Description
Object description
German child in Germany, 1911-1929; civilian member of Communist Party of Germany in Germany and Moscow, Soviet Union, 1929-1933; arrest and imprisonment in Colditz Castle Prison, Germany, 6/1933-12/1933; member of Communist Party of Germany's underground movement in Germany and Czechoslovakia, 1/1934-2/1939, internee in GB and Canada, 1940-1941
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of period as child living in Germany, 1911-1929: family; education; living conditions during First World War; anti-war feelings in family; a humiliation as small boy visiting the chemist; family participation in German Revolution, 1918; delivering Communist newspapers, 1919-1920; political attitudes of his school-teachers.
REEL 2 Continues: influences of schoolteachers on him; his objection to 'Deutschland uber Alles' and his humiliation for not singing it at school, 1924; memories of revolutionary upsurge in Saxony immediately after First World War; tension between left and right socialists; first contact with Nazis, 1920s; agitation over Versailles Treaty; contact with Nazis during 1920s; restrictions of free speech in Weimar Republic; memories of great inflation of 1923; lack of Jews and Catholics in his part of Saxony.
REEL 3 Continues: degree of anti-Semitism he came across in youth; joining left wing organisations. Recollections of membership of Communist Party of Germany in Germany and Moscow, Soviet Union, 1929-1933: joining Communist Party of Germany, 1929; his running of Saxony Pioneer organisation from Dresden; his visit to Moscow, 1931; party strengths in Germany in immediate pre-Nazi era; conflict between left and right leaning socialists; his work for Comintern in Moscow, 1932; meeting with Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, in Moscow.
REEL 4 Continues: period at the Hotel Lax, 1932; changes in Germany on his return, 1/1933; increasing danger to Communists; attempt to revive Leipzig Communist Party organisation. Aspects of arrest and imprisonment in Colditz Castle Prison, Germany, 6/1933-12/1933: arrest by police for working against the state, 6/1933; his experiences in prison; style of his interrogation; his period in Colditz Castle Prison.
REEL 5 Continues: harsh treatment of inmates; escape of key communist from prison; his amnestying, Christmas, 1933. Recollections of period as member of Communist Party of Germany's underground movement in Germany and Czechoslovakia, 1934-1939: lack of preparedness of German Communists for illegal work; attempt to revive organisation in Magdeburg, 1934, and Berlin, 1935; his crossing and re-crossing into Czechoslovakia.
REEL 6 Continues: arrest of his girl friend in Berlin, 3/1936; failure of Gestapo to arrest him in trap set in cafe; his flight into Czechoslovakia, 3/1936; reasons for his crossing between Germany and Czechoslovakia, 1935; his underground work in Berlin, 1935; conflict with Social Democrats over staging of communistic play in Czechoslovakia, 12/1935.
REEL 7 Continues: Munich Crisis, 9/1938, and exit of German refugee; his escape from Germany, 2/1939. Aspects of period as internee in GB and Canada, 1940-1941: his experience as 'enemy alien' in GB, 1940; voyage from GB to Quebec, Canada; British Government's bargain with Canadian government over sending of 'enemy aliens' to Canada; camp life in Canada; acquaintance with Klaus Fuchs.