Talk:Willi Münzenberg

Tunnels

"In particular, Tobias revealed that the “secret tunnels’ that supposedly allowed the Nazis to enter and leave the Reichstag unseen never existed."

There were actually tunnels connecting Goering's and the Reichstag. It's funny to see Tobias quoted as reliable. Wintceas 01:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Somebody messed up. Tobias says no such thing about tunnels not existing, but rather reveals the tunnels were for water piping, and were quite unusable for allowing people to enter the Reichstag, and that Münzenberg misrepresented the water tunnels as something that they were not.--72.142.243.241 07:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Murder

"It is generally believed that Münzenberg was murdered by the NKVD, the successor to the Soviet secret police service with which Münzenberg had once worked." Is there any supporting evidence for this conclusion?130.238.5.5 20:40, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

There is no firm evidence that Münzenberg was murdered as even the most recent investigations and research has thrown up no new evidence. Everything we know about what happened after his escape from the Chambaran internment camp and his death in the woods near the village of Montagne is based on a few vague eye-witness accounts and these are conflicting.

The article referenced is titled "The famed critical theorist is widely believed to have committed suicide while fleeing the Nazis. Was he actually murdered by Stalin's agents?" This is not very reasonable. The author also doesn't give any source for his quotation concerning Münzenberg.130.238.5.5 22:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I forgot to say that the critical theorist is Walter Benjamin. Also it is an obsession with right-wing writers to blame the deaths of leftist on the Soviet Union - psychologically it is because they were rejected by their own leftist groups, cf. eg. David Horowitz.

The record appears to be no one knows who committed the murder (and the killing does appear to be terroristic in nature, i.e. he was made an example of). The quote appears to be a reference to the last time he was seen alive; this needs to be sourced. Nobs01 00:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I had also read in other publications that he had simply committed suicide as the Nazis advanced into France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.10.83 (talk) 05:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

At present the plot which assumes a suicide looks like the most plausible one. Arthur Koestler, one of Münzenberg’s collaborators, was among the first in the early 1950s who stated a murder, Babette Gross, Münzenberg’s companion in life, presented the results of all efforts of research she had done in the biography published in 1967. She had to leave it open but emphasized her view, that Münzenberg was good-tempered in those days, a fact which would exclude a suicide. In an other way it was told by some of the people who had accompanied him, remembering a rather depressed and effete man. Moreover Gross mentioned a 25 year old man with red hair who had been very much interested in Münzenberg and who left the camp together with him. In fact he had been accompanied by a 41 year old German Communist emigrant. This man witnessed Münzenberg’s suicide and wrote a report about it in the midst of 1945 in Grenoble. The paper was transferred to the archive of the Comité “Allemagne Libre” pour l’Ouest (CALPO) in Paris and most probably handed over to the French Communist Party in 1947 or 1948. The suitcase reappeared in the 1980s and was given to the GDR. From 1988 on it was in the archive of the Institute for Marxism-Leninism and after more than 40 years discovered by Karlheinz Pech (Ein neuer Zeuge im Todesfall Willi Münzenberg, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 37 (1/1995): pp. 65–71). This report tallied with the record of the Gendarmerie Nationale which with some luck also was found after many years (Harald Wessel: „…hat sich offenbar selbst umgebracht“. Untersuchungsprotokoll zum Auffinden der Leiche Willi Münzenbergs am 17. Oktober 1940, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 33 (1/1991), pp. 73–79). After all it seems to be rather improbable that Münzenberg had become a victim of the NKVD. -- 92.229.146.243 (talk) 19:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not as quick to absolve the NKVD, GRU, and its wet teams. If it is an 'obsession' with 'right-wing writers' to blame the deaths of leftists on the Soviet Union, perhaps it is also an obsession with 'left wing writers' to ignore their own comrades when it comes to Stalin and his bloody record. He purged the internationalist communist community of hundreds of party members living abroad from 1936-1940. Politics aside, anyone interested in a balanced portrayal of history cannot ignore the extraordinary record of Soviet state security and its assassination teams in finding and eliminating Stalin's real or supposed enemies in the party. At the time of Münzenberg's escape from prison camp, Stalin was on the verge of completing a vast campaign of assassination of former Communist party leaders outside the Soviet Union (Leon Trotsky was one of the last in a long line of victims). The assassination campaign, personally ordered by Stalin, was well-planned, well-funded, determined, relentless, and worldwide in its scope, and only now is becoming somewhat better known thanks to a partial yet still incomplete trickle of records from the ex-Soviet security archives. Ulbricht's sudden appearance on a mission to persuade Münzenberg to voluntarily return to the Soviet Union followed a predictable and recurring pattern practiced against both Soviet and foreign party members living abroad at that time (a meeting with a trusted friend and party member preceded an attempt to kidnap or assassinate).

