During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the International Brigades were the military units made up principally of foreign volunteers from 54 countries. They fought for the Spanish Republic against the troops led by General Franco, who were supported by the German and Italian military.

The exact figure for the Brigades is not known, but the total number of registered volunteers was 35,252 (although some sources claim this to be 59,380). However, there were never more than 20,000 men at any one time. 9,934 of them died.

The most numerous nationality among the volunteers was French, with around 10,000, while the Germans and Austrians totalled around 5,000, mostly exiled in Paris and Brussels as a consequence of the rise of Nazism. Other significant groups were the Italians (with 4,000 members), British (with 2,500), North American (2,000) and around a thousand South Americans. They all came from very different social backgrounds, ranging from intellectuals to manual workers, and some would become figures of notable historical importance, albeit for a variety of reasons.

VOLUNTEERS IN DEFENCE OF THE REPUBLIC

Right from the start of the Spanish Civil War, and continuously throughout it, foreign volunteers took part in the conflict on the side of the Republic. On the very day war started, 18 July 1936, a lot of the athletes who had been going to participate in Barcelona's Popular Olympics that summer, formed a brigade and some, such as the Austrian Mechter, would die just a few days later. In August, a battalion made up of French and Belgian volunteers entered into combat in Irún.

The creation of the International Brigades

The original idea to create the International Brigades was presented in Moscow in September 1936. The aim was to attract communist and non-communist volunteers to take part in the war on the side of Spanish Republicans. At first, the government of the Republic couldn't decide whether to accept this proposal but it soon changed its mind in October, when the first battles showed how difficult it would be to beat the Nationalist forces.

The first steps

At that time the International Brigade's headquarters was based at the Los Llanos aerodrome in Albacete, where the Republican Air Force staff was also located. The first volunteers began to arrive on 12 October but soon the initial organising committee was overwhelmed by the large number of people and it became a military committee. The Frenchman, André Marty, was put in charge of the base and of the International Brigades.

FOR YOUR FREEDOM AND OURS

The Brigade volunteers were organised into battalions and columns according to language and origin. At the beginning, the people in charge were chosen by the volunteers themselves. Later on, however, they were appointed by the military staff according to the requirements of the war.

There was a political commissar together with every military chief, whose main work was political in nature (keeping up moral, rousing the troops politically, controlling their disposition and mood, etc.), although sometimes they also had to take on military tasks.

Seven brigades were set up (called XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, 129 and 150), each divided into three or four battalions of around 650 men. These battalions had clearly political names.

The first combat operations in which the Brigades took part were those of the Battle of Madrid, as from 4 November 1936, in an attempt to stop the first offensive of Franco's army. Later on they were present at the hardest and bloodiest battles such as Jarama, Guadalajara, Brunete, Belchite, Teruel, Aragón and the Ebro.

LONG LIVE THE HEROES OF THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES!

During 1938, attempts were made by international bodies to put an end to the Civil War. The Republic realised that it was weak and Juan Negrín's government tried to reach some kind of agreement. One of the cards it played was that of attempting to de-internationalise the conflict. To this end, on 21 September the Republican government published its commitment to withdraw the International Brigades, in the hope that this decision would encourage the European powers to pressurise Franco.

The Brigades saw their last day of battle on 23 September 1938. By the end of October, various acts of homage took place in different Spanish towns and cities, the largest of which was the procession held in Barcelona on 28 October. The city awoke filled with banners and posters referring to the International Brigades, who marched down the avenue known as Avenida 14 de Abril (now the Avenida Diagonal) before the governments of the Republic and the Generalitat, as well as more than 300,000 people, in a highly charged atmosphere and with a historic speech by Dolores Ibárruri.

Most of the surviving volunteers attempted to return to their home countries but, once back, many encountered various problems, both due to the imminent start of the Second World War and, later on, with the start of the Cold War, when they were suspected of being communists.

Spanish Royal Decree 39/1996, dated 19 January, granted Spanish nationality to the volunteers from the Brigades. This kept the promise made to them by Juan Negrín when they originally left Spain.

On 4 October 2008, the Cabinet passed a decree granting Spanish nationality to members of the International Brigades that had been forced to give up their own nationality as a result of them fighting for the Spanish Republic.

THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE PRISON AT CASTELLDEFELS CASTLE

After the International Brigade's disciplinary prisons in Albacete were closed due to the advancement of Franco's troops, André Marty decided to set up a new prison for the Brigades at Castelldefels castle, from the end of March 1938 to 22 January 1939, one day before the town was taken by Franco's troops.

There are no totally reliable figures concerning the number of prisoners but at times there were close to 400, living together in very little space. 

The prison had four directors: Milan Côpic (previously responsible for a prison in Albacete); Marcel Lantès (from June 1938); Djordjevic (September 1938) and Pietro Celli (until January 1939). A fifth director, Tony DeMaio, seems to have been specifically in charge of prisoners from the United States.

The prison's regime was very tough under the first two directors, with a lot of cases of torture and cursory executions. The Republican authorities intervened on finding out about this situation and Côpic and Lantès were tried and then sentenced to death, although their punishment was never carried out.

SOME NAMES...

Brigade volunteers from all over the world were imprisoned at Castelldefels, usually for deserting although also due to indiscipline, for their political ideas or for having committed a crime. 

Logically there were many different stories...

· Jean Dryja, a volunteer from Slovakia born in 1906, fell in love with a young girl from the town and married her in a civil ceremony. When the order came to withdraw in January 1939, he had to abandon her against the will of both of them. She was pregnant. He could never go back to Castelldefels. In spite of the effect the ups and downs of a war-torn Europe had on his life in the following years, he always remembered his Rosa, his daughter (who continued to live in our town), to whom he tried to send money regularly until he died.

· Paul Wirta was born in Finland in 1907 but lived in Aberdeen (USA). He was a merchant seaman and trade unionist and, on 3 November, he enlisted in the Lincoln battalion. He fought at Belchite, Caspe or the Ebro between 12 February and 29 July 1938, when he was injured in his left hand. He was possibly arrested as a deserter afterwards and imprisoned at Castelldefels, finally returning to the United States on 20 December. As with many other Brigade volunteers, in 1957 he was investigated by the Un-American Activities Committee for his possible relations with the Soviet Union.

·  Henri Lamotte was born in France in 1902 and, after three months at the front, deserted and was arrested and detained first in Chinchilla, then being transferred to Castelldefels in 1938. He was behind many of the drawings that can be seen in the castle chapel.

· Antonio Stoffella, an Italian who had emigrated to France, is another of the authors behind the extensive graffiti conserved in the chapel.

· Poul Erik Dreyer, a Dane born in 1908, was captured as a deserter in May 1938 and witnessed the tortures at Castelldefels, which he published in a book after he was released.

·  Alex Marcovitch was a Jew born in the United Kingdom in 1914. He enlisted in the Brigade in 1937 and soon started to criticised how it operated, being arrested at the end of June 1938 for having fallen asleep on guard duty. After being in a disciplinary company, on 8 July he was sent to Castelldefels castle for six weeks. He was finally repatriated in January 1939.