Struggling to Fit in. The Dutch in a Transnational Army,1936–1939

Abstract

Struggling to Fit In. The Dutch in a Transnational Army, 1936-1939

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) possessed a transnational resonance that echoed far beyond the borders of the country in which it was fought. It drew thousands of foreign fighters to Spain where, as many believed, the future of Europe would be decided. Most of them fought on the side of the embattled Republican government against an uprising supported by international Fascism. Given the foreign fighters’ similar socio-economic backgrounds and shared anti-Fascist sentiment, historians have suggested that the «International Brigades», formed out of these foreign fighters, constitute a true transnational army. This article suggests, however, that many of these foreign fighters had real trouble forging a transnational connection with their fellow fighters. Focusing on Dutch Interbrigadiers, it further highlights how the specificities of Dutch political culture and the legal regime created in the Netherlands combined to create a unique set of circumstances that impeded Dutch foreign fighters’ abilities to effectively work together with their German colleagues in Spain and their post-Spanish Civil War efforts to resist the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. This article suggests, therefore, that the International Brigades do not possess a single, distinctive and collectively transnational identity. Rather, they are made up of different identity layers that can, but need not, be mutually exclusive, and are linked to elements of different national and/or military cultures.