by Merilyn Moos
The UK government was very reluctant to admit all refugees from Nazism. By the 1930’s the tradition of granting asylum to refugees had been put on the political back burner, despite continuing claims of humanitarianism.130 After the 1938 pogrom, the leaders of the Jewish community (initially the Jewish Temporary Shelter, then the Jewish Refugee Committee), leaders of an established and ‘integrated’ Jewish community reached an agreement with the government that they would allow in some refugees, in exchange for guaranteeing that they would bear any costs of settlement. They became deeply involved in helping limit the numbers given permission to be admitted (London, 2000).
There was no legal obligation on the government to admit refugees and indeed, the government emphasised the policy of transit, not settlement for refugees, in a country considered to be overcrowded and which had mass unemployment. Nevertheless, until 1938 and the increasing number of exiles following Kristallnacht/1938 pogrom, relatively few refugees were turned back or expelled, though they were only offered temporary admittance, had to undergo regular applications to remain here and had severe restrictions on their rights to work. These early exiles found it almost impossible to obtain a work permit - only a few were favoured, and they were generally the best connected. The most common sources of employment were the BBC and the universities (Palmier, 251).
We don’t know why Siegi came here.131 It’s too easy to assume because he did, that this was inevitable. It cannot be ruled out that the Party directed him here.132 According to his son, it appears likely that Jürgen Kuczynski came to the UK because he was instructed to do so. Siegi’s India connections from only a couple of years earlier might have led the KPD to want him to build on his existing contacts. Or, as previously suggested, the Party may have wanted to protect their ‘intellectuals’, given that much of mainland Europe was looking increasingly unsafe. Or was Lotte being here Siegi’s main concern? Maybe, the imperatives coincided. I suspect both Siegi and Lotte realised that the UK was going to be the safest place to be, having understood far sooner than most the nature of Nazism and the balance of international forces. After all, they were only going to be in the UK till Nazism collapsed or was destroyed.
Siegi arrived in London in February 1934 and left for Oxford in 1938. 1938 is significant also because by then, he had left the KPD. These four years are crucial to chart the shifts in Siegi’s political development. This chapter will be divided into four sections. Firstly, Siegi’s political life, in particular his participation in the Communist exile group, will be examined. Then Siegi’s search for jobs and his legal insecurity as a refugee will be looked at. Intertwined with Siegi’s changing of allegiances is Lotte’s complicated trajectory. Siegi’s disengagement with the USSR and the KPD/CP will therefore be examined in the second section, along with his difficult personal life.
Background
From MI5 papers, we know that Siegi arrived in Folkestone either on 13.7.34 or, more likely, in February 1934 (The records are not consistent.) He had arrived in Paris, according to MI5 records, in August 1933. He had gone underground in Berlin at the end of February 1933 so it had taken him almost exactly a year before he arrived in London.
My mother arrived in the UK around four months before Siegi. But she had family in the UK, a most anglicised aunt in Hove, who ran a B and B, who agreed to officially provide Lotte with accommodation. Lotte writes about her arrival here in a couple of her stories. She tells of the generosity of the Immigration Officer, who, knowingly, did not ask too many questions. He did not, for example, ask her too closely about how much money my mother had. (A few pounds, my mother told me, also emphasising quite how hard it had been for her so save this small amount of money from her work as a bobineuse). Lotte wrote that she slipped away from her aunt’s after the first night, after her aunt had told her: ‘We don’t want troublemakers here’. Whether Lotte really preferred to be in London, penniless and friendless, is questionable; what seems more likely is she suffered her aunt for just long enough to make some contacts in London. The aunt had served her function. Siegi, with a wife safely on British shores, will probably have had an easier time of getting in himself.
