List of German veterans of the International BrigadesW
List of German veterans of the International Brigades

Willy BrandtW
Willy Brandt

Willy Brandt was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1969 to 1974. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his efforts to strengthen cooperation in western Europe through the EEC and to achieve reconciliation between West Germany and the countries of Eastern Europe. He was the first Social Democrat chancellor since 1930.

Ernst Busch (actor)W
Ernst Busch (actor)

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Busch was a German singer and actor.

Franz DahlemW
Franz Dahlem

Franz Dahlem was a German politician. Dahlem was a leading official of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and, after 1945, of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED).

Friedrich DickelW
Friedrich Dickel

Friedrich Dickel was a German politician, who served as the interior minister of East Germany for nearly twenty-six years.

Hans-Georg von FriedeburgW
Hans-Georg von Friedeburg

Hans-Georg von Friedeburg was a German admiral, the deputy commander of the U-boat Forces of Nazi Germany and the second-to-last Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine. He was the only representative of the armed forces to be present at the signing of the German instruments of surrender in Luneburg Heath on 4 May 1945, in Reims on 7 May and in Berlin on 8 May 1945. Generaladmiral von Friedeburg committed suicide shortly afterwards, upon the dissolution of the Flensburg Government.

Kurt Julius GoldsteinW
Kurt Julius Goldstein

Kurt Julius Goldstein was a German journalist and a former broadcast director.

Juan Guzmán (photographer)W
Juan Guzmán (photographer)

Juan Guzmán was a German born Mexican photojournalist. He was known as a war photographer of the Spanish Civil War and later on his work with Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

Kurt HagerW
Kurt Hager

Kurt Hager was an East German statesman, a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany who was known as the chief ideologist of the party and decided many cultural and educational policies in the German Democratic Republic.

Max HodannW
Max Hodann

Max Julius Carl Alexander Hodann was a German physician, eugenicist, sex educator and socialist, "the best-known and most controversial medical sex educationalist in the Weimar Republic". He wrote for a working-class readership and for children. After 1933, as a refugee from Nazi Germany, he lived predominantly in Norway and Sweden.

Heinz HoffmannW
Heinz Hoffmann

Heinz Hoffmann was Minister of National Defense in the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic, and since 2 October 1973 member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

Hans KahleW
Hans Kahle

Hans Kahle was a German journalist, anti-fascist, and head of the Volkspolizei in Mecklenburg.

Heinz KiwitzW
Heinz Kiwitz

Heinz Kiwitz was a German artist. His woodcuts were in the German Expressionist style. An anti-fascist, he was arrested following the Nazis' seizure of power. He survived imprisonment in Kemna and Börgermoor concentration camps and was released in 1934. He went into exile in 1937, first living in Denmark, then in France, where he again began to fight Nazism. In 1938, he went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War, where he apparently perished.

Siegfried KnemeyerW
Siegfried Knemeyer

Siegfried Knemeyer was a German aeronautical engineer, aviator and the Head of Technical Development at the Reich Ministry of Aviation of Nazi Germany during World War II.

Hans MarchwitzaW
Hans Marchwitza

Hans Marchwitza was a German writer, proletarian poet, and Communist.

Erich MielkeW
Erich Mielke

Erich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Alfred Neumann (East Germany)W
Alfred Neumann (East Germany)

Alfred "Ali" Neumann was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, and for a short time, he was East German Minister of Materials Management.

Heinrich RauW
Heinrich Rau

Heinrich Gottlob "Heiner" Rau was a German communist politician during the time of the Weimar Republic; subsequently, during the Spanish Civil War, he was a leading member of the International Brigades and after World War II an East German statesman.

Ludwig RennW
Ludwig Renn

Ludwig Renn was a German author. Born a Saxon nobleman, he later became a committed communist and lived in East Berlin.

Gerda TaroW
Gerda Taro

Gerta Pohorylle, known professionally as Gerda Taro, was a German Jewish war photographer active during the Spanish Civil War. She is regarded as the first woman photojournalist to have died while covering the frontline in a war.

Bodo UhseW
Bodo Uhse

Bodo Uhse was a German writer, journalist and political activist. He was recognised as one of the most prominent authors in East Germany.

Josef VeltjensW
Josef Veltjens

Josef "Seppl" Veltjens was a German World War I fighter ace credited with 35 victories. In later years, he served as an international arms dealer, as well as a personal emissary from Hermann Göring to Benito Mussolini. He was awarded Pour le Mérite, the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern, and the Iron Cross.

Paul VernerW
Paul Verner

Paul Verner was a German communist politician. He joined the communist movement at a young age and went into exile during Hitler's rule. Verner became a prominent political personality in the German Democratic Republic after the war.

Walter WarlimontW
Walter Warlimont

Walter Warlimont was a German staff officer during World War II. He served as deputy chief of the Operations Staff, one of departments in the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the Armed Forces High Command. Following the war, Warlimont was convicted in the High Command Trial and sentenced to life imprisonment as a war criminal. He was released in 1954.

Erich WeinertW
Erich Weinert

Erich Bernhard Gustav Weinert was a German Communist writer and a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

Ernst WollweberW
Ernst Wollweber

Ernst Friedrich Wollweber was State Secretary of State Security from 1953 to 1955 and Minister of State Security of the German Democratic Republic from 1955 to 1957.

Wilhelm ZaisserW
Wilhelm Zaisser

Wilhelm Zaisser was a German communist politician and statesman who served as the first Minister for State Security of the German Democratic Republic (1950–1953).