Liesel Carritt

Liesel Carritt (née Mottek; 1914 – ) was a German teacher, translator, refugee, and later a communist revolutionary who fought against fascism alongside the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.

[3] Come the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, Liesel, her husband Noel, and her brother in-law Anthony Carritt, all joined the International Brigades and fought against fascist forces led by Francisco Franco and backed by Hitler and Mussolini.

[3] Her father was a journalist called Heinrik (Heinz) Mottek who was the former editor of Weimar Germany's main liberal newspaper, the Frankfurter Zeitung.

Under the Aliens Act of 1905 (which was designed to halt Jewish immigration), refugees were only allowed into the United Kingdom if they could ensure their financial stability and that they would not be a burden on the government.

[1] In the summer of 1935 Liesel and Noel joined a group of left-wing students to travel to the Soviet Union departing to Leningrad from London on 11 August aboard a Russian ship called "Smolny".

Arriving before the International Brigades had been fully formed, she joined a republican militia and fought as a soldier on the frontlines against fascist forces near Aragon alongside the Thälmann Group.

[5] After the International Brigades were founded it was decided by the Spanish government that women should not fight on the frontlines, so Liesel instead became a translator and worked in various administrator roles.

[1][3] After the end of the Second World War, Liesel moved to Leipzig in East Germany where she would spend the rest of her life working as an interpreter and a teacher.

[1] A correction was then uploaded to the website of the Oxford International Brigade Memorial Committee which included a small biography of Liesel among the other known volunteers.