6
SPAIN IN MY HEART
SPANIEN IM HERZEN
ESPAÑA EN EL CORAZÓN
ciated with a collective experience that ended in
bitter defeat.
In Spain itself, thorough research on the sub-
ject was not possible until the Franco dictator-
ship had ended. Art historian Jaime Brihuega
stated in 2003:
"The Spanish Civil War is also re-
ferred to as 'our war' by the Spanish people; and it
is even regarded as 'our war' by those Spaniards
who were born years after it was over. The Franco
regime deprived the entire nation of any chance to
revive the memory of those times. Any mere at-
tempt could have traumatic consequences. Censor-
ship was merciless – whereas today, thanks to
normal democracy in Spain, we can finally investi-
gate the legacy of those dark times with a clear-
headed approach. We can now ascertain that the
Spanish Civil War created its own unique artistic
styles, leaving us an impressive cultural and artistic
legacy."
As often happens in the course of great
historical conflicts, this includes – not least – the
singing of traditional and newly created folk and
battle songs.
This edition presents – for the first time to
this extent – more than 120 songs on 7 CDs:
songs of the Spanish people and the Republican
Army, many of them widely unknown, along
with songs created and sung by the International
Brigades. Of special significance is the inclusion
of historic shellac recordings: three rare and leg-
endary albums ('Canciones de las Brigadas Inter-
nacionales,' Barcelona 1938 / 'Behind The
Barbed Wire,' New York 1941 / 'Songs Of The
Lincoln Brigade,' New York 1944) and almost 20
recordings made in Paris and Barcelona in
1937/38 and released on shellac records. In the
accompanying book, the reader will find the
more than 40 colour reproductions of Republi-
can posters equally significant. In facsimile we
also reproduce a complete portfolio of water-
colours, "Estampas de la Revolución Española,"
originally published in autumn of 1936. The
book also includes all song lyrics in three lan-
guages. In the case of available adaptations, the
respective authors are acknowledged; all other
lyrics are literal, line-by-line translations. We
complete this edition with a DVD of the docu-
mentary film '300 Jews against Franco.'
This audio documentation does not attempt
to provide thorough historical analysis of the
Spanish Civil War, which would exceed its scope.
We therefore restrict ourselves to a detailed
chronology of the political and military events as
an introduction. The notes on each individual
song are interspersed with excerpts from con-
temporary literary reports on Spain from 1936 to
1939 by Willy Bredel, Ilya Ehrenburg, Ernest
Hemingway, Alfred Kantorowicz, Arthur Koestler,
Ludwig Renn and Erich Weinert.
The editor wishes to thank the following per-
sons: Richard Weize from B
EAR
F
AMILY
R
ECORDS
for
his commitment to this project from day one, Dr.
Christof Kugler (Frankfurt am Main) for provid-
ing literature and images from his extensive
Spanish Civil War archive, Klaus-Jürgen Hohn
(Nuremberg, now Havanna/Cuba), for supplying
various recordings (shellac records, LPs and CDs)
and other material from his Spanish collection.
Bernd Meyer-Rähnitz (Dresden), Larry Lustig
(Chelmsford, UK) and Tomas Holländer (Hattin-
gen) provided us with shellac discs, and Karl
Heinz Ocasek (Kleinmachnow) also contributed
material from his collection. Special thanks go to
Stanley Hanks (Montaut de Villereal) and to Mer-
cedes Álvarez Moreno (Berlin) for their assistance
in translating the texts. Without the above-
mentioned contributors this boxed set could not
have been completed.
Jürgen Schebera
Berlin, 2014
"Cómo pudiéramos
olvidar ese país…"
C A N C I O N E S D E L A
G U E R R A C I V I L
E S P A Ñ O L A
"El optimismo no es un punto de vista superficial
sobre ciertas cosas o incidentes. El optimismo es
una fuerza humana que nos permite seguir
luchando cuando nos vemos confrontados con la
desesperanza y la esperanza al mismo tiempo."
Carlos Palacio