There were a variety of organisations here, in particular the British-German Relief Committee.133 The committee was supported by a roll call of the radical literati and socialists, including Havelock Ellis, Harry Pollitt, Sylvia Pankhurst, Isabel Brown, and Ellen Wilkinson (who earlier appeared in Saarland) and Saklatvala, whom we earlier encountered in the India connection.134 Of particular relevance to Siegi is the support of Brockway and Maxton. Most of the many Jewish organisations and Jewish exile support groups in the UK, however, wanted as little as possible to do with the left refugee groups (Pennybacker, 2009).135
A meeting organised by the Relief Committee in May 1933 was attended by around 2500 people, including Toller and a variety of British ‘literati‘, for example Bertrand Russell, Wilkinson, Saklatvala, and Maxton, though some in the Labour Party tried to prevent any association with ‘Communists and Trotskyists’ (Pennybacker, 2006). Other meetings were to follow, at which, amongst others, Wilkinson spoke - against the Labour Party line - on her work in Saarland. Toller, whom we last met manning the barricades in Munich and being sent off to prison, now has re-appeared - as an ILP contact.136 (Toller provides another possible conduit between Siegi and Maxton. My father spoke of him with noticeable warmth.) Toller, who had a well-deserved literary reputation by 1933, provided the link between the ILP and an illegal network of assistance for the German underground (Pennybacker, 2009). As Dove and Lamb (1995) argue, Toller was more successful alerting the English to the dangers of Nazism than any of the other exiles.
It was far from easy to get into this country (even if it now boasts of how generously it took in poor fleeing Jews), especially if the refugee was political, even worse a Communist.137 Siegi required sponsorship. He told me that he got into the UK because the Independent Labour Party (ILP) MP, Maxton, sponsored him.138
Getting an MP’s sponsorship was difficult and Siegi was not after all a prominent figure like Toller; indeed Siegi seems to have specialised in remaining invisible. Any explanation has to be conjecture. My mother appears to have had some sort of ILP contacts – she told me she had attended - at least - one ILP camp/summer school. (The ILP did not restrict their summer schools and camps to a cadre or members, though the schools were held in August (from G. Cohen’s personal communication) so not at the right time in either 1933 or 1934 for Lotte to approach Maxton to gain his support for Siegi). But her attendance suggests she was at least on the margins of the ILP or knew somebody who was attached to the ILP. The mother I knew would not have hesitated to go up to Maxton at one of the many meetings or gatherings he attended during this period, especially as Maxton was highly approachable.139
Lotte may also have been in touch with Mr Wood. My hunch (or maybe a scrap of memory) is that Lotte made contact with Mr Wood when she first arrived here through a refugee organisation. But this contact could well have been reinforced through the ILP network. Mr Ronald Wood was an active Labour member (indeed he became leader of the long-deceased London County Council), who, according to MI5 notes, was an ardent Communist - which he was not. But he was on the left of the Labour Party, and might well have passed through the ILP first. One of the first places Lotte and Siegi, once again reunited, went to stay in London was at the Woods, which, if I remember it right, was in Richmond. The Woods were to support Lotte and Siegi from early on in their repeated and exhausting attempts not to be thrown out of the country and became long-standing family friends.140 Another ILP route to Maxton could have also been via Toller.
It is also possible that Siegi’s earlier Indian links had put him in contact with Saklatvala (see earlier for details), no longer an MP, but who had been involved in the India-Russia oil nexus and who had close links with Maxton, via the International League against Imperialism and Parliament (both elected in 1922).
But there is also a possibility that the Münzenberg - Ma
xton link from the League against Imperialism also lay behind the Maxton sponsorship. Münzenberg, as discussed in the India section above, was also involved in the Russia-India negotiations and will almost certainly have known Siegi while they were both in Berlin. Münzenberg also fled to Paris, indeed via Saarland - so the probability is that Siegi and Münzenberg would have met in one or other place. But the likelihood of a Maxton-Münzenberg link providing the critical conduit has to be balanced against the known tension between the KPD/CP and the ILP by the early 1930s. Maxton, representing an ILP line towards the Stalinists, may not have been on especially friendly terms with a member of the KPD.141 But in a personal communication, Gidon Cohen wrote: ‘For what it is worth I wouldn’t have thought that the opposing factions (even of a virulent kind) would prevent sponsorship. The ILP’s political outlook was much more ecumenical that the Communists - and given his [Maxton’s] personality I don’t think the factional issue would have mattered greatly to Maxton with respect to such ‘human’ matters. At the same time Münzenberg would have been aware that Maxton’s position as an MP was of considerable value in this regard.’142 Between Siegi and Lotte’s political contacts, Siegi was one of the lucky few to gain access to the UK.
