Hans Beimler (Communist)

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Hans Beimler (July 1895 in Munich, Germany-1 December 1936 in Madrid, Spain). He was an active member of the German Communist Party and a deputy in the Reichstag (institution). A fervent anti-Nazi, he had been locked up in Dachau in April 1933, but managed to escape in May 1933 and ultimately went to Spain. He fought in the the Spanish Civil War and the Thalmann Centuria. He was killed in action during the Battle of Madrid.

He wrote an account of his experiences at Dachau which appeared in the Soviet Union in August 1933: Im Mörderlager Dachau: Vier Wochen unter den braunen Banditen, Verlagsgenossenschaft ausländischer Arbeiter in der UdSSR, Moscow and Leningrad, 1933. It was one of the very first published accounts of life inside a Nazi concentration camp and was translated into several languages, including English, Spanish and French.

[edit] Sources

• Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain, (2006)