Yesterday I came across a figure who may have had the most interesting life, one that most communists at the time could only dream of. Mr. Otto Braun, a German communist born in Munich in 1900, started his career in Germany as a member of the communist party there. He rose up fairly quickly in the party, but eventually got arrested. In 1928 he escaped from a prison in Berlin with the help of his lover, Olga Benario. Both of them escaped Germany and went to Moscow, where they joined the Cominern (International Communist) movement. Braun was sent to China and Olga to Brazil.
Herr Braun was sent to China by Stalin to support the Communist Party of China to help them get control over China. Braun now took on his Chinese name, Li De, and he got a position of command in the First Front army, fighting the Kuomintang. He also later on participated in the Long March alongside prominent communists such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In 1939 Braun left China and headed back to the Soviet Union, since he was not welcome in his own country – with the Nazi party controlling it.
Back in the Soviet Union Braun worked as a translator and later as an interrogator for captured German officers after Operation Barbarossa, and in this position he was asked to the turn these officers against their own country. After the war Braun worked as a lecturer in Krasnogorsk.
He was then allowed to return to Germany, albeit the communist DDR, where he again worked as a translator, this time from Russian to German. Braun died in 1974 in Varna, Bulgaria, while on holidays.
Most interestingly is that only in 1964 the German Communist Party discovered that the person who was known as Li De in China was Otto Braun who was now working for it, indicating how incredibly humble Herr Braun must have been.
Not often does one hear of people who were part of a political party in three different countries, and Otto Braun’s life may be the most colourful of any German communist. Most interestingly is that only in 1964 the German Communist Party discovered that the person who was known as Li De in China was Otto Braun who was now working for it, indicating how incredibly humble Herr Braun must have been about his extraordinary life.
This guy is just one example of those many characters that make history interesting and worth studying.
Sources:
Grothe, Solveig. “Maos deutscher Helfer.” Spiegel Online. n.d. Web. 29 May. 2013 <http://einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowTopicAlbumBackground/a5046/l0/l0/F.html>
.Braun, Otto. A Comintern agent in China, 1932-1939. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982. Web.
Sebastiaan Jansen's History blog 