Spanish Machine Gunners demand Freeing of Mrs. Muhsam

(The rumoured arrest and deportation of Mrs. Eric Muhsam, wife of the revolutionary murdered by German Fascist to which we drew attention in the September “Red Flag,” is the subject of “An open letter to the Russian Workers.” The letter is from the Eric Muhsam Machine Gun Group (Anarchists) and was published in the P.O.U.M. daily ‘La Batalla,’ on November 15th. ‘La Batalla,’ in an editorial comment, supports the Machine Gunners’ demand, and, urges too, that the appeal of imprisoned Anarchists in the U.S.S.R., to be allowed to fight against Fascism in Spain, should be granted by the Soviet Government.)

Our Group, in open war with fascism, views with frank admiration the attitude adopted by the Russian people. Throughout your vast country meetings have been organised to demonstrate your solidarity with us, your ships cross the seas and drop anchor in our anti-fascist ports of Spain, and even the children of your country wish us well and beseech us to sacrifice all we have for the cause of liberty. Never have we experienced such a moving example of international solidarity. Your hearts beat with ours and all your deeds and thoughts are directed towards helping us. But whilst in this our thoughts are united with yours; whilst we stretch forth our hands to each other, giving thanks; at a time when we have drawn closer to each other than ever before; we think it opportune to tell you this. 

Since the first days of the reactionary rising here we have been found fighting tirelessly against the fascists. Our Group went to the Aragon Front under the name of a comrade whom you knew well and whose death in a German concentration camp gave rise to world-wise indignation. On our banner we have woven the name of Eric Muhsam, and under this banner we fight in the common cause. This close bond of our hearts with the comrade murdered in Germany, a bond of which we give practical demonstration each day, also imposes upon us the duty of defending the woman who during many difficult years, was the companion of Eric Muhsam. 

Some of us know her as well as we knew him; we know how they lived, how unswervingly they held to the cause of the revolutionary workers. It is already many months, nearly half a year, since Zenzel Muhsam was detained in your country, and all this time we have been unable to get in touch with her. All questions, all protests which we have sent to your Government, all the warnings we have sent to you yourselves fall on deaf ears. Frankly admiring the solidarity which you have shown to revolutionary Spain, we must confess that now more than ever we are deeply concerned about this matter. What is happening to Zenzel Muhsam, companion of him to whom we have dedicated our banner? In the name of your Cause and ours, in the name of the world proletariat, we ask for the liberation of Zenzel Muhsam. She must he brought here to Spain. 

Whilst the Spanish people are carrying on a life and death struggle against fascism, whilst the Russian people give us their support, Zenzel Muhsam must not remain in prison or in Russian exile any longer. This matter cannot be hushed up ; the cause of liberty is as closely linked to the name of Eric Muhsam as the Spanish and the Russian people. Because of this, we repeat, SET ZENZEL MUHSAM FREE! 

May the next ship of yours which reaches Spain not come without her. 

Group of Eric Muhsam Machine Gunners. Huesca Sector, 3rd November, 1936. 

From The Red Flag : Organ of the Marxist League, No.5 (New Series), January 1937. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/red-flag/The%20Red%20Flag%20no%205%20new%20series.pdf 

Notes

[Sons of Night : Antoine Gimenez’s Memories of the War in Spain (page 359) quotes a version of this appeal which was printed in Línea de Fuego, paper of the Iron Column, on 19 November 1936.]

The Erich Mühsam machine gun unit was affiliated with the Los Aguiluchos Column according to the research of Dieter Nelles – see ‘The Foreign Legion of the revolution: German anarcho-syndicalist and volunteers in anarchist militias during the Spanish civil war’ https://libcom.org/article/foreign-legion-revolution-german-anarcho-syndicalist-and-volunteers-anarchist-militias ]

Notes on the ERICH MUHSAM Machine-gun Group

This letter was also printed as ‘Carta abierta a los trabajadores rusos’ (‘Open letter to the Russian Workers’) in Tierra y Libertad of 14 November 1936. [https://www.cedall.org/Documentacio/Premsa%20Llibertaria/tierra%20y%20libertad/19360000/19361114%20(43).pdf ] The Group signed itself: ERICH MUHSAM Machine-gun Group (not machine-gunners) and the statement was signed: ‘On behalf of the Spaniards: José Badenes/ On behalf of the German comrades Michel’ (presumably Michel/Rudolf Michaelis). 

