by Merilyn Moos
Siegi and Lotte also knew Edith Bone (nee Edit Hajós). We know this courtesy of the notes on Lotte’s interrogation in Holloway, held by MI5.145 Siegi too must have been on personal terms with Edith in 1934. The contact was of great interest to MI5 who posted two policemen outside Bone’s flat, no doubt increasing Siegi and Lotte’s sense of insecurity and paranoia. Indeed, the files suggest that Siegi and Lotte’s relationship was of crucial interest to MI5. We now know, but, one assumes Lotte (and Siegi) did not know, that Edith Bone was a spy-master for, and not just a functionary of, the Communist Party.
Lotte protests that the link was no more than her and Siegi’s use of her bath as they lived nearby and their bath, which they shared with the other tenants in the house, was unbearably dirty. Lotte also stated that she did some photographic work for Edith, as this was a shared interest.146 (Lotte had trained as a photographer in Berlin.) Edith Bone introduces Lotte to Edith Tudor-Hart. Hart lived in Lawn Road, as did Lotte (though not Siegi) - MI5 was well aware that one block of flats at the bottom of the Lawn Road was a centre of left and Communist exiles, some of whom, such as Edith Tudor-Hart, MI5 perceived - accurately - as spies for the USSR.147 MI5 files also suggest that Lotte met her friend, Brian Goold-Verschoyles here, of which more anon. Two security men observed the comings and goings: whether Lotte’s contact with Edith was as casual as Lotte suggests in her interrogation or whether there were grounds for MI5’s suspicions, may now never be cleared up.
Günter Reimann’s (1904-2005) history also has interesting parallels to Siegi’s. He too walked out of Germany - it is worth observing who has to walk and who is still politically able (and can afford) to catch a train. Arriving in London in 1934 when he joined the exile group, he too left the KPD very early (though the exact date is under contention - see earlier endnote for more details on this interesting figure). Significantly, he was one of the people whom the Home Office threatened with deportation for indulging (maybe) in political activities, no doubt increasing the level of fear amongst this tiny refugee community.
No history of this little group of political exiles can omit the Kuczynski clan. Robert René Kuczynski (1876–1947), a well know economist, listed as a member of the exile group, has long been thought never to have been a member of the KPD, but it now appears that he was. Again, Siegi and Robert almost certainly knew each other. Robert had studied at the Universities of Munich and then Berlin. In 1933, Robert Kuczynski left Germany for the UK. A statistician, like Siegi, he was employed at the LSE and later became an advisor for the British Colonial Office.148
The list of KPD Exile members includes a reference to one student ‘child’ of Robert but it has not been possible to establish which one as all were in one way or another connected with the KPD, though most probably it was Sonia (from personal conversation with another daughter, Renata Simpson, 1.2010).
Jürgen Kuczynski (1904-1997), Robert’s son is of particular interest, as he became the head of the KPD émigré organisation (Childs’ obituary in the Independent: 13.8.1997, KV2/1871 and Jürgen’s son). Although he arrived in London in late 1936 and is therefore not on this list, he took over the leadership of the exile group from Siegi and, according to his son and Brinson and Dove (2014), took as frequent trips as was possible to meet the External leadership of the KPD in Paris.149
According to Childs, Jürgen studied economics at Berlin University, and after a stretch in the USA, joined the KPD in 1930, working as the economics editor of the main KPD paper Die Rote Fahne until it was banned by the Nazis in 1933. Unlike Siegi, Jürgen remained in Germany until 1936 as part of the Communist underground. His departure for London was, according to his son, probably a result of being directed to do so by the KPD leadership. In his biography, Jürgen dismisses the KPD exile group in a matter of sentences as essentially a group of disorganised intellectuals, dilettantes and student types.150
One small but corroborative piece of evidence, culled from MI5 files (KV2/12410) from 1935, is an anonymous letter, listing five members of the KPD exile group as ‘Communist agents and agitators for the KPD‘, including Siegi Moos. The source is unknown and its main interest is that it indicates that, to possess this level of detail, another of the exile group was giving MI5 information. Siegi would have expected this, I suspect, but, if this surmise gets near to the truth, it is indicative of the level of division and suspicion amongst these ‘comrades’. Nevertheless, if we assume the information is reliable, sometime in 1935, the total (presumably active) membership of this group had reduced to five!
