained alive learned later that he had written some nasty thing about them in his newspaper.

p This was a well-knit team, all its members having a joint record of serving on ships, being on the waiting list at the labour exchange, visiting seamen’s clubs, but the character of each was revealed only en route and in fighting together. Ragnar Skotte, an officer of 277 the reserve, was a syndicalist; Conny Andersson declared he was a Social-Democrat, and no bones about it; Helmer Hansson was a lumberjack; Krister Reutersvard, a student just past 21; Herman Wohlin, a short and thin man in his middle years, was clever and extremely modest; Olof Liljegren, a gay and inventive artist; Birger Dahlstrom nicknamed “Rulle”; others were the reticent Erik Liliemark; a lean and sinewy man in shabby clothes with huge fists and a piercing look whose name was not known to anyone, everybody calling him “Crowbar”; Gosta Andersson, a fine singer nicknamed “Cuckoo”; the two Erikssons—Per and Rune nicknamed “Sebastian”; seaman Sixten Rogeby.

p All were members of the first large group of Swedish freedom volunteers. Their route lay through Paris, Perpignan, Barcelona, Albacete, Murcia.

p Slowly but surely, other Scandinavians kept arriving, and soon there were as many of them as to form a mixed Spanish- Scandinavian company. It was commanded by Ragnar Skotte; the Scandinavian platoons, by Gunnar Aim of Ystad, Kettil Repstock of Copenhagen, and Sergeant Major Herman Wohlin. They were elected commanders at a general meeting of the company, which was joined to the Thaelmann Battalion. Six Swedish machinegunners were enlisted in the machine-gun company of the Edgar Andre Battalion.

p The company was baptised by fire on the River Jarama in February 1937. Gosta Andersson gave this account of the evening of the first battle:

p “Allan Eriksson, ’Rulle’ and myself were in an outpost under an olive tree some 50 metres ahead of our front lines. As hours wore on, cold crept up our legs but we were all eyes and ears. Then we heard a faint noise just in front of us. It was the fascists, to be sure. We were on the alert, our rifles cocked. Allan went back to report to the officer in charge. The noise was growing louder as from a large body of men. We cautiously retreated.

p “ ’Well, now!’ Skotte whispered.

p “ ’They’re coming on.’

p “The boys were digging like mad, and deep trenches were soon ready. The first bursts of fire announced that the battle began. We had to take aim by gun flashes. By barrage of fire the enemy tried to strike panic in our ranks, shooting flares into the skies, but we held our ground.

p “Suddenly, the firing stopped to bring a lull and badly needed rest. In the dimness of dawn I could see my comrades in the nearest trenches. Holger Ekstrom was seated with his back to the fascist lines, the helmet hiding his haggard profile, the bayonet sticking out. Other steel-helmeted heads popped up over the entrenchment. These were the elderly stoker Sjoberg, Lindgren, Ferustrom, Blomquist, Ivar Karlsson—all veteran seamen. A pair of merry eye 278 screwed up under the helmet peak belonged to Conny Andersson, the only Social-Democrat among us.

p “Herman Wohlin appeared among the trees, carrying a sack of bread on his back. Occasional shots disturbed the silence of our late supper. Skotte bent over a map.

p “Then the first shell screamed, throwing up a fountain of earth. It was followed by others as if a Satanic orchestra was tuning up, hissing steel hitting the ground and breaking up into fragments that made disgusting sounds as they cut into tree trunks. The earth quaked. The distant thunder of our artillery was like charming music to us. Machine-guns were rattling at a staccato, bullets whining angrily as they sprayed our defences. Some of our men were trying to dig still deeper into the ground.

p “Three tanks were crawling over the field, spewing out deadly bursts of fire. They were followed by infantry, helmets betraying their German identity. Everything around us seemed engulfed in flames, the tanks’ heavy machine-guns spattering lead like hell. We fired back methodically, no one panicking. The enemy assault was checked. Supported by tanks, we launched a counter-attack, carrying the fascists before us and into a valley. The fighting raged all day, our lines stretching like a bow string, then hitting back at the fascists who were invariably repelled. Many of our men were wounded or dying, but we would not budge an inch. But under the enormous pressure, we finally had to retreat slowly, jumping from one trench into another and fighting back like madmen. . . .

p “Then evening came. A group of Scandinavians lay under the Spanish skies, a few survivors of the group led here by their urge to fight fascism. Only two days had passed, and the fear of death was already gone.”