It is well known that Walter Ulbricht, ostensibly a Comintern representative, did not immediately return to the Soviet Union himself after visiting Münzenberg, but spent some time in Spain during the Civil War ensuring the orderly return and/or liquidation of Germans serving on the Republican side who were regarded as not sufficiently loyal to Stalin (some were sent to Moscow for trial, others were executed on the spot). It was during this exact same period that Stalin was ordering the recall and/or assassination of large numbers of foreign Communist party members of all backgrounds, many of far less political importance than Münzenberg. Many who disappeared or were found dead never raised their voice in public opposition to the policies of Stalin and the Soviet Union - unlike Münzenberg, who really tweaked the tail of the dragon with his published attacks on Stalin.

Münzenberg's fate was in fact ordained in 1937 by Stalin. In that year Georgi Dimitrov had noted in his diary of a private conversation with Stalin regarding Münzenberg, in which Stalin had exclaimed that "Münzenberg is a Trotskyist. If he comes (to Moscow), we will arrest him. Give some thought on how to best to lure him here." Had he gone back to Moscow he would have been tried and shot (as were most of his colleagues from the Zimmerwald days). So why does an assassination three years later seem so improbable, given what happened to Trotsky on the other side of the Atlantic, and who also met his end at the hands of a newly-acquired 'comrade' who turns out to be an NKVD assassin? It's also odd that a man who was incontestibly in mortal danger from both the Gestapo/SD AND the NKVD, who had just obtained his freedom, and who now had a real chance for survival via escape to a neutral country (most probably, Switzerland) - suddenly decided to hang himself in a wooded forest a few miles away, particularly when the eyewitnesses to his behavior during his last days (Hartig, Siemsen, etc.) all testified to his "high spirits".

As to the mysterious "41-year old German communist emigrant" this was none other than Heinz Hirth, who suddenly popped up in Chambaran in the final days before the Armistice. Hirth only got around to reporting his version of Münzenberg's death in 1945, not in a memoir, but in a special report to the postwar KPD (suggesting that it was motivated by something more than an innocent desire to reminisce about the early days). Hirth alone of all the alleged witnessees to Münzenberg's final days asserted that the latter was suffering "extraordinary nervous tension". He further stated that he had joined up with Münzenberg "in order to keep watch on him" (why??). He then claimed that while on the run Münzenberg belatedly decided to acknowledge his deviation from the party, confessing to Hirth that "he had committed very great errors that he could never make good", whereupon he began "crying uncontrollably". Hirth concluded his improbable story by stating that the very next day he found Münzenberg's body hanging from a tree. I think that suicide under these circumstances seems a LOT less likely than assassination by the NKVD, either directly or indirectly through a Stalinist party member such as Comrade Hirth. Dellant (talk) 16:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Much of the aforesaid tallies with the view presented in McMeekins The Red Millionaire, but as Michael Grutchfield stated in his review of this book [1], "McMeekin wisely allows that the evidence for this conclusion is no more than circumstantial." ----130.83.117.163 (talk) 14:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Arthur Koestler

The Arthur Koestler article mentions WM a couple of times, is it possible to get further information on their relationship?--MacRusgail 12:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Together with some French friends Münzenberg on 1933 founded a "World Society for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism" of which the Labour politician Lord Marley, vice president of the British House of Lords, became president. The Marley-committee ran an office in Rue Mondétour, for some time Münzenberg's headquarters. In autumn and winter 1933/34 it became some kind of transit camp for political active emigrants of all shades of opinion, who identified with the fight against fascism. Arthur Koestler and many others worked there for some time and then again followed their own ways. (Babette Gross, Willi Münzenberg. Eine politische Biographie, Stuttgart 1967, p. 255) 92.229.120.208 (talk) 19:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Death Date June or October?

