Willi Münzenberg, the propaganda genius

Willi Münzenberg, a German communist militant

has been called "genius propagandist", "unparalleled journalistic talent" and "red millionaire". In Berlin, he created and directed "Die Welt am Abend", the most widely read communist tabloid in Germany, if not in the world. But his entrepreneurial talent did not stop there: he created a network (the "Münzenberg Trust") which covered the world of the press, cinema, theater, humanitarian associations, from Western Europe to Japan.

"Not interested in the debates and motions in which the tenors of the Party confronted one another, he is different from the others in that he is extroverted, turned entirely towards proselytism and propaganda. Had he been American, he would have made a career like Randolph Hearst's (the press-tycoon portrayed in the movie 'Citizen Kane', by Orson Welles). German, proletarian, revolutionary militant, he served the Bolshevik cause with the same talent that would have made him rich and influential in the bourgeois world. » François Furet, "Le passé d’une illusion", page 255.

But if he was not really wealthy, he did lead a life that was akin to wealth: he moved around Berlin in a chauffeur-driven Lincoln limousine, like a big company boss, and never moved without his body guards. .

Son of a Thuringian tavern keeper, Münzenberg was born in Erfurt in 1889. Yes, the same town where at the same time the SPD held a congress where the Erfurt Program was discussed, and criticized in a pamphlet by Friedrich Engels. During World War I, he refused to join the German army and fled to Zurich. There, he meets Lenin, exiled to Bern. He becomes the secretary of the Youth Communist International. Expelled by Switzerland in 1917, he joined the German Spartacist movement. In 1918, he was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany.

During the Weimar Republic he gained the reputation of a brilliant propagandist. In 1924 he was elected communist deputy to the Reichstag. He is one of the very few communist leaders of working-class origin, which gives him prestige. He launches the A.I.Z. (Illustrated Journal of the Workers), a sort of Communist Life-Magazine that becomes the most widely read left-wing newspaper in Germany. The covers were often illustrated with photo-collages by John Heartfield. There was also Prometheus Film, which was behind such productions as Mother Krause’s Journey to Hapiness and Kuhle Wampe (Who owns the world ?), as well as (in collaboration with the Soviet Mezhrabpom-Film) classics such as The end of St Petersburg and Storm over Asia, by Pudovkin.

But his activities among intellectuals of Western Europe is perhaps what made Münzenberg most famous. He succeeded in imposing the idea that communism was the only real opposition force to fascism. Without being an intellectual himself, he excels in the art of convincing Western intellectuals and artists (whom he calls "his innocents"): Dos Passos, Malraux, Gide, Hemingway, Aragon, Sinclair Lewis, Dashiell Hammet, Roman Rolland. For the historian François Furet, Münzenberg is the great conductor of the "fellow travelers", a typical figure of the communist universe.

Münzenberg founded many organizations such as the World League Against Imperialism and the International Labor Relief. He created a whole network of organizations, real ones or just facades, that controlled others (his "trust").

Rupture with Stalin

Until 1936, Münzenberg remained faithful to Moscow, despite the fact that he was already aware of Stalinist crimes. Summoned to the Soviet capital, Münzenberg disobeys because he fears to be a victim of one of the purges. He continues to work for the anti-fascist cause, but in 1937 his situation worsens : he is excluded from the German Communist Party.

Exiled in France, in 1940 he is interned, being a German national. He managed to escape, but on October 17 his body was discovered in a wood near Saint-Marcellin, with a rope around his neck. There is evidence suggesting that he was murdered by Stalin's orders.