Wilhelm Müntzenberg ( him. Wilhelm Münzenberg ; August 14, 1889 , Erfurt - October 21, 1940 , Saint-Marcellin ) - German Communist, publisher, Comintern activist and founder of International Work Aid .
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Biography
Born in the family of an innkeeper, in his youth he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany . In 1914, he entered the radical minority of the SPD, which opposed the war and formed the NSGTD . In April 1915, at the Bern International Socialist Youth Conference, he was elected General Secretary of the International Youth Secretariat. During the war he often met with Lenin in Switzerland. In early 1920, he organized the International Fund for Assistance to Workers, which officially raised money to help the starving people of the Volga region , but also carried out major commercial activities. . Mezhrabpom owned its own film studios, including the largest Soviet film studio Mezhrabpom-Rus , dozens of magazines and newspapers around the world . The Münzenberg Trust brought good profits . Münzenberg himself was called the “red millionaire” and noted that he was accustomed to living in style . In 1924, Münzenberg was elected to the Reichstag from the German Communist Party . In 1927, Münzenberg became one of the founders of the Anti-Imperialist League in Brussels.
After Hitler came to power in 1933, Münzenberg, together with Babette Gross, emigrated to France. Here he published The Brown Book of Hitler's Terror and Arson of the Reichstag , which was translated into more than 20 languages and became an important element of anti-fascist propaganda. She is considered one of the greatest propaganda successes in the entire history of the Comintern. .
In France, Münzenberg organized the World Society of Assistance to the Victims of German Fascism, held an international anti-fascist congress of cultural figures in Paris in 1935. In 1936 he participated in the organization of international brigades to participate in the Spanish Civil War . In the same year, he criticized Stalinism , in connection with which, in 1937, at the request of Walter Ulbricht , Münzenberg was removed from the CPG Central Committee. On August 22, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed in Moscow. Willy Münzenberg was sharply opposed. “Stalin, you are a traitor!” He writes boldly. Then he published a long article in the anti-Nazi journal Zukunft and in 1939 was expelled from the party. In 1939–1940, he worked on French radio, organizing broadcasting to Germany.
In June 1940, he fled from Paris, fleeing the advancing Germans. October 21, 1940 was found by hunters hanged in the forest.
Notes
- 2 1 2 3 German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 118585541 // Common Regulatory Control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- B BNF ID : Open Data Platform - 2011.
- ↑ SNAC - 2010.
Proceedings
- Socialist organizations of youth before and during the First World War. M .: Librocom, 2012
Literature
- The Red Millionaire: Moscow’s Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, 1917–1940 , Sean McMeekin, 2004. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09847-2
- Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of Intellectuals , Stephen Koch, 1994, 1995. Enigma Books. ISBN 1-929631-20-0