COVID-19 Takes A Heroic Fighter Against Fascism, Rafael Gómez Nieto, The Last Member Of La Nueve

YouTube has lots of videos about La Nueve-- but none of them are in English. The one above is a trailer for the film La Nueve, also in Spanish, its plot described in English tritely: "Manuel loses most of his family during Hitler's bombing in Spain and sends his daughter to Paris to save her. After defeat and exile, Manuel joins the Ninth Company, 'La Nueve,' in a desperate struggle to free Europe from Nazism and reunite with his daughter." There is however a book, La Nueve-- The Spanish Republicans Who Liberated Paris-- by Evelyn Mesquida and translated into English by Paul Sharkey.

The magnificent heroes from a hidden page of history, the soldiers of La Nueve, No 9 company of General Leclerc’s renowned 2nd Armoured Division (DB). According to the history books, the liberation of Paris began on 25 August 1944 when Leclerc’s 2e Division Blindée (2e DB) entered the city via the Porte d’Orléans.

In fact, Leclerc began the push earlier, on 24 August, when he ordered Captain Dronne, commander of No 9 Company to enter Paris without delay. Dronne thrust towards the city centre via the Porte d’Italie at the head of two sections from No 9 Company, better known as La Nueve.

The first vehicle from La Nueve reached the Place d l’Hôtel de Ville shortly after 8.00 p.m., “German time”on 24 August 1944. Amado Granell-- Paris’s very first liberator!-- climbed down from his half-track to be greeted inside the city hall by Jean Moulin’s successor, Georges Bidault, president of the National Resistance Council. Granell, like 146 out of the La Nueve’s 160 men, was a Spanish republican!

The Battle of Paris cost the 2nd Armoured Division the lives of 71 men and 225 wounded. Material losses included 35 tanks, six self-propelled guns, and 111 vehicles.

On 26 August, General De Gaulle strode down the Champs Élysées accompanied by four vehicles from La Nueve acting as his escort and protection detail. The procession was led by Amado Granell and his armoured car.

Survivors of the civil war against Franco, having enlisted in the Free French army, the Spanish republicans of La Nueve-- anarchists, socialists, communists and republicans-- went on to liberate Alsace and Lorraine and saw action in Germany. Of the 146 men who landed in Normandy, only 16 survived to be the first to enter Hitler’s Berchtesgaden Eagle’s Nest.

Tuesday, in the midst of all the other coronavirus horrors besetting Spain right now, the last hero of La Nueve, Rafael Gómez Nieto passed away-- age 99-- after being infected with COVID-19.

Young Americans don't even know much about the Spanish Civil War, let alone about this obscure tangent. Both are worth ruminating on as mankind is once again under threat from full-blown fascism. When the Spanish Civil War began 1936 most of the 160 kids who later became La Neuve were teenagers. Four years later fascism ruled Europe, including Spain and France and many Spaniards, including those future members of La Nueve had fled to North Africa. After Eisenhower invaded Algeria late in 1942, Spanish patriots eager to fight fascism joined a Free French division for foreigners, the Corps Franc D'Afrique and fought against the German and Italian Africa Corps which was obliterated in 1943.

They were based in Rabat, Morocco and then went to Britain to participate in the invasion of Normandy. La Nueve landed at Utah Beach and fought the Nazis on the outskirts of Château-Gontier and Alençon and then becoming the first Allied troops to reach Paris-- August 24-- after the French underground revolted against German occupation (August 20, 1944). On the afternoon of 25 August, the German garrison surrendered and General von Choltitz was held prisoner by La Nueve. By the time they helped capture Berchtesgaden-- Hitler's Eagle's Nest-- on May 5, there were only 16 Spaniards left active in the unit, 35 having been killed and 97 wounded. After the war many refused French citizenship, rightly angered that the Allies embraced Franco's fascist government instead of overthrowing it. They became politically inconvenient and their history was buried until 2004 when the City of Paris officially paid them homage for their role in the liberation.