It is in line with Maxton’s general approach to the issue of German exiles that he was willing to sponsor Siegi. Maxton took the issue of German exiles seriously enough to raise the matter in the House of Commons. As early as the 16th November 1933, he asked of the Home Secretary: ‘Is the Right Hon. Gentleman putting any difficulties in the way of Germans landing here—difficulties that would not apply to the nationals of any other country?‘ While he got the inevitable denial, it can be assumed that Maxton suspected that what he was asking about was indeed the case - and he therefore must have received information to that effect, maybe from the British German Relief Committee (see earlier endnote) that he supported, maybe from individual casework, maybe both. The exact date of Maxton’s question raises a further speculation. Siegi had arrived in Paris, Lotte in London, and, though it is only conjecture, I wonder whether Maxton had already been approached about sponsoring Siegi.
But the anti-refugee context of Maxton’s question is revealed by the more general tone of the Commons debate. The subsequent question during the same debate was from Lord Stone: ‘Was the Home Secretary satisfied that no British professional men or skilled workers were being deprived of their livelihood through the competition of political refugees?‘ (My emphasis) So, though the number of political refugees was unlikely to have been more than a couple of dozen by November 1933, a scare was already being stirred up about their taking jobs.
There were subsequent questions about Jewish German refugees. I give two extracts from the speech of Mr Gilmore at some length to give a taste of official thinking of the time and the difficulties faced my ‘aliens’ such as Siegi. The Home secretary, Mr Gilmore, who had succeeded Samuel as the Tory Home Secretary in the second Coalition Government, stated: ‘Any foreigner seeking admission to this country is required under the Aliens Order, 1920, to satisfy the immigration officer that he is in a position to support himself and his dependants and, if he is desirous of entering the service of an employer in the United Kingdom, leave to land cannot be granted to him unless he is in possession of a permit issued to his prospective employer by the Minister of Labour. If an immigration officer thinks fit, he may, in granting leave to land, attach a time condition limiting the alien’s stay in the country. …An alien who is given leave to land as a visitor is not at liberty to take up employment or otherwise establish himself in this country without my consent. On any application for employment which is made to me, my practice is to consult my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. While the Government has every desire to accord sympathetic and liberal treatment to persons who have been obliged through force of circumstances to leave Germany and have been admitted to this country as visitors, the policy of the Government, as announced on several occasions, is to give first consideration to the interests of our own people and no consent to employment is given unless it is clear that no displacement of British subjects will result…’ Gilmour ended up by saying: ‘I am fully satisfied that the system of immigration control is adequate to secure that undesirable aliens, whether or not they represent themselves to be refugees, are not admitted to this country.’(HC Deb, 16 November 1933, vol 281 cc1094-5)
Asked persistently about numbers of German political and Jewish refugees entering the UK, Gilmour did not appear to have the answer. Maxton was unusual in his proclaimed sympathies towards the exiles in the House of Commons.
We know very little about what Siegi did when he first got here. Thanks to HO papers, we know that he was a student at the LSE in 1934. The Home Office was watching both him and Lotte, and opening their mail from 12th March 1934, so very soon after Siegi’s arrival here and maybe precipitated by his arrival. Judging from the files, one can assume this was because they were suspected of having ‘Communist sympathies’. Even at this point, MI5 appear to be more suspicious of Lotte than Siegi whom they thought was a bone fide student. Both of them were already being watched. In 1934, Lotte obtained a few hours teaching in a language school but I have not found evidence of any other source of income for their first couple of years in London. But Siegi received monthly a tiny but I suspect crucial hand-out from his beloved uncle, Hermann, in Munich. Forbidden to work, in these early months, Lotte and Siegi must have lived largely on thin air.143
1934-1937 Siegi’s political life: the KPD group in exile
Siegi joined the KPD group in exile. It must have seemed like a safe port to shelter in during a life-threatening storm, where he could share a political language, indeed the very language he spoke, with comrades who had endured similar perils to himself and would understand what he had gone through and whom he had become.
