Tamara Bunke facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tamara Bunke
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Bunke in 1962 wearing the tilted beret of the newly formed Cuban People's Defence Militia
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Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider
November 19, 1937 |
| Died | August 31, 1967 (aged 29) Vallegrande Province, Bolivia
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| Cause of death | Killed in action |
| Resting place | Che Guevara Mausoleum Santa Clara, Cuba |
| Nationality | East German Cuban Bolivian Argentinian |
| Occupation | Communist revolutionary East German/Cuban spy Journalist |
| Organization | National Liberation Army |
Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider (born November 19, 1937 – died August 31, 1967), known as Tania or Tania the Guerrillera, was a brave revolutionary. She was born in Argentina and later became an East German and Cuban spy. Tamara played a key role in Cuba's intelligence work after the Cuban Revolution. She also joined many left-wing movements in Latin America. She fought alongside Che Guevara and his communist guerrillas during the Bolivian insurgency. Sadly, she was killed in action by the Bolivian Army, who were trained by the CIA.
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Early Life and Family (1937–1952)
Tamara Bunke was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her parents, Erich Bunke and Nadia Bider, were German communists who had to leave their home country. They fled to Argentina in 1933 to escape Adolf Hitler's rule.
Tamara's parents were very active in the Communist Party of Argentina. This meant Tamara and her brother Olaf grew up in a home focused on Marxist-Leninist ideas. Their house in Buenos Aires was often used for secret meetings. They also helped other communist refugees, hid publications, and sometimes even stored weapons.
As a child, Tamara loved sports and was a great student. She especially enjoyed the folk music of South America. In 1952, her family moved back to East Germany. They settled in a town called Stalinstadt, which is now Eisenhüttenstadt. Tamara didn't learn German until she was a teenager.
University Years and New Connections (1953–1959)
Tamara quickly adapted to her new life in East Germany. She began studying political science at Humboldt University in East Berlin. She joined the Free German Youth (FGY), which was the youth group of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
She also became part of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. This allowed her to travel to youth festivals in cities like Vienna, Prague, Moscow, and Havana. Tamara was very interested in Latin America and was good with languages. She spoke Russian, French, English, Spanish, and German fluently. Because of these skills, she became a translator for the FGY's International Department. In this role, she met and translated for many visitors from Cuba after the Cuban Revolution succeeded in 1959.
Joining the Cuban Revolution (1960–1964)
In 1960, when she was 23, Tamara Bunke met Che Guevara. He was a famous revolutionary visiting East Germany with a Cuban trade group. Tamara admired him and was assigned to be his interpreter.
Inspired by the Cuban Revolution, Tamara moved to Cuba in 1961. She started by volunteering, teaching, and helping to build homes and schools in the countryside. The Cubans noticed how efficient, disciplined, and helpful she was. She joined work groups, the militia, and the Cuban Literacy Campaign. She also worked for the Ministry of Education and other Cuban organizations.
Eventually, she was chosen for special training for Che Guevara's mission in Bolivia, called "Operation Fantasma." Che wanted to start a revolution across South America to challenge American imperialism. Tamara was trained by Dariel Alarcón Ramírez, also known as Benigno, in Cuba. She learned self-defense, how to use weapons, and how to send and receive coded radio messages. During this time, she chose "Tania" as her secret name, or nom de guerre.
Tamara impressed her trainers with her intelligence, strength, and spying skills. Benigno described her as "gracious, beautiful and kind, but also very tough." She also entertained her fellow trainees by playing Argentine folk songs on her accordion or guitar. The Cuban government realized her friendly nature would be very useful for her work in Bolivia.
Secret Missions in Bolivia (1964–1967)
In October 1964, Tamara Bunke traveled to Bolivia as a secret agent for Che Guevara. She used the name Laura Gutiérrez Bauer. Her first job was to gather information about Bolivia's leaders and its army. She pretended to be an expert in folklore from Argentina. She quickly became friends with important people in Bolivian society. She even impressed Bolivian President René Barrientos and went on vacation with him to Peru. To keep her cover, she also explored folk music, creating a valuable collection of Bolivian music. She even married a young Bolivian man to get citizenship.
Tamara was very helpful to Guevara's guerrillas at first. She used radio equipment hidden in her apartment to send secret messages to Fidel Castro in Havana. She also sent messages to Guevara's guerrillas in the field. She did this by pretending to be a radio host giving coded relationship advice to made-up couples. This radio show was called "Advice to Women."
