Talk:Willi Münzenberg

message: "In particular, Tobias revealed that the “secret tunnels’ that supposedly allowed the Nazis to enter and leave the Reichstag unseen never existed."
There were actually tunnels connecting Goering's and the Reichstag.  It's funny to see Tobias quoted as reliable. Wintceas 01:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tunnels

message: The Arthur Koestler article mentions WM a couple of times, is it possible to get further information on their relationship?--MacRusgail 12:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Together with some French friends Münzenberg on 1933 founded a "World Society for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism" of which the Labour politician Lord Marley, vice president of the British House of Lords, became president. The Marley-committee ran an office in Rue Mondétour, for some time Münzenberg's headquarters. In autumn and winter 1933/34 it became some kind of transit camp for political active emigrants of all shades of opinion, who identified with the fight against fascism. Arthur Koestler and many others worked there for some time and then again followed their own ways. (Babette Gross, Willi Münzenberg. Eine politische Biographie, Stuttgart 1967, p. 255)  92.229.120.208 (talk) 19:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arthur Koestler 

message: Shouldn't the date of Münzenberg's death be changed? Münzenberg's body was discovered on October 21, but by that time, he had been dead for quite some time. The last time anybody saw Münzenberg alive was on June 21, 1940, so I would suggest that the date of his death be changed to June 1940. --A.S. Brown 19:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Death Date June or October?

message: Why was Münzenberg not drafted during WW 1?
Did he come from a Christian background ?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.66.135.14 (talk) 11:31, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Willi Münzenberg 

message: This article doesn't retain a neutral point of view on Münzenberg. In particular, the charge that the organizations that he founded were simply Communist "Front Groups" with no mission of their own is something far from established. The notion of 'Front Groups' in the Popular Front period of the Communist International is in fact a contentious subject, with authors expressing a range of opinions on the value and relative independence of the groups in question.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.231.51.149 (talk) 05:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I echo the complaint that this article does not maintain NPOV. I think some substantive writing on Münzenberg's earlier career as the head of the Young Communist International and WIR would go a long ways to balance out the melodramatic, espionage-tinged flavor of the article. The assertion that Münzenberg was killed by an NKVD hit squad in 1940 (!!!) is particularly dubious. Carrite (talk) 01:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Alain Dugrand and Frédéric Laurent (Willi Münzenberg. Artiste en révolution. 1889–1940, Paris, Librairie Arthème Fayard 2008, p. 392) stated that the role as a main «sergent recruteur», ascribed to him by writers in the 1980th, was not more than a legend, and that the «grand recrutement» of Soviet agents revealed as a fairy-tale after a look on the archives of the Comintern. Particularly the Philby story seems to be of no use in connection with Münzenberg.----141.13.170.175 (talk) 18:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I have marked the article with a  tag. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 18:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

text: The article as it is presently written (July 2011) seems very fair and uses neutral language, the POV tag is no longer justified in my view.  Whether or not Münzenberg's front organizations allowed members any "independence" is irrelevant; their significance to an article on Münzenberg is that Münzenberg indisputably created them as a front to further Soviet and Comintern influence throughout the world by enlisting the unwitting assistance of progressives in defending the policies of the Soviet Union and the Communist International through the promotion of popular causes.  To minimize this achievement is to minimize the historical record of Münzenberg's widely-acknowledged prowess as a great organizer and propagandist (using that term in a complimentary, not a pejorative way.).Dellant (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  The article is still a bit of a mess but I'll pull the POV flag as it doesn't strike me the way it did a year ago. It can always be reflagged if someone differs. Carrite (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Since March 2011 the article has doubled its size but did it get better? The newest curiosity is the "garotte". You may really spoil a lot of work by adding speculations about Münzenberg's death, as it happened to Stephen Koch − obviously he didn't know anything about Hartig. Hartig: As you may read in his own record he had a tiff with Münzenberg as soon as they worked together as gardeners in Camp Chambaran. When he found out after some hours on the run that Münzenberg was in the group led by him, he was not fond of finding M. among the members. Alain Dugrand and Frédéric Laurent (Willi Münzenberg. Artiste en révolution (1889–1940). Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris 2008) have devoted 50 pages to a chapter "Epilogue" in their M.-biography, it is hardly to be fitted in a Wikipedia-article. Nonetheless they present a new person who might have been the "red haired youth" − he should be mentioned. ----130.83.117.163 (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Sorry, I confused Hartig with Hirth. ----130.83.117.163 (talk) 15:03, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral Point of View