Described as The Erich Muhsam Centuria according to Michel (Rudolf) Michaelis, its political delegate.

Leonhard Schaefer “La ‘Centuria Erich Muhsam’” (in Italian), quotes from Michaelis’s German-language account Mit der Centuria Erich Muhsam vor Huesca (Oppo Verlag, Berlin 1995)

DAS and other Germans involved in the July 1936 fighting in Barcelona later set up a group within the Los Aguiluchos column which they named after Erich Muhsam as the Erich Muhsam Group (which later became the ‘Erich Muhsam Centuria’.) On 27 August 1936 they set off for the Aragon front. Michaelis’s account mentions.

1. That they travelled by train “with our Ascaso Column”. [..] “ …our Erich Muhsam Group was just a squad of thirty German anarchists and syndicalists and it was only over the course of the fighting outside Huesca that it expanded into a centuria of any size.”

2. That their gear consisted of “one (Maxim-type) heavy machine-gun, with plenty of ammo, a steel helmet each, spades and knapsacks, carbines plus ammunition: a few of us had pistols and everybody had a set of 10x50 binoculars. All booty from the street fighting in Barcelona in July 1936 and captured from the NSDAP’s overseas organization.” 

3. “our Column, the Francisco Ascaso”. 

4. “Two comrades from the DAS group fought at the same time as and not far away from where Francisco Ascaso was killed fighting the fascist rebels”. “Both took part in our campaign with the Column”. “Willi [Winkelmann] was our military coordinator and Michel [Rudolf Michaelis] the Erich Muhsam Group’s political delegate.”

5. That aside from Winkelmann [a Great War veteran] none of them had previous experience of coming under artillery fire. 

6. “the fighting [outside Huesca] cost our Erich Muhsam Group a number of victims and the wounded were transferred to hospital in Sarinena. We also had to record our first fatality.” [unnamed]*

7. “Over the ensuing days supplies and reinforcements reached the Ascaso Column. Our group had also expanded to number nearly one hundred. One third of the newcomers are Aragonese and the rest German and Swedish seamen.”

8. “One of our platoon leaders in the Erich Muhsam Centuria is a young Aragonese by the name of Paco who comes from Graus.”

9. “In actual fact our Centuria survived up until mid-October 1936, in a state of euphoria.”

10. “At the end of October 1936, our Erich Muhsam Centuria was pulled back hurriedly to Tardienta.”

11. “Our centuria was tasked with confiscating from dead [fascist] soldiers any papers and identity cards that might provide information as to their strength or the fascist hinterland. Others fetched sandbags to strengthen our positions, the better to resist the enemy.”

12. “The daily dispatches from the Erich Muhsam Centuria for 26 October 1936 stated briefly;

LOSSES 
Killed 16
Wounded 23
Missing 4
Sick  4
TOTAL 47 (27 Spaniards + 20 internationalists)

FIT FOR DUTY
Commander 1
Political Delegate 1
Squad delegates 4
Militians 43
TOTAL 51 (15 Spaniards + 36 Internationalists)”

(Thanks to PS).

Tribute to Francisco Ascaso

On the day before the FAI’s ‘Los Aguiluchos’ Column’s setting off for the front, the Erich Muhsam Group attached to it along with other comrades from the German anarcho-syndicalist DAS group assembled in the place where our unforgettable Francisco Ascaso fell beneath fascist gunfire. A German comrade made a speech in Spanish, stating, among other things: “Today the comrades from the Erich Muhsam Group are gathered here and tomorrow they will be off to the Aragon front to fight there alongside the FAI comrades and against the fascists. They promise to be worthy of their brethren who have perished in the great battle between freedom and tyranny. What Francisco Ascaso was in Spain, Erich Muhsam was in Germany. They both fought, suffered and died for their beliefs. We salute Ascaso and Muhsam, because to us, they live on still. Anyone who gives his life for the cause of his brothers is truly immortal.” After the German comrade had finished speaking, an unidentified Spaniard spoke up to say: “We Spaniards thank the German comrades who have come to Spain to fight for freedom and we wish them good health and fortune.” Deeply impressed, they then left the historic location, each making for his place of work and struggle.

From Solidaridad Obrera of 02 September 1936. Trans PS.

(Updated 22 August 2025)

Translated by: Paul Sharkey.