However, in late 1966, some of her comrades who were supposed to support the guerrillas in the city became unreliable. This forced Tamara to visit the rural camp at Ñancahuazú several times. During one of these trips, a captured Bolivian communist revealed a safe house where Tamara's jeep was parked. Her address book was in the jeep, and her secret identity was discovered. Because her cover was blown, she had no choice but to join Guevara's armed guerrilla group. In this role, she was in charge of sharing food and listening to radio broadcasts.
Without Tamara as their link to the outside world, the guerrillas became isolated. Tamara also became very sick with a high fever, a leg injury, and painful Chigoe flea bites. Because of this, Guevara decided to send a group of 16 sick fighters, including Tamara, out of the mountains.
Tamara's Death
On August 31, 1967, at 5:20 pm, the lead group of guerrillas was ambushed. They were crossing the Río Grande river at a place called Vado del Yeso. Tamara was waist-deep in the water, holding her rifle above her head. She was shot in the arm and lung and died quickly, along with eight other fighters.
Her body was carried downstream and found by the Bolivian Army several days later on September 6. When her body was shown to President Barrientos, he wanted her buried in an unmarked grave with the other guerrillas. But the local women demanded that, as a woman, she should have a proper Christian burial.
When news of her death was announced on the radio, Che Guevara, who was still fighting nearby, didn't believe it. He thought it was army propaganda to make him lose hope. Later, when Fidel Castro learned she had died, he called "Tania the guerrilla" a hero of the Cuban Revolution.
Finding Her Remains
In 1997, a writer named Jon Lee Anderson helped find Che Guevara's remains. After that, Tamara Bunke's remains were also found on October 13, 1998. They were in an unmarked grave in a small pit near the Vallegrande army base. Her remains were taken to Cuba and buried in the Che Guevara Mausoleum in Santa Clara. She rests there alongside Che Guevara and other guerrillas who died during the Bolivian insurgency.
Rumors and Facts
For many years after her death, there were rumors that Tamara Bunke worked for the Soviet KGB or the East German Stasi (secret police). There was also a rumor that she and Che Guevara were in love in Bolivia, and that she might have been pregnant when she died. However, in 2017, Dr. Abraham Baptista, who performed the autopsies on both Che and Tamara Bunke, proved that the pregnancy rumor was false.
In 1997, Tamara's 85-year-old mother, Nadia Bunke, went to Moscow. She wanted to get a statement from the KGB's successors saying that Tamara never worked for them. The Stasi Records Agency in Germany has also confirmed they have no records about her.
Before Nadia Bunke passed away in 2003, she also managed to stop the sale of a book in Germany called Tania, the Woman Che Guevara Loved by José A Friedl. While both Tamara and Che did receive training from the StB (a Czech intelligence agency) in Prague, they were never in the city at the same time.
Tamara in Popular Culture
Tamara Bunke's story has inspired many things:
- In 1974, Patty Hearst used the name "Tania" when she was involved with the Symbionese Liberation Army.
- A minor planet called 2283 Bunke, discovered in 1974, is named after her.
- Venezuelan singer Ali Primera wrote a song called "Tania" to remember her and her dedication to revolution.
- Tamara Bunke appears in Luigi Nono's 1972 music/theatre work Al gran sole carico d'amore.
- Heidi Specogna made a documentary about her in 1991.
- Before Germany was unified, Tamara was a folk hero in East Germany. At one point, 200 youth clubs were named after her.
- Actress Franka Potente played her in Steven Soderbergh's 2008 movie about Che Guevara, called Che.
Tamara in Fiction
- A 2007 novel by Chilean economist Sebastián Edwards, El misterio de las Tanias, is inspired by Tamara's story.
- A character named Tania Vunke appears in Chuck Pfarrer's novel Killing Che. In the story, Tania is an East German KGB spy who falls in love with Guevara. She is supposed to help kill him but instead betrays the KGB to fight for Che and dies in battle.
- A fictional version of Bunke appears in the Heroes in Hell book series by Janet Morris. This version of Bunke includes the old rumors about her working for the KGB and betraying Che. In this series, Bunke works for one of Satan's intelligence agencies.
In Spanish: Tamara Bunke para niños