There are however two other separate lists. In Exil, part of a series of books on the different countries the political exiles ended up, written under the aegis (and ideological influence) of the GDR, an almost completely different list is provided (the source of the following information is not given): Johann Fladwug, Meyer (the only name as in the first list), Louisa Neumann, Wittkowski and Kuczynski, (not yet in the UK when the first list was drawn up), and seen as the leading cadre of the group. The absence of a date and the different composition of the list leads to the supposition that this list comes from later, probably 1937 or 1938, as it also does not include Siegi. Exil also states that there were only a dozen German Communists by 1938, and most of those from bourgeois, Jewish backgrounds. Only in 1939, did the size of the group grow, it states. Moreover, it states explicitly that the exile group took their leadership from the Central Committee of the KPD in Paris. They have Kuczynski, not Meyer, meeting there with Ulbricht, Dahlem, Gerhardt Eisler and Paul Merker, who had specific responsibility for the UK.
But there is a third separate list of members of the KPD exile group from 1937 by Leske. Siegi’s name is again not on it. The only overlap between the original list and this one is Meyer and the only overlap between the Exil list, immediately above, and this list, are Meyer and Kuczynski. The source of Leske’s list of party members is not referenced, so we can’t know how reliable it is. Brought out in 1983 in Berlin, E. Germany, it has to be read and understood within the limits of that context.
Besides Jürgen Kuczynski and Meyer, the other members, according to Leske, are Luise Dornemann, Ruth Edwards, Heinz Kammitzer, Margaret Mynatt, Jan Petersen, Hans Siebert and Grete Vittkowski, Hermann Duncker,*151 Johann Fladung,* and Jan Petersen (*labelled as ‘outcasts’). Also listed are Alfred Meusel and his wife, though they are stated as not being Party members.
A letter from Ilse Meyer, dated 30 September 1993 confirms they (undefined) founded a KPD group in exile in 1934 with about twelve members.152 Ilse Meyer is not included in this list but was included, even though only as a ‘wife’, in the KPD list.153 The KPD exile group liaison with the UKCP was Margaret Mynatt, (included in this list but not the KPD list), whose father was British and who therefore possessed British nationality.154
Siegfried Moos is not on either of the two later lists, whether because he had stood down by the time the lists were drawn up, or had been asked to leave his leadership post, presumably to make way for Jürgen, the more senior figure in the Party, in late 1936 or early 1937. But significantly Siegi is not even listed as a member. Had he left completely or has he been written out of history?
But the puzzle is greater than that. While we know that at least some of the original list left for the USA and that three names were already labelled as ‘outcasts’, how does one explain that when so few KPD members were arriving in the UK, that the later list is almost completely different? Arguably, the difference between 1934 and 1937 could be explained by people dropping or being thrown out. But there is no easy explanation for the differences in the two lists which theoretically relate to the same period, except that, by 1937, membership had become a loose affair - or that one or both sources are inaccurate.
How is one to interpret that Siegi does not appear in Jürgen’s autobiography, the Exil list or in Leske’s study? One possibility is that the list and comments from the Bundesarchiv are inaccurate. But this seems exceedingly unlikely. It was, after all, a contemporary list, drawn up
at the time - and crucially confirmed by MI5. More likely, Siegi was subsequently ‘cut out’ because he left the KPD, possibly doubly damned because - and this is only guesswork - he did not just fade away but gave voice to dissident and heretic views. We now know how comrades who left Communist Parties or indeed were seen ‘merely’ as oppositionists by the Stalinist apparatus, were airbrushed out of history.155
One has to question what Leske’s source/s were and their reliability and look at the motivation behind this historiography - both Meyer and Jürgen survive and return to E Germany and both, in different forms, became its heroes. Siegi certainly did not. Even as late as the early 1980’s when Leske’s PhD was being written, the Stalinist bureaucracy, in this case in the form of the E Germany Institute for Marxism-Leninism, maintained its hold on what constituted legitimate memories of the past, even, I suggest, in so minor a matter as who led the KPD group in exile in London between 1934 and 1936/7!