message: It might be appropriate for someone to compile a list of the large number of organizations (presumed by some to be Communist front groups) that Münzenberg founded. Subsequent research on each of them might reveal sources that we could use for creating additional articles, or at least for starting a good amount of flailing Discussion. Snezzy (talk) 16:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good luck! You should keep in mind that "Willy produced Committees as a conjurer produces rabbits out of his hat". (Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing, London 1954, p. 382)----141.13.170.175 (talk) 17:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe the most appropriate way to sum up the “fronts” created by the Münzenberg “trust” would be to write an Otto Katz article. Simple listing of all these fronts might leave out their different purposes. In the Weimar era even bourgeoise book clubs (e.g. the Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft) were fronts as in fact they were no clubs but just a way of doing business − an idea picked up by the Münzenberg Universum Bücherei für Alle. The fronts around Éditions du Carrefour might have served to confuse Nazi spies, not with too much success. On fronts like the Thomas Mann committee Münzenberg later left no doubt about their only aim to hoodwink the public. ----130.83.117.163 (talk) 13:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Front groups 

message: :I have moved the discussion from User talk:Petri Krohn #Willi Münzenberg. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: "the camp for foreigners at Chambaran in Lyon" from where he had just escaped? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: “Le plateau de Chambaran”, in France, is situated in the east of the “Département de l'Isère”, which is to be found in a remarkable distance to Lyon.----141.13.170.175 (talk) 18:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Place of death? 

message: "..., Babette Gross, who since 1940 had been living in Mexico with the former Prussian finance minister Otto Klepper, and who married him after returning to Paris in 1947." There is no mention of such a marriage in Astrid von Pufendorf's book Otto Klepper (1888 - 1957). Deutscher Patriot und Weltbürger (Oldenbourg Verlag, München 1997) − and she should have known. ----130.83.23.163 (talk) 13:10, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marriage between Babette Gross and Otto Klepper?  

message: From the "death" section: "he, the stranger, and several of Münzenberg's colleagues ... fled southward, in the direction of the Swiss border". Switzerland is north-east of where they had been imprisoned. I don't have access to the source cited, but this needs checking. Maproom (talk) 06:52, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Starting in Camp Chambaran it makes some sense first to go south to Saint-Marcelin and then follow the Isère to Grenoble (as the German troups would most probably come from the north).----130.83.197.103 (talk) 09:02, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Direction of flight 

message: This new biography brings the Münzenberg story up to date: Green, John, Willi Münzenberg - Fighter against Fascism and Stalinism, Routledge 2019 ---- 
Substituted at 10:35, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: The main page states that Münzenberg was probably murdered, but User:Daniel Case says that since his death was ruled a suicide, the categories should match. Which cause of death should we go with? Maximajorian Viridio (talk) 01:58, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You may read above in the section "Murder".----130.83.197.103 (talk) 20:16, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Murder or Suicide? 

message: "Margarete Buber-Neumann, Heinz Neumann's wife and the sister of his common-law wife Babette Gross, was arrested and imprisoned in Karaganda. The NKVD eventually arranged for her to be handed over to Hitler in 1940, inadvertently saving her life. After spending the war in the relative safety of Ravensbrück concentration camp, she fled at the end of the war..."
Babette Gross was never imprisoned in Karaganda. For some time, she was interned in the Gurs internment camp near Pau in southern France.
The phrase "relative safety of Ravensbrück" is simply unacceptable and should be reconsidered. It is estimated that some 28000 people, most of them women and children, died from hunger and diseases or were deliberately killed. Among them Milena Jesenská (i. e. Franz Kafka's Milena), her best friend in the camp. See Buber-Neumann's own account "Under Two Dictators" (english 1949).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:5C7B:1100:3B4C:CE68:A77C:A3A9 (talk) 18:26, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Margarete Buber-Neumann