Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-08-08
By JAN VALTM

great exodus of the army OF
Comintern officials who had
pitched camp in Germany for
nearly a decade and a half.
My band dispersed. Alone
and in pairs we returned to
German soil, some using the
autobus line which followed
the coast, other going by
train. My comrades had a
chance here TO escape to
safety. if they had wished to.
instead of returning TO the
German powder barrel, but
none of them deserted. Their
loyalty was their honor.
The German election battle
was in full swing. The usual
Communist mass rallies and
demonstrations had long been
wed. Thousands OF
smaller meetings were car
ried through instead. Many
illegal demonstrations. staged
behind an armed vanguard of
the Red Front Guards took
place simultaneously in six or
seven different parts OF the
city.
In utmost secrecy numerous
party members were detailed
TO join the Nazi formations.
All official party bureaus were
abandoned. Secret offices
and courier centerS Sprang up
in the tenements and the
backrooms of retail stores.
arms depots were moved to
safer places, secret printing
plants were established in at
tics and Easements in ever-in-
creasing numbers.
The foreign division OF the
GPU in Hamburg re-estab-
lished itself behind the shield
of a shoemaker's shop. And
the party's military organiza-
ton headquarters took on the
facade of the Prometheus
Publishing Company.
FIND SPIES
There were spies and trail
tors in our midst. One OF
them was Joseph Bleser. who
was a chauffeur in the central
courier service. Agents of the
Communist S-Apparat, work
ing at the Berlin police head
quarters, found that Bleser
was storm trooper in the
pay Of Doctor Diels. head of
the political police in Prussia.
But the spy. was warned
and vanished. There was a
rumor that he had come 10
II a m burg. From Michael
Avatin 1 received photo
graph description OF the man
together with orders to watch
the Nazi shipping centers. for
Bleser had once been a navy
man. In the last day Of
February I received a note 10
stop the search. Bleser had
been assassinated.
BY keeping his wife under
surveillance, the German GPU
operatives had traced the spy
TO a room in the Hoechst dis
trict of Frankfort on the
Main. At night they had fol-
lowed him and shot him TO
death in the KasinostraSse.
He was only one of many who
ended in this fashion.
In the waterfront districts
of Hamburg, and in the in
dustrial suburbs no uniformed
Nazi showed his face> Red
flags, with hammer and sickle,
flew from hundreds Of win
dows, often in a single street.
Red banners crossed the
streets from house TO house.
The inscriptions on the ban
ners and countless posters
on the housewalls shouted:
"k o I'M m u n stem I'm den
Reichstag. Tod dem Faschis-
mus! Vote for Thaelmann,
PECK, Clara Zetkin, Woll-
weber, Heckert."
The National Socialist press
carried in every headline a
curse on communism.
Death, death, DEATH" was
the eternal refrain.
In Berlin. Captain Goering
had been commissioned to set
up a new type of secret
police-the Geheime Stats
polizei-the Gestapo.
What did it mean? I dis
cussed il with Edgar Andree,
who had called on Firelei to
design for him the head of a
new paper for the Reichswehr
soldiers. Andree smiled
grimly.
The devils are trying 10
initiate our own GPU," he
said.