Yet Leske’s thesis does give some information, even if from a limited view, of the exile group’s activities in the 1934-36/7 period, though its concerns are clearly more with the later part of this period. (This maybe because of the sources available to or sought out by her).156 It presents a view of a Party undivided theoretically and organisationally, which we know not to be the case. Indeed, the rapid turnover of people, just revealed, indicates a level of disaffection, which, I suggest, is not just due to comrades ‘dropping out’.
Leske (1983) acknowledges that there is an absence of material about KPD exile groups in the period between 1934 and 1945 (which this still holds). She does however state that very few Communists were able to come to the UK in 1933, with a maximum membership in the group of fifteen up till 1938, and then made up almost entirely of intellectuals and Jews (Leske, 1983). The London exile group was very loose. Leske emphasises. Moreover, and this is borne out by other research, it was very difficult for KPD members to be open about their political affiliations in the UK, and even more their KPD membership, for fear of firstly not being admitted and then, being excluded from the UK. This inevitably made any political work very difficult.
Apparently, one task for this group was to make contacts with UK journalists, though on an individual basis. Leske states that the first political activity was in spring 1934 but she does not elaborate on what this work was or who was responsible for it (though it seems reasonable to suggest it was Siegi, as this is the point he arrived in London and presumably became involved).
Leske also confirms that it was the Paris KPD leadership that had responsibility for exile groups. Here, she claims, Meyer met with Paul Merker, who had specific responsibility for British exiles.157 According to Leske, from 1936, both Meyer and Jürgen Kuczynski met with Ulbricht, Dalem, Gerhardt Eisler and Paul Mercher from the KPD CC in Paris.
The purpose of the KPD exile group, Leske suggests, was to work with anti-fascist émigrés, although Leske does not provide a date for this. This was more difficult than it sounds because of the refugees’ fear of being deported by the British State. (Indeed, arguably, British intelligence - who wished to build up internal opposition within Germany to destabilise it - could have made far fuller use of the KPD group with their contacts in Germany, rather than pushing them into the political shadowland.) Others worried because of the possibility of retribution against relatives left in Germany. Others dropped out of politics. She does make clear that by 1936, the position of the exile group was for ‘united front’ work’, as directed by the Paris Commission. But it seems as if here, as elsewhere, the exiled Social Democrats were not willing to collaborate. Leske, possibly accurately, sees the SPD and all the other left émigré organisations as essentially inactive. There was one exception: Neue Beginnen, though by then a splinter group of the SPD, were willing to work alongside the KPD comrades. Regular educational meetings were held under Hermann Dunker who was in the UK till 1937. The lessons of the 1935 Brussels Conference (for a united front) and the later Bern Conference of 1939 were presented.
From 1936, a ‘near-party’ was established for sympathisers, which also held educational meetings, led by Hans Kamnitzer, a young anti-fascist. This information helps makes sense of one of Lotte’s statements in her interrogation in Holloway when she said, disparagingly, that she had nothing to do with the inner or outer groups. This level of detail on her part does however suggest that she, and therefore probably Siegi, were still in one way or another in touch with the KPD at this point. This inner/outer distinction suggests the exile group were maintaining at least in a formal sense the Leninist tradition; the outer meetings were the united front.158 It may also help explain the differences in lists for around 1937. Sometime between 1936 and 1937, Siegi leaves the exile group. My guess, elaborated on later, is that it was early 1937.
