Send in the celebrities!

Teruel, Spain, December 1937-February 1938

“Celebrities and politicians entertained and visited the (Republican) units during this time. American pro-Communist singer Paul Robeson sang for them on Christmas Eve with a repertoire that included L'Internationale and ended with Ol' Man River.[32] Future Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Clement Attlee, left-wing Labour politician Ellen Wilkinson and future Labour Government official and diplomat Philip Noel-Baker visited a British unit.”

…

“Mathews, Hemingway, Robeson and the British politicians have been mentioned previously, and the battle certainly attracted many other such celebrities. One of them was Soviet spy Kim Philby, who was nominally a correspondent for The Times covering the war from the Nationalist side. Evidently he was already under Moscow's orders in Spain but wrote glowing reports about Franco.[45] Near Teruel in December 1937, a shell hit an automobile in which Philby and three other journalists (Bradish Johnson, Eddie Neil and Ernest Sheepshanks) were riding. Philby was the only survivor. Franco personally decorated Philby, to Philby's great exhilaration.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Teruel


It was a strange war, the Spanish one, 1936-38. Celebrities abounded, some supporting the Republic, others Viva Nationalists! Left-wing writers, actors, politicians; right-wing priests and cardinals, writers and politicians -- Fascism and Communism and Anarchists all fighting (literally and figuratively) for a future that never came to pass.