Gerhart Eisler

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Gerhard Eisler (born February 20, 1897 - March 21, 1968 in Leipzig) was a German politician. Along with his sister Ruth Fischer, he was a prominent member of the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic. His brother was leftist composer Hanns Eisler. He was once married to Hede Massing, who testified against Alger Hiss in his second trial. ^[1]

During his exile, he was a liaison between the Communist International and the Communist Parties in China and the United States. Time Magazine reported in 1947 that he had made a trip to China in the late 1920's where he earned the name "The Executioner" for "purging the party of spies and dissidents".^[2]

Although accused of espionage after World War II, he was never charged with violating U.S. laws apart from misrepresenting his Communist Party affiliation on his emigration application. Newsweek (February 23, 1948) described him as the "Number One Red Agent" in the U.S. In a dramatic escape in 1950, Eisler secretly boarded a Polish freighter bound for London and was discovered by the crew after the ship was at sea. Once in England, authorities allowed him to leave for the German Democratic Republic, where Eisler became chief of East German radio and a leading propaganda voice for the Communist government. After his death in Jerevan, Armenia, several schools and streets in the German Democratic Republic were named in his honor.

A March 4, 2008 release of files from the UK National Archives included information about Gerhart Eisler . The MI5 summary states:

"Eisler, who was supposed by many to be the covert leader and director of the Communist Party in America during and after the Second World War, became the centre of a diplomatic incident in 1949 when, having stowed away on a Polish ship out of New York, he was forcibly removed and arrested in Southampton. This file documents the Security Service's involvement in the case. The earliest traces of Eisler in the file (KV 2/2773, 1936-1949) date from 1936, when Comintern efforts to secure a false American passport in the name of Edwards were reported. In 1947 information obtained from Eisler's former wife, Hedwiga Messing, suggested that Eisler had used this cover name in New York in 1934."

[edit] References

^ Woman With a Past "Woman with a Past", Time Magazine, Monday, December 19, 1949
^ "The Man from Moscow", Time Magazine, Monday, February 17, 1947

State Department passport brief, A115–A116
Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, hearings of 6 February 1947, U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities, 80th Cong., 1st sess., 14–19.
"The Brain", Time Magazine, Monday, October 28, 1946