Thalmann, Paul, 1901-....

Paul (Pavel) Thalmann: pseudonym Franz Heller; born in Basel, Switzerland 1901, died in Nice, France 1980; journalist; influenced by the Swiss libertarian Fritz Brupbacher; secretary of the Swiss communist youth movement 1921-1925; delegate to the congress of the Communist Youth International in Moscow in 1922, where he was influenced by the circle around Trotsky; attended a party school in Moscow from 1925 to 1928; became editor of the Basler Vorwärts in 1928, where he met Clara Ensner; Clara Thalmann-Ensner: born in Basel 1908, died in Nice 1987; Thalmann and Ensner: were both expelled from the Kommunistische Partei der Schweiz in 1929; Thalmann became editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung in Schaffhausen in 1932; active in the Kommunistische Partei Opposition and Trotskyist groups in Basel and Zurich; went to Spain in 1936; both joined the anarchosyndicalist Durruti Column; imprisoned by the communists in Barcelona and Valencia in 1937; during the Second World War they lived in Paris helping German refugees; after 1945 involved in agitation against the Soviet Union and for the liberation of Algeria; started the Serena guesthouse in Nice in 1953; in touch with new generations of student activists during the sixties and seventies; published their memoirs in the 1970s; in the documentary D̀ie lange Hoffnung' of 1983 Clara Thalmann and Augustin Souchy revisit sites of the Spanish Civil War.