What happened in the exile group after Siegi had left are not fundamental to this story but are worth mentioning briefly. Although again Leske does not provide dates, she states that the tasks of the exile group became to send propaganda into Germany and to propagandise in Britain. It is not possible to know when this shift from building within the émigré group to these much broader horizons took place, but most probably after Siegi’s departure. At some point, though again this is not dated, the group wanted to publish their own newsletter to be sent to the press and government agencies, as well as the German émigré community. Meyer was to be responsible. (Given Siegi’s lengthy experience with writing for and producing left journals in Germany, this choice by the leadership, assuming Leske is accurate on this point, certainly suggests that either Siegi was no longer trusted or no longer available.) Remarkably, Paul Robeson saves the impending financial crisis with a gift of £500 and a statement of solidarity (Robeson was a regular on our wind-up gramophone in my parents’ house). So, ‘Germany Today‘ was born, to be renamed ‘Inside Germany’ in 1939 (confirmed in Ilse Meyer’s letter). The first editor was Ilse Meyer. The effects of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia was to dramatically increase the size of the group to 400 people (from around 15!), which alone made for a need for a new strategy.
A different view on the exile group is however presented by Merson (1986). Though he does not refer specifically to the London group, unlike Leske, he does give a sense of the debates going on generally in émigré circles around 1934. He argues that the Third Period line was fizzling out after a decision by the KPD Central Committee in July 1934, though a majority of the Politburo still supported an ultra-leftist position. Pieck and Ulbricht were the only ones to support the Popular Front line. In August and September 1934, Pieck and Ulbricht actually published articles arguing for the importance of approaching the SPD groups with a view to common action around broadly based demands. The positive response of some of the left-wing members of the SPD EC who nevertheless insisted there should be no set conditions, caused a major divergence of opinion amongst the KPD, which Merson (1986) argues threatened to split the party. The commission of the EC of the Comintern intervened on 27 October coming down heavily for Ulbricht and Pieck. Apparently, these serious disagreements almost featured in the émigré press, though Merson does not elaborate on what that means (Merson, 1986).It is only in October 1935, at the KPD’s ‘Brussels Conference’, that there is a clear call for united action between the workers’ parties (Palmier). Rather later on, in 1936, Merson (1986) tells us of the Peoples Front movement amongst German exiles centred on Paris, which Palmier bears out - one can infer this position probably also surfaced in London, even though issues around the Popular Front were not so pressing here as in France or Spain. We shall not go into the details of these debates because there is no lead as to Siegi’s position or indeed what was discussed in the UK, though we can be sure that Siegi would have been involved.
Again, Lotte’s testimony to her interrogators in Holloway prison afford us a brief glimpse of the nature of this group of KPD exiles and one of the reasons for Siegi’s departure. As already explained, Lotte’s testimony, especially within the context of an MI5 interrogation, has to b
e understood within that context. Nevertheless, her description of the group was that it was loose, made up as much by ex-KPD members as members - ex-members because they had not gained permission from the Party before leaving Germany, some of whom were consequently expelled. (This bears out that Siegi had had permission to leave.) Lotte told her interrogators that the purpose of the group was to bring down fascism, not to bring down democracy. Interrogated during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact, Lotte was making clear that she at least believed in democracy. She also stated that the group were fairly inconsequential - but she is being interviewed in 1940, so one needs to read this comment in that light. The example she gives of discussion in the group was their objecting to the USSR sending tractors to Germany, something most stalwart Stalinists as well as non-Stalinists could agree to disagree with, as she would well have known! She assures her interrogators, though we cannot know the truth of this, that this group were not part of her or Siegi’s network of friends.
Lotte’s testimony suggests Siegi left in 1937. She left, she explains, because of Brian (see subsequent section) and also because of events in Barcelona (the shooting of the POUM by Stalinist forces). Though she does not explicitly state why, she writes that Siegi also left then, leaving open the interpretation that these were two of the core reasons for him also.
So it seems unlikely that Jürgen Kuczynski’s taking over the group in late 1936 was in itself the reason for Siegi’s leaving the group, though it probably did not help. Lotte only returned from the USSR with her tales of what was really happening there in September 1936 and it would have taken Siegi a few months to consider the implications of what she was telling him. Brian only ‘disappears’ in 1937. My guestimate is that Siegi left the KPD and the exile group in early 1937, before the other two lists were drawn up. In August 1937, Siegi writes to Lotte, who is in France looking for a trace of Brian, a heart-breaking letter, stating that he can now only live for her, as his past beliefs have been destroyed. Clearly by then, Siegi had left.