Rudolf Michaelis

https://libcom.org/article/michaelis-rudolf-aka-michel-aka-hans-bro...

https://libcom.org/article/foreign-legion-revolution-german-anarcho...

From https://www.facebook.com/bottledwasp/posts/1244552162370794:

Mar. 31, 1907 - Rudolf Michaelis, aka Rudolf Michel, Hans Bronner (d. 1990), German archaeologist, primary school teacher, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist, who fought in the Centúria Erich Mühsam in the Columna Ascaso, born. His partner was the photographer Margarethe Gross, better know by her married name Margaret Michaelis-Sachs. Rudolf Michaelis' mother died shortly after his birth and he was lived with a foster family for six years. In 1924 at the age of seventeen he joined an anarchist youth group in Leipzig and subsequently affiliated with the anarcho-syndicalist Freie Arbeiter Union Deutschland (Free Workers Union of Germany). He became responsible for the FAUD’s cultural branch the Gilde Freiheitlicher Bücherfreunde (Guild of Libertarian Book Lovers) which he co-founded with fellow Leipziger Artur Holke in 1929. In 1927 he settled in Berlin, where the following year he met the celebrated Spanish anarchists Francisco Ascaso and Buenaventura Durruti when they visited the city. He worked as an archaeological restorer in the Antiquities Department of Berlin State Museum and undertook several trips abroad in relation to his job, including a long stay in the Middle East between late 1931 and February 1932 when he was on an archaeological dig in Uruk in Iraq. In 1929 he met the anarchist photographer Margarethe Gross and they began a relationship, marrying in October 1933. In 1933 he secretly took part in a congress of the International Workers Association in Amsterdam and maintained a close friendship with the noted German anarcho-syndicalists Rudolf Rocker and Helmut Rüdiger. As a result of his anarchist activities and his refusal to recognise the Nazi authorities he was dismissed from his job and imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1933. The director of the museum, who had some influence with Hermann Goering, intervened on his behalf and he was released five weeks later. Margarethe had also suffered an arrest on a trumped up charge of book theft. They decided to flee Germany and moved to Barcelona in November-December 1933. In Barcelona Rudolf and Margarethe together with other German anarchist exiles formed the Deutsche Anarcho-Syndikalisten group. However life was tough for the couple, and under the pressures of poverty and harassment from the authorities, they separated in 1934 (they would be granted a divorce by the Ministerio de Justicia in Barcelona in 1937). Rudolf obtained a job at the Museu Arqueològic in Barcelona and joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. With the outbreak of the revolution Rudolf joined the German anarchist unit Centúria Erich Mühsam, which was integrated into the Columna Ascaso. He fought on the Huesca front between August and November 1936, operating as the Centuria’s delegate. Subsequently he operated in Barcelona. During the first days of the fighting in Barcelona against the attempted coup, the twenty members of the DAS, including Michaelis, had stormed the German Club, a Nazi bastion, where they captured a machine gun and other arms, which the Nazis had intended to use to help their allies, but also lists of Nazi members living in Spain. As a result, the DAS, working closely with the CNT and Federación Anarquista Ibérica, carried out a number of raids, paralyzing Nazi organisation in Spain. Between sixty to seventy flats and premises associated with the widespread network of German Nazi cells were confiscated by the DAS up until November 1937. Rudolf Michaelis played an important role in this activity. When the Universidad de Barcelona was denounced as a nest of reactionaries, he successfully intervened on behalf of his former boss at the Archaeological Museum, Pere Bosch i Gimpera, to stop the attacks in the press. He was then appointed political delegate of the International Group of the Columna Durruti until April 1937, when he replaced Elly Büchner (Elli Götze) as president of the DAS. After the May Days of 1937 Rudolf was captured by the Stalinists at the Puerta del Angel in Barcelona and spent time in the prisons at Santa Úrsula and Segorbe. At Santa Úrsula he shared a cell with the German anarchist volunteer Helmut Kirschey. Conditions were bad and food was poor and in short supply. Security was lax at Santa Úrsula and Michaelis was able to escape, informed the CNT in Valencia about the plight of the German anarchists and then bizarrely returned to his cell and locked himself in, according to the reminiscences of Kirschey! He was subsequently freed in February 1938 and joined the Republican Exèrcit Popular (the now militarised armed forces of the Republic). He took Spanish nationality and fought on until the fall of the Republic in spring 1939. He crossed to France, but determined to carry out guerrilla activity in Spain, he returned to Spain in autumn of the same year. He was arrested at the border and subsequently sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. He was incarcerated at the Carabanchel prison in Madrid. There he was regularly tortured. He was released after five years and put under libertad vigilada (punitive parole) in Madrid. In 1946 he was repatriated to East Germany. He joined the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Unified Socialist Party of Germany) controlled by the Stalinists, with the illusion that he would be able to propagate anarchist ideas within it. He was appointed as managing director of the state museums in Berlin. Soon he was forced to write a denunciation of anarchism and in 1951 he was expelled from the SED. He then worked until his retirement in 1964 as an elementary school teacher in the Treptow district of East Berlin. In 1967 he was visited by Margarethe, who now lived in Australia, and they kept up a correspondence until 1975. Under a false name he attended a conference on the Spanish revolution in West Berlin. In 1989 a pamphlet under the false name of Hans Bronner was published detailing Michaelis’ memoirs of the German anarchist militia unit, 'Mit der Centuria "Erich Mühsam" vor Huesca : Erinnerungen eines Spanienkämpfers, anlässlich des 100. Geburtstages Erich Mühsams' (With the Centuria "Erich Mühsam" on the Huesca front : memories of a Spain fighter on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Erich Mühsam). This re-appeared posthumously under his real name in 1995. Rudolf Michaelis had made many mistakes. He condoned the militarisation of the militias, and followed the official CNT-FAI line. He wrote in the 1970s that the German Democratic Republic was a “decisive step in German history”. He thought he could operate within the SED and as a result became its prisoner. Rudolf Michel died on November 28, 1990 in Berlin.