The legacy of the International Brigades

[Eldorado]

International Brigades veterans went on to serve as iron curtain prime ministers – or equivalent – in East Germany, Hungary and Albania.

They provided dozens of ministers, generals, police chiefs and ambassadors across all Europe’s communist regimes – forming a potent elite, although they were mostly working-class.

In East Germany, former International Brigades volunteers founded and ran the notorious Stasi. Suppressing freedom was part of their job. Little surprise, then, that some countrymen now despise them.

History is neither neat nor clean, especially when it comes to past wars. The first casualty of war is said to be truth, but really it is nuance.

War presents stark, binary choices. Kill or be killed. One side or the other.

The truth is more complex than that, as the story of the International Brigades and their afterlife shows.

Full article at the UK Guardian: Link