Ivan Trojan Deutch

Source: Bundesarchiv Berlin

Signature: BArch SGY 11/170 (photocopied sheets)

Photographs taken April 30, 2017

Translated from German by Jan Grabowski on June 17, 2017

© 2017 Jan Grabowski

(Part of the cover page)

(Newspaper of Thälmann Battalion)

Todos Unidos

Alle vereint

No.4, April 12, 1937

The newspaper issue contains on the sheet no. 36 the following article signed by ARTUR, typed in German and Spanish language. Evidently the name IWAN refers to Ivan Trojan, who was serving as an armorer in the battalion. Apparently the picture shows Ivan Trojan.

Ivan

the blossom of the Bat

(Footnotes by Jan Grabowski)

It was on a moist evening at the JARAMA front. Everyone was securing¹ blankets as many as he can. So, of course, did our "king of ammunition", IVAN. He was securing them for himself, too, but for his bride, the MG², he usually cares first. Not all comrades do it this way, of course.

Short and sweet: IVAN has blanketed a machine gun which he had made fit for battle, to protect it from moistness. Some time later — we have halfway entered the realm of dreams —IVAN creeped out of his wagon to have another look at his bride. Furiously he shouted: "The machine gun is naked. A comrade has pilfered the blanket". Someone had secured the blanket for himself. He had been cold, and he simply wasn’t in love with the MG like IVAN is.

IWAN is like that; when he comes to our telephonists in the morning, he must say good morning to his MG bride first, because she is all the world to him.

ARTUR.

__________

1 I use this verb as a translation for the German "organisieren", which is a troop idiom for "try to obtain something (regardless of the method)".

2 German abbreviation for Maschinengewehr (machine gun).