Romanian voluntary units in Spanish Civil War

Day after day, with all my effort, i forgot to take the book or notices at work, to write about this artilery unit. The book is "Istoria artileriei romane in date" - "The history of romanian artilery by ...." - and one of his writers was G-ral Victor Stanculescu. Maybe, tomorrow is the day...

Iama

In spanish civil war fought a romanian comunist C Burca . When he was in romanian army he was in air force (maybe a mechanic , not a pilot). I do not know if he fought on a plane in Spain.

Oh, my god! Denes and C-2... Now, read this (from my book about Ro artilery):


Ianuary 1937 - Murcia

Under the direct supervisation of the International Brigades Comissar is born first romanian volunteer unit - "Divizionul roman de artilerie" (Romanian artillery battalion) - and its commander was ... Ing. Valter Roman! The unit had have 2 batteries with 3 pieces of 75 and 77 m.m.


February 12 - 1937

First action - fire in help of International Batallion "Edgar Andre" from XI Brigade (International). Press, "Reconquista" magasine shows about romanian voluntary unit - he had no maps, observation and communication equipment, but his efficiency was verry good - based on artilery help, "Edgar Andre" retake a higher position in vecinity of Alcaria. In one day, romanian unit fired 920 shells, repulsing 6 enemy attacks.

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28.04.1937

Romanian unit now is a Regiment - "Regimentul roman de artilerie motorizata", under 35th International Division. Commander is again, Ing. Valter Roman, who is also the commader of all the division's artillery.

One of the battery commander is Nicolae Cristea ex- worker at "Pirotehnia Armatei din Bucuresti", and one of battery servants is Vida Geza "artist al poporului " who realised monuments: "Monumentul eroilor din Carei", "Coloanele de la Moisei", "Rascoala", "Balad lui Pintea", etc.


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15.03.1939

The unit has ended its existence, part of his members fight later in Frances as partisans.


In week-end i ask my girlfriend for help me to translate more. I find some info about G-ral Korne, a little, and ... etc.


Iama

I think that Don Pedro will be interested :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

We may find a street named after his father :evil:

I cannot find my documents. But telling from memory the Romanian Artillery Units were organized after the battle of Guadalajara where the Republicans captured a lot of Italian Guns.

If I remember right one Arty Bn was called "Ana Pauker". I can be wrong but I think one was named "Gehorgiu Gehorgiu Dej" or something like that.

Anyhow here is a picture of Walther Roman (in black baret) talking with "Ludwig Renn" aka Freiherr Arnold Veith von Golssenau (ex-Cpt Ger Art WW I) and COS of 11th International Brigade.



Attached Image

The first battery of Romanian volunteers was named "Tudor Vladimirescu".

In may 1937 at Almansa it was formed the "Romanian artillerymen group", named Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.

What about "Ana Pauker"- was she not a high ranking Rum communist?

Yes, but I don't think there was any artillery unit named after her.

I think she had an Arty Battalion named "Ana Pauker" - but must try to find my documents on Sp Ciw War. So far I only found Infantry.

But I think there was also a Rum Inf Coy in one of the "Mixed Balkan" Btns. Will try to find it.

But in the whole Rum were running the Arty in the Repubilican Ejercito Popular.

So I found some of my notes on IB Arty in SCW.

In Spring 1937 the 2nd Arty Bn (II Grupo) "Ana Pauker" was formed.
CO Maj Agard (Fr) later Maj Szánto Zoltan "Baller" (Hung)

Formed by expanding Bty "Agard".
1st Bty "Ana Pauker"
2nd Bty "Pasionara"
3rd Bty "Asturias"

Stellan

I could not find any information on this unit in the book Istoria artileriei romane (Romanian artillery history). Did it have Romanian artillerymen ?

Why - in that period - a unit named after Ana Pauker? And in my book is not mentioned "AP" or "Gh.Gh.D"...


Iama

I think Ana Pauker at that time was a high ranking member of Komintern living in Moscow.

I loked up the Spanish sites about the topic.

In the websites you find very few informations.

I´ll try to resume/recopilate them out of my memory:

Yes, there were Romanian voluntiers,
most of them fought on the republican (=comunist) side.

As to the airoplanes:
on the franquist side, where also German and Italian voluntiers were included, they had 1249 aeroplanes
on the republican side with Russians and the International Brigade (here were also the Romanian voluntiers) they had more than 1300 aeroplanes.
So it could have been possible that there were also Romanian pilots.

There were also many Romanian Jewish voluntiers in the brigades.

One of the most important men was general Kleber (his origin is different in the texts I read: Hungarian, Romanian, Jewish, Russian??), whose original name was Manfred Stern (this sounds German), he was in charge of the XI International Brigade which was very important defending Madrid on Nov. 6th, 1936. He died captive in Siberia.

The above mentioned artillery brigade "Tudor Vladimirescu" was led by José Epstein (born Andrej), originally from Poland. This battery was important at the "Batalla del Ebro" of Jan. 1938.

As to Walter Roman (written with "W") I found out that his wife, a Spanish refugee of the Spanish Civil War was initiator of the Spanish emission of a Romanian Radio. Walter Roman had fought in the Internationalö Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.

I also read something about the American Author Ernest Hemingway (he also fought in the Spanish Civil War), he must have mentioned Roman in one of his literary works.

So this is a resume from the things I remember, maybe I get more informations and I can give more and concrete informations with the exact sources.

All these informations are without guarantee ;-)

You can find the web sites by looking up for instance the key words "guerra civil española" and "Rumanía" (written with "u"). I think Spanish is easy to understand for Romanians.

Greetings