Nathaniel Flakin - Martin Monath : a Jewish resistance fighter among Nazi soldiers

Revolutionary Lives

Series Editors: Sarah Irving, Kings College, London;

Professor Paul Le Blanc, La Roche College, Pittsburgh

Revolutionary Lives is a series of short, critical biographies of radical figures from throughout history. The books are sympathetic but not sycophantic, and the intention is to present a balanced and, where necessary, critical evaluation of the individuals place in their political field, putting their actions and achievements in context and exploring issues raised by their lives, such as the use or rejection of violence, nationalism, or gender in political activism. While individuals are the subject of the books, their personal lives are dealt with lightly except insofar as they mesh with political concerns. The focus is on the contribution these revolutionaries made to history, an examination of how far they achieved their aims in improving the lives of the oppressed and exploited, and how they can continue to be an inspiration for many today.

Also available:

Salvador Allende:

Revolutionary Democrat

Victor Figueroa Clark

James Baldwin:

Living in Fire

Bill V. Mullen

Hugo Chvez:

Socialist for the Twenty-first Century

Mike Gonzalez

W.E.B. Du Bois:

Revolutionary Across the Color Line

Bill V. Mullen

Frantz Fanon:

Philosopher of the Barricades

Peter Hudis

Mohandas Gandhi:

Experiments in Civil Disobedience

Talat Ahmed

William Godwin:

A Political Life

Richard Gough Thomas

Leila Khaled:

Icon of Palestinian Liberation

Sarah Irving

Jean Paul Marat:

Tribune of the French Revolution

Clifford D. Conner

John Maclean:

Hero of Red Clydeside

Henry Bell

Sylvia Pankhurst:

Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire

Katherine Connelly

Paul Robeson:

A Revolutionary Life

Gerald Horne

Percy Bysshe Shelley:

Poet and Revolutionary

Jacqueline Mulhallen

Toussaint Louverture:

A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolutions

Charles Forsdick and Christian Hgsbjerg

Ellen Wilkinson:

From Red Suffragist to Government Minister

Paula Bartley

Gerrard Winstanley:

The Diggers Life and Legacy

John Gurney

A Jewish Resistance Fighter Among Nazi Soldiers

Nathaniel Flakin

First published in 2018 by Schmetterling Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart as Arbeiter und Soldat: Martin Monath Ein Berliner Jude unter Wehrmachtssoldaten

English-language edition first published 2019 by Pluto Press

345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright Schmetterling Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2018

English translation Nathaniel Flakin 2019

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material in this book. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in this respect and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions.

The right of Nathaniel Flakin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 3996 2 Hardback

ISBN 978 0 7453 3995 5 Paperback

ISBN 978 1 7868 0511 9 PDF eBook

ISBN 978 1 7868 0513 3 Kindle eBook

ISBN 978 1 7868 0512 6 EPUB eBook

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England

Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America

AK Auslandskomitee (Foreign Committee) of the IKD, Germany

BDO Bund Deutscher Offiziere (League of German Officers)

Comintern Communist International

Gestapo Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police), Germany

GIM Gruppe Internationale Marxisten (International Marxist Group), Germany

IKD Internationale Kommunisten Deutschlands (International Communists of Germany)

KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany)

KPO Kommunistische Partei-Opposition (Communist Party, Opposition), Germany

LCR Ligue Communiste Rvolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist League), France

NKFD Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland (National Committee for a Free Germany)

NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party)

PCF Parti Communiste Franais (French Communist Party)

PCI Parti Communiste Internationaliste (Internationalist Communist Party), France

PCR Parti Communiste Rvolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist Party), Belgium

POI Parti Ouvrire Internationaliste (Internationalist Workers Party), France

PSR Parti Socialiste Rvolutionnaire (Revolutionary Socialist Party), Belgium

SAP Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei (Socialist Workers Party), Germany

SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany)

SWP Socialist Workers Party, US vi

I will never write a book again. This whole process was just exhausting. It was no fun.

Fortunately, with Martin Monath I found a subject who kept me enthusiastic for several years. More than that: I fell in love. There is no academic distance here Im an avowed Monte fanboy. It is a bit embarrassing to admit how often I clapped with joy while typing on my laptop in a caf, or how often I started crying while scribbling in my notebook on the subway.

Why did I fall in love with Viktor, the man of many pseudonyms? Of course I was impressed when I first heard of him: A Jewish Berliner built communist cells in the Nazi army? I have shared his Trotskyist convictions since I was young. But I also find Viktor fascinating because he seems like the exact opposite of me. Viktor always put on a brave face to motivate those around him I, in contrast, feel compelled to share my neurotic fears. Im doing it again right now!

This book started as an attempt to make an annotated reprint of the newspaper Arbeiter und Soldat. A French translation had appeared in 1978, an English one in 2008, and a partial Spanish one in 2016 but the original text in German had not been available until I published it last year. For this project, I intended to write a very short introduction about the newspapers editor. Quickly I discovered that all the available biographical texts offered different real names for Viktor and none of these could be found in the Berlin archives.

I had to dig deeper and deeper. By the time I had finally confirmed the name Martin Monath, after months of searching, I had gathered so much material about the person that I had no choice but to write a book. You will see: This story had to be told. The Trotskyist historian Rodolphe Prager collected lots of materials about Viktor, but it seems he never wrote anything specifically about him. Without his research in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as investigations by Jakob Moneta, Rudolf Segall, and others, this work would not have been possible.