Shouldn't the date of Münzenberg's death be changed? Münzenberg's body was discovered on October 21, but by that time, he had been dead for quite some time. The last time anybody saw Münzenberg alive was on June 21, 1940, so I would suggest that the date of his death be changed to June 1940. --A.S. Brown 19:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Willi Münzenberg

Why was Münzenberg not drafted during WW 1? Did he come from a Christian background ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.66.135.14 (talk) 11:31, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• The period from July 1910 to November 1918 is called Münzenberg's Swiss years. For visiting a meeting in Stockholm in 1917 he had to pass through Germany in a train. In Switzerland this engendered a press campaign denouncing his so noticeable and loudly presented anti-militarism and anti-patriotism as blah and a pose. In fact in early 1917 Münzenberg's military status has not been that of a conscientious objector. Due to a medical certificate he had an exemption from service at the outbreak of war. In the following years he repeatedly ignored requests for new medical checkups and thus could have been seen as a draft dodger. In October 1916 the German consulate general served him with a summons, in a medical checkup he was classified fit for work, once more he got an exemption from service. So he didn't have to travel through Germany as a conscientious objector. But in September 1917, when finally the call-up order reached him, he became a real draft dodger. After his return to Germany a common amnesty declared in November 1918 helped him out of a prison very soon. Nonetheless: In 1928 he celebrated the Red Army's 10th aniversary in a special edition of the AIZ. In Münzenberg's eyes this army was an expression of the power of the state, and he agreed with it. (Babette Gross, Willi Münzenberg. Eine politische Biographie, Stuttgart 1967, p. 78, 165) 141.13.170.2 (talk) 12:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View

This article doesn't retain a neutral point of view on Münzenberg. In particular, the charge that the organizations that he founded were simply Communist "Front Groups" with no mission of their own is something far from established. The notion of 'Front Groups' in the Popular Front period of the Communist International is in fact a contentious subject, with authors expressing a range of opinions on the value and relative independence of the groups in question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.231.51.149 (talk) 05:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I echo the complaint that this article does not maintain NPOV. I think some substantive writing on Münzenberg's earlier career as the head of the Young Communist International and WIR would go a long ways to balance out the melodramatic, espionage-tinged flavor of the article. The assertion that Münzenberg was killed by an NKVD hit squad in 1940 (!!!) is particularly dubious. Carrite (talk) 01:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Alain Dugrand and Frédéric Laurent (Willi Münzenberg. Artiste en révolution. 1889–1940, Paris, Librairie Arthème Fayard 2008, p. 392) stated that the role as a main «sergent recruteur», ascribed to him by writers in the 1980th, was not more than a legend, and that the «grand recrutement» of Soviet agents revealed as a fairy-tale after a look on the archives of the Comintern. Particularly the Philby story seems to be of no use in connection with Münzenberg.----141.13.170.175 (talk) 18:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I have marked the article with a {{POV}} tag. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 18:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The article as it is presently written (July 2011) seems very fair and uses neutral language, the POV tag is no longer justified in my view. Whether or not Münzenberg's front organizations allowed members any "independence" is irrelevant; their significance to an article on Münzenberg is that Münzenberg indisputably created them as a front to further Soviet and Comintern influence throughout the world by enlisting the unwitting assistance of progressives in defending the policies of the Soviet Union and the Communist International through the promotion of popular causes. To minimize this achievement is to minimize the historical record of Münzenberg's widely-acknowledged prowess as a great organizer and propagandist (using that term in a complimentary, not a pejorative way.).Dellant (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The article is still a bit of a mess but I'll pull the POV flag as it doesn't strike me the way it did a year ago. It can always be reflagged if someone differs. Carrite (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Since March 2011 the article has doubled its size but did it get better? The newest curiosity is the "garotte". You may really spoil a lot of work by adding speculations about Münzenberg's death, as it happened to Stephen Koch − obviously he didn't know anything about Hartig. Hartig: As you may read in his own record he had a tiff with Münzenberg as soon as they worked together as gardeners in Camp Chambaran. When he found out after some hours on the run that Münzenberg was in the group led by him, he was not fond of finding M. among the members. Alain Dugrand and Frédéric Laurent (Willi Münzenberg. Artiste en révolution (1889–1940). Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris 2008) have devoted 50 pages to a chapter "Epilogue" in their M.-biography, it is hardly to be fitted in a Wikipedia-article. Nonetheless they present a new person who might have been the "red haired youth" − he should be mentioned. ----130.83.117.163 (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I confused Hartig with Hirth. ----130.83.117.163 (talk) 15:03, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Front groups

