reading Jasper Bernes on the attempted German revolution of 1921:
"Max Hölz, the so-called Robin Hood of the revolution ... and his improvised Red Army burned police stations, opened jails and expropriated banks throughout the rural Vogtland-Erzebirge region."
And now it strikes me: that's where my own grandfather Rudi lived, in the small industrial town of Gornsdorf. I don't know if the Robin Hood gang was communizing exactly there. But in some way or another, their revolutionary actions must have been a huge thing to my grandfather and his comrades.
At the time, he was 17 years old, a factory worker, and indeed a communist. Later he would emigrate, end up in Malmö and live there well into the 21st century, until the age of 102. But I don't know if he ever again talked about Max Hölz.