New Zine: From the Alps to Qandil

Memories from Şehîd Azad Şergeş

Dear readers, comrades and friends,

When holding this brochure in your hands, you are holding a small part of the great legacy of our friend, loyal comrade, beloved brother and missed son, Thomas Johann Spies, also known as Şehîd Azad Şergeş. We would like to invite you to join Thomas on his path from the Alps to Qandil, from Bavaria to Kurdistan, on the following pages.

After the death of Şehîd Azad Şergeş, we came together as revolutionaries and internationalists of various movementsfrom Germany to collect his diary entries, letters and memories, to read and discuss them together and to publish selected pieces in the form of this brochure. With this brochure, we want to commemorate his life, his political development and his revolutionary struggle. This brochure is also a promise to Azad and all other people who have fallen in the struggle for a liberated world not to forget their tireless struggle, but continue it in their memory with determination. Azad's legacy to us is a mission! A mission coming from his decision to put his life on the line for the success of the revolution — to draw lessons, criticism and motivation.

This brochure describes his journey from a bavarian town to the mountains of Kurdistan. From his politicisation in the anti-capitalist left in Germany, to his introduction to the Kurdish freedom movement andto what has reached us about his time in the revolution. In the resistant mountains of Kurdistan, Thomas Johann Spies became Azad Şergeş. He became an embodiment of an internationalism that doesn’t know any borders and whose anger at the murderous and exploitative world is insatiable and whose love to life is never ending. Thomasdid not go to the mountains solely to help the Kurdish people in their struggle for liberation. He recognized that the struggle in the free mountains of Kurdistan was also his struggle. The struggle of a colonized people, who inspired and welcomed people from all over the world. His long and tireless search, that began in the heart of the imperial beast, with a relentless pursuit of more; more seriousness, more determination and more freedom, was transformed into an unstoppable power. He fought side by side with his hevals (comrades) against the Turkish occupying state, against the imperialist NATO and other alliances of the most powerful of this world. Thomas never forgot his roots and stood in deep connection in the mountains of Kurdistan, side by side with his friends and brothers in the cities of Europe. He fought a devoted battle, convinced that no one of this world is free unless all are free. He was not satisfied by the promise of freedom liberalism offered in the cities of Europe, which claimed that you would be free if you could just do whatever you wanted. He recognized that freedom is more than the freedom of being able to consume anything, anytime, anywhere. Freedom became a constant quest within the collective.

Thomas fell in the southern Kurdish region of Xakurke on the 15th of June 2023, together with with Şehîd Asya Kanîreş (Kadriye Tetik) and Şehîd Koçer Medya (Diyako Saîdî). They were killed by Turkish air strikes while retreating from a successful action against the Turkish army.

With this brochure, we want to trace Thomas’ journey. For us, commemorating a fallen brother, friend and companion is part of revolutionary practice. We want to continue Thomas’ struggle, with determination and burning hearts. We take on his goals and values, for which he gave his life, and let them become our own, no matter where in the world we fight for them. This is what we mean when we shout:

Şehîd namirin! The martyrs never die!

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