205:). Now his professional expertise came to the fore. He was concerned to make more generally available to republican civil war comrades (and others) the lessons provided by medical experience gained in modern war conditions. That was behind his launch of the journal "Stimme der Sanität" and his book "Puesto de Clasificacion". He served as editor in chief of the journal till January 1938, using it to set forth the difficulties and shortcomings of the battlefield medical services that he was experiencing. However, what comes across most powerfully in most of his own published contributions is his pride in what republican medical corps members were able to contribute after
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and volunteered to help on the government side. He became one of the leading figures in the medical service. It was common for Moscow-based party activists to use a party pseudonym, and during this period Mirko Beer identified himself as "Dr. Oscar Goryan". Although he was much impressed by the
224:, wrote in his (at the time strictly confidential) reports that "Goryan" had "wilfully taken to himself control of the internationalists' medical services" and so removed them from "party control". Sources that focus on "Goryan" are content to set aside such criticism, however.
270:. From the perspective of Moscow-based colleagues, that made him a brilliant linguist. A few days after the German invasion a comrade-librarian overheard him discussing "with foreigners, in different languages, some of them incomprehensible". That led to his arrest by the
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together with other socialists, communists and social democrats, in an "alternative residential community". He worked for the Berlin medical service as a physician. The large number of injured workers – Communists and Nazis alike – that he treated in the
209:. Pride resonates in the obituaries of fallen comrades. He was proud of the military doctors who abandoned their comfort zones to work in the field hospitals. He was proud of the "school" for badly unprepared medically qualified recruits to the
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in
February 1937 convinced him of the need for the medical services on the republican side to be strengthened in order to cope with the scale of the casualties. This marked, as written in a report, "the start of a structured war medical corps"
213:. He was also proud of the continuing training for the sick and less-badly wounded patients in the field hospitals and of the tailored courses for carers. But several articles also echo a yearning for an end to the slaughter of the war.
161:. Their intense personal relationship together endured till Beer's death in 1942. There are references in some sources to their having lived together, after 1939 in Moscow, as man and wife with their little daughter, Öchen.
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Most of this source is a report by Mirko Beer himself (writing under his pseudonym, Oscar Goryan – Goryan Oscar according to
Hungarian custom), but it opens with a one and a half page biographical note which is usefully
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on 9 July 1941 on account of "allegedly espionage-linked relationships". According to some sources he was then shot, still in jail, on 4 August 1942. His sister Margit had written letters to
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pleading his case. It seems unlikely that this letters ever reached their intended addressees. An alternative account of his death surfaced only in June 1990, after several years of
78:
259:), his wife, Gerda, later wrote. He returned to his work as a physician, working in an accident clinic, and he also resumed his academic work. It was, perhaps, too good to last.
63:. The family was part of the town's Hungarian minority. There were six children, but the other five were all girls: Mirko was one of the youngest. He attended the local
216:"Goryan", as civil war comrades knew Mirko Beer at this time, was widely respected as an exceptional physician, but that did not mean that he was without enemies.
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290:, Mirko Beer did actually face a trial at which he received a five year prison sentence, but he died on 11 August 1942, not as a result of being shot, but from
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77:. According to at least one source, cries of "Heil Hitler" could by this stage already be heard in the university's main auditorium. In 1924 Beer joined the
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247:), he immediately turned his attention to the medical needs of fellow internees. Disease was rampant. After the Spanish fighters were moved to
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international solidarity and the "almighty struggle in which an unarmed people were being seen to triumph over armede military formations" (
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had led to the opening up of previously secret Soviet records. According to this version, which was passed to his daughter through the
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as "the nationalists") had won. After crossing into France, Beer was interned, and held till May 1939. Although he later described the
157:. While he was living in Berlin, Mirko Beer met Gerda Schneuer, a political soul-mate and an actress and photographer originally from
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in June 1941 came as a major shock to most
Muscovites. Mirko Beer had spent his first nine years in a multi-lingual border town in a
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19:(20 February 1905 – 4 August 1942) was a surgeon, a military physician and a political activist originally from what is now
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of espionage, he was arrested and jailed on 9 July 1941. Still in jail, he was probably shot dead just over a year later.
