János Gálicz

János Gálicz (1890–1939), better known as "General Gal", was a Hungarian and Soviet brigade and division commander during the Spanish Civil War.

Biography Born in 1890 in the town of Tótkomlós in Austria-Hungary (now Békés county in Hungary).

As part of the Austro-Hungarian army, he participated in the First World War. During his service on Eastern Front he fell into Russian captivity. After the October Revolution he joined the Red Army and took part in the Russian Civil War.

He trained at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow and was promoted to the rank colonel. In 1936 he was sent to Spain and fought in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War under the assumed name of José Ivanovich Gal.

He planned and ordered an attack in the hills above the Jarama River which led to what was described by Ernest Hemingway as the decimation of the Twelfth International Brigade.

After his return to the Soviet Union he was arrested during the Great Purge and presumably shot sometime in 1939, in Moscow.

Legacy Hemingway mentions him in his book For Whom the Bell Tolls: "Then there was Gall, the Hungarian, who ought to be shot if you could believe half you heard at Gaylord's, Robert Jordan thought."

He is also a general for the Spanish Republic in the game Hearts of Iron IV, however the portrait that Gálicz received in the game is actually based on another volunteer in the SCW, Vladimir Ćopić, a Croatian communist and Gal's deputy, who commanded the 15th International Brigade from February 1937 into April 1938.