It might be appropriate for someone to compile a list of the large number of organizations (presumed by some to be Communist front groups) that Münzenberg founded. Subsequent research on each of them might reveal sources that we could use for creating additional articles, or at least for starting a good amount of flailing Discussion. Snezzy (talk) 16:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Good luck! You should keep in mind that "Willy produced Committees as a conjurer produces rabbits out of his hat". (Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing, London 1954, p. 382)----141.13.170.175 (talk) 17:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the most appropriate way to sum up the “fronts” created by the Münzenberg “trust” would be to write an Otto Katz article. Simple listing of all these fronts might leave out their different purposes. In the Weimar era even bourgeoise book clubs (e.g. the Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft) were fronts as in fact they were no clubs but just a way of doing business − an idea picked up by the Münzenberg Universum Bücherei für Alle. The fronts around Éditions du Carrefour might have served to confuse Nazi spies, not with too much success. On fronts like the Thomas Mann committee Münzenberg later left no doubt about their only aim to hoodwink the public. ----130.83.117.163 (talk) 13:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Place of death?

I have moved the discussion from User talk:Petri Krohn #Willi Münzenberg. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

“...only two hundred yards from the camp.” From which “camp”?----141.13.170.175 (talk) 18:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

"the camp for foreigners at Chambaran in Lyon" from where he had just escaped? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

“Le plateau de Chambaran”, in France, is situated in the east of the “Département de l'Isère”, which is to be found in a remarkable distance to Lyon.----141.13.170.175 (talk) 18:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The forest “Le Caugnet” next to the village 38160 Montagne is situated 13 miles away from Camp de Chambaran.[2]----141.13.170.175 (talk) 18:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

More information provides the site “Les Chambarans de Roybon”.[3]----141.13.170.175 (talk) 16:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Marriage between Babette Gross and Otto Klepper?

"..., Babette Gross, who since 1940 had been living in Mexico with the former Prussian finance minister Otto Klepper, and who married him after returning to Paris in 1947." There is no mention of such a marriage in Astrid von Pufendorf's book Otto Klepper (1888 - 1957). Deutscher Patriot und Weltbürger (Oldenbourg Verlag, München 1997) − and she should have known. ----130.83.23.163 (talk) 13:10, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Direction of flight

From the "death" section: "he, the stranger, and several of Münzenberg's colleagues ... fled southward, in the direction of the Swiss border". Switzerland is north-east of where they had been imprisoned. I don't have access to the source cited, but this needs checking. Maproom (talk) 06:52, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Starting in Camp Chambaran it makes some sense first to go south to Saint-Marcelin and then follow the Isère to Grenoble (as the German troups would most probably come from the north).----130.83.197.103 (talk) 09:02, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment

This new biography brings the Münzenberg story up to date: Green, John, Willi Münzenberg - Fighter against Fascism and Stalinism, Routledge 2019 ----

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Willi Münzenberg/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

For an engaging, frightening, and sobering description of Münzenberg and his times, see "Sepharad" by Antonio Munoz Molina (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden), Chapter "münzenberg" starting page 123. Kirda (talk) 17:18, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 17:18, 6 January 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 10:35, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Murder or Suicide?

The main page states that Münzenberg was probably murdered, but User:Daniel Case says that since his death was ruled a suicide, the categories should match. Which cause of death should we go with? Maximajorian Viridio (talk) 01:58, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

You may read above in the section "Murder".----130.83.197.103 (talk) 20:16, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Margarete Buber-Neumann

"Margarete Buber-Neumann, Heinz Neumann's wife and the sister of his common-law wife Babette Gross, was arrested and 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 Ravensbrück concentration camp, she fled at the end of the war..."

Babette Gross was never imprisoned in Karaganda. For some time, she was interned in the Gurs internment camp near Pau in southern France.

The phrase "relative safety of Ravensbrück" is simply unacceptable and should be reconsidered. It is estimated that some 28000 people, most of them women and children, died from hunger and diseases or were deliberately killed. Among them Milena Jesenská (i. e. Franz Kafka's Milena), her best friend in the camp. See Buber-Neumann's own account "Under Two Dictators" (english 1949). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:5C7B:1100:3B4C:CE68:A77C:A3A9 (talk) 18:26, 6 July 2019 (UTC)