BERKELY, Calif., Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Milton Wolff, the last commander of a U.S. volunteer brigade that fought in the Spanish Civil War, died of heart failure in Berkeley, Calif., at age 92.
Wolff was among 2,800 Americans recruited during the war, which began in 1936 when Francisco Franco led a military revolt against Spain's government, backed by Italy's Benito Mussolini and Germany's Adolf Hitler. He originally intended to be a medic but rose through the ranks of U.S. volunteers opposing Franco, the Los Angeles Times said.
Writer Ernest Hemingway, who knew Wolff, compared him to Abraham Lincoln and wrote that he led the brigade "wisely and heroically."
"Struggle is the elixir of life, the tonic of life. I mean if you're not struggling you are dead," Wolff said in Peter N. Carroll's 1994 book "Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War."