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he headed up the medical support and the "surgical consultancy". In June 1939 he was able to return to
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194:"...großartigen Kampf, in dem ein waffenloses Volk ... die bewaffneten Formationen der Armee besiegte"
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in German was already something to be taken seriously. He was also active on the fringes of the
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468:"Zum Verhältnis von Politik, Ideologie, Strukturen und Kadern in der kommunistischen Bewegung"
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388:. Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Gesellschaftsanalyse und politische Bildung e. V. pp. 791–792
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340:"Mirko Beer: Report on being Ordered to go to Spain from October 10, 1936 – June 3, 1939"
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69:(secondary school) which prepared him for university admission. He then attended the
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and decided that he needed to engage politically. In 1927 he illegally joined the
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Spanish military personnel of the
Spanish Civil War (Republican faction)
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Mirko Beer was born into an impoverished Jewish (by religion) family in
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as a leading military physician between 1936 and 1939, during the
435:"Biografien im Zeitalter der Extreme: Gisela Notz zu Ulla Plener"
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Mirko Beer was fluent in German, Russian, Hungarian and
Serbian.
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113:"Workers International Relief" / "Международная рабочая помощь"
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136:. He had been invited to move there by the architect-activist
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where he worked as a doctor at a Moscow research institute.
437:. Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, Frankfurt am Main
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125:. In 1928 he set up a "Balkan secretariat" for the IAH in
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121:-based welfare organisation with close ties to
598:League of Communists of Yugoslavia politicians
578:People executed by the Soviet Union by firearm
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147:Friedrichshain Hospital (as it was then known)
85:. He read from the literary pantheon works by
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235:(identified by international backers such as
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257:"Unser liebster Mensch war wieder bei uns"
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140:with whom, initially, he lived in the
111:Internationale Arbeiter-Hilfe (IAH /
132:Between 1930 and 1932 Beer lived in
109:. At around the same time he joined
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347:UTOPIE kreativ, H. 191 – Summaries
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593:20th-century Hungarian physicians
568:Jews executed by the Soviet Union
515:"Cien mil fuegos por la libertad"
175:In July 1936, directly after the
164:Accepting an invitation from the
142:Hufeisensiedlung (housing estate)
168:, in April 1932 he moved to the
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55:and roughly equidistant between
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149:helped him to appreciate that
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79:Socialist Students' Society
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103:looming dangers of Fascism
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229:"civil war brigadists"
222:International Brigades
155:German Communist Party
268:multi-cultural empire
181:Republican government
183:which triggered the
101:. He identified the
71:University of Vienna
513:Omar Felipe Mauri.
276:Rubén Ruiz Ibárruri
35:. Suspected by the
573:Jewish socialists
553:People from Senta
272:security services
245:"die wahre Hölle"
185:Spanish Civil War
37:security services
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177:insurrection
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548:1942 deaths
543:1905 births
431:Gisela Notz
386:informative
218:André Marty
537:Categories
321:References
233:insurgents
17:Mirko Beer
521:3 January
482:1 January
441:1 January
392:1 January
353:1 January
292:Dysentery
83:communist
66:gymnasium
61:Timișoara
43:Biography
29:Civil War
284:Glasnost
127:Subotica
75:Medicine
57:Budapest
53:Subotica
159:Hamburg
151:Fascism
503:p. 116
253:Moscow
207:Jarama
134:Berlin
123:Moscow
119:Berlin
91:Engels
21:Serbia
381:(PDF)
343:(PDF)
301:Notes
189:Spain
95:Lenin
59:and
49:Senta
25:Spain
523:2018
484:2019
443:2019
394:2019
355:2019
278:and
262:The
249:Gurs
117:, a
97:and
87:Marx
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