Willi Münzenberg (August 14th 1889; † October 21st 1940) was one of the founders of the German Communist party ( Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands ), and key propagandist of the Komintern in the world in the two world wars. He was also secretary of the Internationale Communist youths (founded in 1919 with Berlin).
Biography
Born with Erfurt, wire of a café owner, he works in a factory of shoes. Revolutionary autodidact, it is implied in the German Democratic Social Party ( Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands SPD) and becomes chief of the " Youths socialistes".In 1914, the entry in war leads the SPD to divide between a moderate majority and a radical minority USPD ( Unabhängige SPD ) to which joins Münzenberg. Antimilitarist, it passes the war to Zurich, where it binds friendship with Lénine.
Expelled by the Swiss in 1917, it returns in Germany and joined the movement Spartakiste. It is one of the founders of the German Communist party ( Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands KPD) in 1919 and the International one of Communist youths in November 1919.
Lénine calls Münzenberg with Moscow where this one begins a career of effective organizer and propagandist. In 1921, it organizes an immense operation of help for the benefit of the victims of the famines in Russia. It also founds the working Secours International . In both cases, it is a question of mobilizing energies and means with the help of the Révolution of October.
At the same time, Münzenberg works in close relationship to the Komintern and the secret services (i.e the Tchéka between 1917 and 1922, then the Guépéou until 1934) to advance the communist cause in the world. It founded a vast network of companies aiming at magnifier the Soviet experiment in all the fields: press (it launched Arbeiterillustrierte Zeitun (AIZ) in 1921, the largest working illustrated weekly magazine of the years 1920-30), cinema (it produces the film the Battleship Potemkine of Eisenstein), editions, multiple organizations propagating the cause communist ( World Ligue against Impérialisme , International Working Secours , etc).
To dissimulate the origin of these organizations, those were " masquées" by a " front" other organizations whose whole was known under the name of Trust Münzenberg .
Opposed to the movement Nazi, it organized in 1932, with Amsterdam, the international Congrès against Fascism and the war whose spirit does not move away from the line of the Komintern.
Münzenberg organized in London and Paris of the against-lawsuit implying the Nazis in the Incendie of the Reichstag and published celebrates it Brown Livre on terror hitlérienne and Reichstag sets fire to it. In 1933, the persecution of the Communists by the Nazi regime forces Münzenberg to be exiled in France. It continues there its activity of propaganda to the Comintern, assisted by Arthur Koestler.
At the time of the War of Spain, Münzenberg defends the republican mode, then with the assistance of Arthur Koestler, the Brown Book publishes Terror Nazi in Spain .
In 1937, he is recalled to Moscow at the time of the great Soviet terror but avoids going there. He was expelled of KPD in 1937 and the Komintern in 1938.
In May 1940, fearing a " fifth colonne" , French interns the German and Austrian emigrants. Münzenberg is transferred in a camp close to Lyon. To the approach of German divisions, Münzenberg and some other prisoners manage to escape. Münzenberg disparaîtt. One will find his body in October 1940, without being able to determine if it were suivicé or were assassinated by the Gestapo or by the agents of Stalin.
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