p Of the fifty Scandinavians roughly one-third were killed at the Jarama, the others, save for five, were injured, some severely. Among the dead was the company commander Ragnar Skotte. Axel Petterson, who had taken over from him, suffered a shellshock the very next day. The third company commander, Per Eriksson, had a narrow escape when a bullet passed by a hairbreadth over the peak of his helmet, deforming it and ricochetting.

p Of the 13 men in the first group of Goteborg volunteers three— Sebastian, “Crowbar” and “Laplandian” (Robert Lundstrom)— fell in the first few days. Skoglar Tidstrom, a man who had command of six languages, was among the wounded. Two months later he died in a Murcia hospital. What literary critics regard as one of Gunnar Ekelof’s finest poems is dedicated to him in the first place.

p The machine-gun company of the Edgar Andre Battalion had 12 heavy machine-guns when it arrived at the front. Within a week ten of them were damaged in battle and some of the crews 279 that manned them were wiped out. The Swedish machine-gun was shattered by a direct hit, but none of the crew was so much as injured thanks mostly to Helmer Hansson who had been working with pick and shovel all the night before.

p On the same evening, Krister Reutersvard, one of Olle Meurling’s friends from Uppsala University, was killed in an unsuccessful counter-attack. A few hours before, the Norwegian student Gunnar Skjeseth had got a bullet in the head, while the second machine-gunner, a Dane, was lightly wounded.

p More volunteers kept arriving to take the place of the dead. When in early March the brigade was again hurled against the Italians advancing near Guadalajara, the Scandinavian fighting units were again reinforced to complement size, in particular, a quarter of the machine-gun company of the Edgar Andre Battalion became Spanish-Scandinavian, the damaged machine-guns were repaired. Here the frontline was not continuous, and fierce fighting broke out immediately at improvised, often changing positions with large gaps between them. As a result, the Scandinavian platoon was almost completely wiped out by a flanking attack of the fascists. One machine-gun was destroyed by a direct hit, the second gunner Karl Dahlstrom was killed, the first gunner Bruno Franzen severely wounded. The second machine-gun and crew were wiped out.

p However, the Swedish company of the Thaelmann Battalion lost only a few men wounded, the company commander among them. This company took part in the famous Guadalajara offensive in which the Italian positions were overrun, and the Spanish Republican Government won its greatest victory in the national- revolutionary war.

p Swedish units also took part in guerrilla warfare, in fighting on the Southern Front, at Brunete, Teruel and on the Ebro. They suffered heavy casualties, mostly during the mass retreat from Belchite in the spring of 1938 and during the fascist counter- offensive after the Republican Army had crossed the Ebro late in the summer of the same year.

p Guerrilla operations of Republican units dictated the need for sending trained demolition men into the rear of the Franco army to cut enemy communication lines, blow up bridges, railways, munitions depots, and other military installations. This invariably involved numerous risks, because they had to travel on foot, at times many miles at a stretch in the enemy rear. Small groups were almost defenceless against regular troops, and although the population was friendly to the guerrillas, it was feared lest someone be tempted to get a 25,000-pesetas reward Franco paid for every guerrilla captured dead or alive.

p Karl Ernstedt, Gunnar Aim, Gosta Andersson, Harald Norrman and Oskar Svensson volunteered to take part in these raids 280 in the enemy rear. Gosta Andersson described some of them. One group was to move as far as Merida and blow up a railway line a few miles off the town, exactly where Franco patrols had wiped out another group of guerrillas earlier. The raid went on without much trouble, the volunteers lying in hiding until nightfall, then moving on under cover of night.

p “We had fantastic luck,” Gosta told later. “When our destination was close at hand, a vehicle sped past, its head lamps spotlighting a sentry, who would have otherwise certainly noticed us and raised an alarm.

p “When laying explosives on the railway bank we caught sight of several patrols; one of them passed literally a yard away from me, who was on the look-out, but failed to notice me. Our group planted boxes of dynamite chunks and fuses into the bank and set out on the way back.

p “In five days, however, we ran out of food. One of the guides went to the nearest town to get some food but was discovered by a Falange horseman who sensed that something was wrong and immediately galloped in the direction of our group. A swift manoeuvre and good luck saved us from capture by Moroccan cavalry sent to chase us down.

