Augustin Souchy

Augustin Souchy
Born	Augustin Souchy Bauer (1892-08-28)August 28, 1892 Ratibor, German Empire
Died	January 1, 1984(1984-01-01) (aged 91) Munich, West Germany
Occupation	Educational advisor to the ILO
Era	20th century
Notable work	Die tragische Woche im Mai 1937

Augustin Souchy Bauer (28 August 1892 – 1 January 1984) was a Silesian anarchist, antimilitarist, labor union official and journalist. He traveled widely and wrote extensively about the Spanish Civil War and intentional communities. He was born in Ratibor, in what was then the German Empire.

Biography

In 1915, during World War I, he emigrated to Sweden to avoid military service, being exiled by the Swedish government two years later for anti-militaristic propaganda. From then on, he traveled throughout the world returning to Germany once and living in Spain, South America and France at different times. He was very active in the anarchist movement wherever he lived and worked together with many famous anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Rudolf Rocker.

Described as the most prominent Silesian to have fought in the Spanish Civil War, he participated in Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and in the Spanish Revolution during the conflict. His work "The Tragic Week in May" is one of the few first hand sources that exist on the May Days of 1937 in Barcelona. After the war he was arrested in France but managed to escape to Mexico.

Poster advertising a rally in La Monumental, listing “Agustin Souchy” as a speaker

He spent the rest of his life working together with syndicalist and anarchist organizations and remained active as a journalist. He died in Munich on January 1, 1984.

Bibliography

These are Souchy's works that have been translated into English:

• The Tragic Week in May, CNT-FAI, 1937 (account of sectarian violence in Spain during the Spanish Revolution)
• With the Peasants of Aragon, Cienfuegos Press, 1982 (Souchy's account of Spanish peasant cooperatives)
• Beware! Anarchist!, Charles H. Kerr, Chicago, 1992 (Souchy's autobiography)

For a more complete listing, see the German Wikipedia article at Augustin Souchy.

See also

• Anarchism in Germany

Further reading

• Cohn, Jesse (April 20, 2009). "Souchy, Augustin (1892–1984)". In Ness, Immanuel (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. pp. 1–2. doi:10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1382. ISBN 978-1-4051-9807-3.
• Panné, Jean-Louis; Enckell, Marianne (January 16, 2016). "SOUCHY Augustin". Dictionnaire des anarchistes (in French). Paris: Maitron/Editions de l'Atelier.
• Hans Diefenbacher (2010), "Souchy, Augustin", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 24, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 604–605; (full text online)

External links

• Souchy papers and audio collection at the International Institute of Social History
• The Tragic Week in May
• Photos of Augustin Souchy
• Documentary film "Die lange Hoffnung" on YouTube
• Souchy addresses the IWA-AIT Congress in Madrid in 1931 on YouTube
• [1] at Theory and Practice