Willi Münzenberg

Willi Münzenberg (August 14, 1889–October 21, 1940) was a leading propagandist for the KPD ("Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands", Communist Party of Germany) in the Weimar Era. General secretary of the Communist Youth International.

Born in Erfurt, Germany the son of a tavern keeper, Münzenberg grew up in poverty. As a young man, he became involved in trade unions and in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Following the SPD split in 1914 between the moderate majority (known as the Majority SPD, MSPD) and the radical minority (known as the Independent SPD, USPD) over the issue of the First World War, Münzenberg sided with the Independent faction. During World War One, Münzenberg often visited Vladimir Lenin at his home in Zurich, Switzerland . In 1918, Münzenberg was a founding member of the KPD. In 1928, Münzenberg was elected to the "Reichstag", and served as a member until the banning of the K.P.D in 1933. Münzenberg was one of the few KPD leaders of working-class origin, a fact that was a source of immense pride for Münzenberg.

During the Weimar period, Münzenberg earned the reputation of a brilliant propagandist. His first major success was a triumphant effort to raise money and food for the victims of the Russian famine of 1921. In addition, Münzenberg worked closely with the Comintern and the Soviet secret police (known as the Cheka between 1917–22 and as the OGPU 1922–34) to advance the communist cause internationally. Münzenberg founded a bewildering number of front organizations such the World League Against Imperialism, the International Worker's Relief Fund, and the International Labor Defense, to propagate communist ideas. He instructed his assistant, fellow Comintern agent Otto Katz, to travel to the United States to instigate support for various pro-Soviet and anti-Nazi causes (Katz would later found the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League with Dorothy Parker). [Koch, Stephen,"Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals", New York: Enigma Books (2004), Revised Edition, ISBN 1929631200] [Caute, David, "The Fellow Travellers: Intellectual Friends of Communism", New Haven: Yale University Press (1988), ISBN: 030004195] To hide the true origins of his front organizations, Münzenberg had front organizations to control other front organizations. Western and fascist intelligence agencies generally referred to all of these organizations as the "Münzenberg Trust". In addition, Münzenberg used these front organizations to make business investments - Münzenberg liked to live in high style and was popularly known as "The Red Millionaire".

After directing the Comintern's handling of the Sacco and Vanzetti case in 1925, Münzenberg became in charge of the League Against Imperialism, created in Brussels in 1927. He then achieved his greatest success with the Counter-trial he organized in London to blame the Reichstag fire on the Nazis. During the Counter-trial, Münzenberg and his staff manufactured most of the evidence that implicated the Nazis in the Reichstag fire. In 1933 and in 1934, the "Münzenberg Trust" published two best-selling books, "The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror" and its sequel, the "Second Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire". The two Brown Books were widely accepted by historians until 1960 when the journalist Fritz Tobias exposed numerous inaccuracies and false information in the Brown Books. In particular, Tobias revealed that the “secret tunnels’ that supposedly allowed the Nazis to enter and leave the "Reichstag" unseen were in fact tunnels for water piping.

Münzenberg lived intermittently in Paris, France from 1933 to 1940. During his years in exile, Münzenberg may have had some role in recruiting Kim Philby to work for the Soviet Union, but there is no clear evidence of this. It has been argued that Philby was recruited to work for Soviet intelligence through one of the "Münzenberg Trust"'s front organizations, the World Society for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism based in Paris.

Until 1936, Münzenberg was loyal to Stalin and thus to the aims of Soviet foreign policy. He was well aware of the enormity of Stalin's crimes: he had personally witnessed the use of slave labour in the construction of the White Sea Canal, during which about 100,000 prisoners died, and had witnessed of the betrayal of the German communist party to serve the ends of Soviet foreign policy. Yet he had never broken with Stalin. Urged to return to Moscow by fellow KPD exile Walter Ulbricht, Münzenberg refused, as he suspected that he would be implicated and liquidated in the same Stalinist purges his disinformation organizations had previously sought to obscure (Ulbricht knew this as well, and would later serve Stalin in eliminating 'disloyal' Germans fighting on the Republican side in Spain). Münzenberg continued to work on behalf of anti-fascist causes throughout Western Europe, where he played a role in organizing the recruitment and acquisition of Soviet arms for the International Brigades to fight for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. [Koch, Stephen,"Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals", New York: Enigma Books (2004), Revised Edition, ISBN 1929631200]

However, by 1937 the writing was on the wall. Having been expelled from the German communist party (KPD) on trumped-up charges, Münzenberg finally moved into open opposition to Stalin. Back in Paris, he became a genuine leader of German emigre anti-fascism and an anti-Stalinist. His new journal, "Die Zukunft", was the intellectual forerunner of "Encounter" and other Cold War publications. [Koch, Stephen,"Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals", New York: Enigma Books (2004), Revised Edition, ISBN 1929631200]

But his time was running out. His closest professional associates, Karl Radek, Heinz Neumann and countless other German communists, were either shot or worked to death in Soviet labor camps. His sister-in-law, Margarete Buber-Neumann, was imprisoned in Karaganda. The NKVD eventually arranged for her to be handed over to Hitler in 1940, inadvertently saving her life. After spending the war in the relative safety of Ravensbruck concentration camp, Buber-Neumann fled at the end of the war, reaching safety with Anglo-American forces just ahead of the advancing Soviet troops. [Koch, Stephen,"Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals", New York: Enigma Books (2004), Revised Edition, ISBN 1929631200] In June 1940, Münzenberg fled from Paris to escape the German advance, where he had been making anti-Nazi broadcasts. His flight ended in the south of France, where a NKVD assassination squad finally caught up with him and hanged him from a tree. [Koch, Stephen,"Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals", New York: Enigma Books (2004), Revised Edition, ISBN 1929631200]

Quote

* "All news is lies and all propaganda is disguised as news."

Further reading

*"The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, 1917-1940", Sean McMeekin, 2004. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300098472
*"Double Lives : Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals", Stephen Koch, 1994, 1995. Enigma Books. ISBN 1929631200
*"KGB: The inside story of its foreign operations from Lenin to Gorbachev", Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, 1990. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0060166053
*"The Reichstag Fire" by Fritz Tobias, translated from the German by Arnold J. Pomerans, New York, Putnam 1964, 1963.

References

External links

* [http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/12/nov93/koch.htm Lying for the truth: Münzenberg & the Comintern]
* [http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2004aug14_b1.html The Red Millionaire]
* [http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=882 Willi Muenzenberg]
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040216/jacoby Willi the Red]