p “In the second raid, the guerrillas were discovered by woodcutters who were felling trees where the group sheltered. A lively conversation followed, guerrillas exchanging cigarettes for food and water. No one paid attention to one of the woodcutters being particularly interested to know the way the group would follow on its way back. He succeeded somehow in finding it out. We knew it when night came and the group went out into a forest glaze, where it was ambushed. The Spanish guide Venturas who was going in front fell on the ground. The group dashed back into the forest. It was senseless to fire back on the fascists, because they were excellently entrenched and outnumbered us heavily. But in front of us there was a road we had to cross.

p “The volunteers waited until nightfall, and tried to fight their way. They were a success, because the fascists fired at random, failing to hit anyone. In the morning, the group returned to its base.”

p After the sweltering heat at Brunete and Aragon, the change to severe frosts in Teruel early in 1938 was an arduous experience. Northerners accustomed to cold suffered much less than Spaniards, but cases of severe chilblains were quite frequent. It was sometimes impossible to dig trenches in the ground cemented by frost. On the eve of the Teruel operation, the Scandinavians were transferred from the Thaelmann Battalion to the 12th of February Austrian Battalion, and some time later the formation of a Scandinavian Battalion was officially announced by Brigade Headquarters. Three companies were named after Georg Branting, 281

A group of Swedish volunteers
Martin Andersen-Nexö and Egede-Nissen. One of the Swedish officers, Holger Ekstrom, had already been appointed commanding officer of the battalion; it was also proposed that Birger Dahlstrom, also of the first Goteborg group, should be appointed commander of the Branting Company. On January 20, 1938, however, Dahlstrom was killed in action at Teruel, and Ekstrom was soon killed near Caspe. Conny Andersson who had been wounded on the Jarama and then took part in the fighting near Brunete had 282 both his eardrums ruptured by a bomb blast in the battle in Aragon and was evacuated to his homeland. After the death of Ekstrom the commanding officer of the Branting Company was Karl Ernstedt, and Bengt Segersson, commissar.

p The last battle put up by the International Brigades in the offensive on the Ebro was described by seaman Gosta Hjarpe who had been severely injured by hand-grenade fragments in the fighting near Teruel and in a few months’ time went into battle again.

p “It was about 2 hours in the morning when we approached the Ebro, somewhere between Asco and Flix, after a march during a warm July night. We were ordered to fix bayonets and keep complete silence. The company consisted of about 100 men, several young Spaniards among them. Herbert Blom, who was in charge of the boats, hurried his men to prepare a crossing. The first boat crossed the river. The next one was ours. We could hear frequent explosions of hand grenades. Several bursts of machine-gun fire came from the far bank, but the fascists had taken aim too high. Our nerves were on edge, the rowers working for all they were worth. As soon as our boat touched the ground, we leapt out and waded through the water, then climbed the steep bank and plunged into a field of wheat. Gusten Forsman, Sven Viberg, Gosta Andersson and myself, as well as three Spaniards, made up a group armed with light machine-guns. No sooner had we caught our breath and moved onwards than I fell into an anti-tank ditch so deep that it took me a great effort to climb out. A little later, we were again fired on, yet we went ahead guided by a telephone wire—-

p “Next day, we came upon a well-camouflaged machine-gun emplacement. Our company commander was ordered by the battalion commander to break through the enemy lines. " ’Charge!’ came the attack order.

p “This attack cost us many lives. We tried to break the fascists’ resistance by machine-gun fire from a distance of 250 metres, myself and five other men changing cartridge drums in rapid succession while our company was on the move.

p “At first, our men advanced some 100 metres short of the fascist lines. Those who carried the wounded from the battlefield had a hell of a job to do. After a brief respite, we launched another attack. But it was of no avail. After several attacks most of our men were killed or wounded. Repeated attacks on the next day proved equally futile.

p “Only one platoon of our whole company remained active. The Scandinavians named this place the ’hill of death’.” Gosta Hjarpe, who had been promoted shortly before this battle, was appointed commander of the "hill of death platoon".

p In August, the company reinforced with new men from a training battalion, mostly Spaniards, and with new officers to replace 283

Members of the Goteborg section of the Seamen’s Union and the Communist
Seamen’s Club. Standing in the middle of the upper row is Holger Ekstrom
those killed, took up defence positions on the hights of Sierra Pandols and Sierra Caballs. The fascists who had massed troops arid military equipment at this section of the front exerted every effort to throw back the Republican forces beyond the Ebro, preparing and supporting their infantry attacks by devastating artillery barrages and air strikes.

p On September 4, the Republican forces surrendered Corbera, but the Swedish volunteers were in high spirits all the same: new anti-tank weapons had been received, and many fascist tanks had been knocked out. But after the fifth fascist attack had been repulsed, the Scandinavian company was again reduced to the strength of one platoon. Kurt Svard and Nilsson were wounded.