A document obtained from the Bundesarchiv stated that Siegi ‘was put in by us as group leader, [of the KPD exile group] the only active and willing comrade.’ This certainly suggests he was under some form of ‘instruction‘. The group’s membership, again drawn from the Bundesarchiv list, is illustrious. It constituted, or at least included: Guenther Reimann (for details, see earlier endnote), Rosa Leviné Meyer, her son Genja Leviné, her stepson Rudi Meyer, Ernst Meyer (known as Ernst Hermann Meyer, presumably to distinguish him from Rosa’s former partner), a musician/music critic and his unnamed wife (Ilse Meyer), Lucia Moholy (a well-known Bauhaus photographer and partner of Theodore Neubauer, who was to become a major Communist resistance hero), Edith Bone, Lisa Cocker, Egon Schulenburg, Max Berger, Heinero Cassirer, Paul Berliner, Hans Eisler and his wife Lou Jolesch (“temporarily”), the unnamed daughter of the CP academic Prof Kuczynski, Gerhard Friedlander (son of Ruth Fischer and Paul Friedlander), and Siegfried Moos.
Significantly, MI5 files also confirm Siegi as a member of this exile group between 1934 and 1937. But the exact date of the list is clearly significant, if for no other reason than to show when Siegi became active in the exiled KPD group. But this is difficult to pin down. The dating of the list can be limited to the period Gunter Reimann was in the UK: he could not have arrived in the UK until late 1934 and he left again for the USA probably around late 1937 (from Michael Hrebeniak’s obituary, Guardian 1.3.05) Hans Eisler’s presence here also confirms this rough time line. Eisler, famous as a left-wing musician and associate of Brecht - and a friend of Siegi’s - had the good fortune to be performing in Vienna at the time when Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Instead of returning to Germany, he visited many European cities, including London (and Spain to support the International Brigades), finally settling in the USA in 1938.
A closer look at this roll-call of German comrades suggests one reason why Siegi may have been favoured in the 1934-36 period. Information on the membership of the London group of KPD exiles is again drawn from the Bundesarchiv. Rosa Leviné was seen as associated with the right opposition (and was, seen by Lotte as ‘poisonous’). Moholy was a ‘creative’ and possibly on
ly a nominal party member. Edith Bone was a functionary of the British Communist Party so maybe was not seen as suitable. (The Comintern’s position was the exile group should avoid contact with the British CP.) Cassirer was a student as, probably, was Kuczynski’s daughter, who is listed as ‘youth’ or ‘student‘. Two people are listed as ‘going to be isolated’ - Lisa Cocker on the request of ‘Paris’ and Schulenberg on the request of ‘Claus’. Max Berger was to lose all his functions i.e. was to be removed, and was subject to a Party investigation. Gerhard Friedlander is noted as wanting to be involved but under the influence of Fischer and Maslow, i.e. politically dodgy.
Ernst Hermann Meyer is the one exception to this list of ‘unsuitables’, but his exact role is open to debate. His participation in the group outlasted Siegi’s and, in one analysis (detailed below), appears to supplant Siegi.144 Leske (1983) states Meyer provided the leadership within the group, though the date and Leske’s sources are not clear, casting some doubts over her analysis. (The reasons to question this analysis are developed on below.) She has Meyer, i.e. not Kuczynski (or Moos), as providing the political leadership for the KPD exile group in the UK and being the contact person with Paris, an unusual analysis. It is possible – but seems unlikely-that Meyer had this latter role and, because of its importance, Leske generalised from this. Meyer, who was able to travel in a way Siegi could not, may have provided the - or at least one - international link with the KPD Paris exile network, while Siegi, in the first two or so years the exile group existed, remained the ‘org’ man in London. But there is the other very real possibility, judging from Kuczynski’s memoir and from a conversation with Kuczynski’s son: that it was Kuczynski who travelled regularly between London and the KPD HQ in Paris. The overall impression is of a discordant organisation, made up of people who were used to swimming in a large pool, now jockeying for political position in a very small bowl.