TITLE: Is a subgroup of a free abelian group free abelian?
QUESTION [9 upvotes]: It's well-known that that a subgroup of a free group is free. Is a subgroup of a free abelian group (may not be finitely generated) always a free abelian group?

REPLY [25 votes]: A variety of groups $V$ is said to have the Schreier property if every subgroup of a free group in the variety is free. It is a classical theorem of Peter Neumann and James Wiegold that the only varieties of groups with the Schreier property are: the (absolutely) free groups, the free abelian groups, and the free exponent $p$ abelian groups for $p$ prime.