p September 23, when the internationalist volunteers were recalled from the front by the Republican Government’s decision, was the last day of military exploits of the men of the Scandinavian company. Despite machine-gun fire by Jorkers of Uppsala, the fascists succeeded in overrunning the positions of a neighbouring unit. The company was exposed to flanking fire from all types of weapons. Many were killed by mortar fire; two Norwegians were killed in a trench by a direct hit, Commissar Pedersen was also killed, Gustav Karlsson was wounded and his machine-gun destroyed, Gottfrid Olovsson, Lemponen and Ake Richter were wounded. Yet the company would not give up its positions.

p On the evening of September 23, we were given orders to withdraw into reserve. Units of the llth International Brigade 284 assembled on the bank of the Ebro near Falset. Only three Swedish volunteers remained in the ranks in the Georg Branting Company.

p It was time the International Brigades were to be disbanded. Per Eriksson, who was sent to officers’ training courses after the battle of Guadalajara and then detailed for service under Republican authorities, describes the parade of farewell in Barcelona:

p “Early in the morning, the people of Barcelona gathered along the Diagonal Boulevard cutting askew across the city. They were factory workers, housewives, wounded soldiers, refugees from areas occupied by Franco troops, women with children, and orphans of the war. Hungry, tattered and emaciated by frequent air raids, they were waiting patiently.

p “When the first ranks of internationalist volunteers in torn uniforms, just back from the front, appeared, it seemed a floodgate had given way. Women rushed forward with bunches of flowers, holding up their children to us. Calls of ’Salud!’, ’Long live the Internationalists!’ rang out over the huge crowd following us like the waves of a tide all along the length of the boulevard, hands upraised and waving.

p “Awareness that it would be a long time before we could again see these people who had become so dear to us, thoughts of what would happen to them after we left and that soon we would get into clean beds and have plenty of food while they would be going on fighting and starving brought tears to our eyes and caused us almost physical pain.

p “Of course, no one understood these people better than Dolores Ibarruri—La Pasionaria—who made a speech after the parade. When she mentioned those who were responsible for the war the faces of the listening crowd tensed from hatred of the fascists, and melted into a soft expression of sympathy when she spoke of international solidarity the Republicans had witnessed on many occasions and of the national solidarity uniting members of different parties in the struggle for the national freedom of Spain against the interventionist armies of Hitler and Mussolini. Referring to the international brigaders, she declared:

p “ ’They have given us everything they had: their youth, their mature years, their knowledge, their experience, their blood, their lives, their hopes and aspirations and they asked for nothing in return except but a place in the ranks of our fighters. . ..’

p “Addressing the international brigaders, she said:

p “ ’Political reasons are sending you back, some of you to your own countries and others to forced exile. You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy’s solidarity and universality.’

p “La Pasionaria was speaking on behalf of the people who had surrounded us with sympathy, who themselves needed sympathy; 285 she showed us the greatness of these people who were ready to give but loath to complain.

“This greatness has remained in our memory.”

p The International Brigades which operated in Spain contained about 500 Swedish volunteers, of whom 162 fell on the battlefield. Others were crippled. None of them returned home in good health or uninjured.

p The Canadian physician Norman Bethune who has won worldwide renown and gratitude as the organiser of the blood transfusion service which saved the lives of many of the wounded, presents in his memoirs a vivid image of the Swedish internationalist volunteer. A wounded man was brought right from a battlefield to a field hospital in Guadalajara. His bandaged head and face were covered with blood—a shell splinter had hit him in the eye and he had a mangled lump of gauze where his arm had been torn off, the other arm was about to be amputated. In a hardly audible voice he muttered a few phrases which only Bethune’s colleague, Henning Sorensen, could hear:

p “Ten days ago I was in Sweden. I have been in Spain three days. This was my first engagement, and now I am no more use to my comrades. I have done nothing for the cause.”

p “ ’Done nothing!’ We look at each other with amazed eyes,” Bethune recalls. " ’Done nothing!’ What modesty, what courage, what a soul!

p “Yet that is the spirit of the International Brigade; of 10,000 determined, unconquerable men, with no thought of themselves, with no thought of sacrifice, but simply and with a pure heart ready to lay down their lives for their friends. ’Greater love hath no man more than this.’ "  [285•1 

Those who have survived cherish in their hearts this love for the heroic Spanish people and proud memories of their contribution to its great battle against fascism.