THE POLITICAL ACTIVITIES OF KARL FRANK
(A.K.A. PAUL HAGEN) IN AMERICA DURING WORLD WAR II
by
Siobhan Doucette
submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree
ofMaster of Arts
in
History
Chair: i f l G Professor Robert Crews
f// jLL l Professor Richard Breitman
Dean of the College ■ay (L< Jen Date 2003
American University
Washington, D.C. 20016
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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Copyright 2003 by Doucette, Siobhan
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SIOBHAN DOUCETTE
2003
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE POLITICAL ACTIVITIES OF KARL FRANK
(A.K.A. PAUL HAGEN) IN AMERICA DURING WORLD WAR II
BY
Siobhan Doucette
ABSTRACT
This thesis analyzes primary documents from the Hoover Institute and
National Archives to explore the political career of Karl Frank, the leader of the
German Socialist anti-Nazi group, Neu Beginnen. Frank from 1940 developed a
position of preeminence within the German Socialist exile community in America.
This thesis examines his work with the US government, in the anti-Nazi movement,
and in the founding of exile organizations in America. By exploring Frank’s
activities in America, this thesis also looks at the circumstances of the German
Socialist exile community. It challenges the assertions made by previous chroniclers
of the German Socialist exile experience that in America the German Socialist
community ceased to exist.
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... ii
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION...... 1
II. FRANK’S POLITICAL CAREER BEFORE EXILE IN AMERICA...... 5 Early Political Career Org The Nazi Seizure of Power Frank’s Leadership ofOrg/Neu Beginnen
III. FRANK’S INITIAL WARTIME ACTIVITIES IN AMERICA’S GERMAN SOCIALIST EMIGRE COMMUNITY...... 25 American Friends of German Freedom Emergency Rescue Committee Investigation of the Emigre Attacks on Karl Frank, 1940 International Coordination Council Unity in England, Division in America Will Germany Crack? and Lectures
VI. FRANK’S ACTIVITIES WITH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT...... 45 Frank’s Efforts with the US Government Toward Establishing Contact with the German Underground, 1942 German Socialist Exiles in Britain Frank’s Efforts with the US Government Toward Establishing Contact with the German Underground, 1943
V. CULMINATION OF FRANK’S WARTIME ACTIVITIES IN AMERICA’S GERMAN SOCIALIST EMIGRE COMMUNITY...... 62 Emigre Activities during Frank’s Work with the US Government Planning and Establishment of the Council for a Democratic Germany Germany After Hitler, The American Association for a Democratic Germany, and Speaking Engagements
VI. FRANK’S POLITICAL CAREER IN THE POST-WAR ERA...... 79
VII. CONCLUSION...... 84
VIII. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 88
iii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Within the vast literature on the Second World War, German resistance to
Nazi Germany has held a special place. Although with time this literature has
blossomed in quantity, its quality has at times wavered. Some of the initial
shortcomings in the literature can be attributed to its use as a means of legitimizing
various politicians, parties, organizations, and, most significantly, the two post-War
German states. In the former German Democratic Republic, research on the
resistance concentrated almost exclusively on the Communist opposition to Nazism;
Socialist resistance was relegated to a minor role while conservative resistance (if
treated at all) was often treated with hostility. While the literature written in the
German Federal Republic in the post-War period was not as politically charged as
that written in the DDR, there were distinct political influences. Most studies dealt
with the conservative resistance, particularly the July 20th Plot; there was no emphasis
on Communist, and little emphasis on Socialist resistance.1
A notable exception to the overall disregard for Socialist resistance during the
immediate post-War period was Lewis Edinger’s excellentGerman Exile Politics,
published in 1956. Claiming that “the political life of the anti-Nazi exile
1 Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 4th ed. (London: Arnold Publishers, 2000), 185-188.
1
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movement.. .revolved primarily around the left-wing groups,” Edinger traced in detail
the developments and trends in these left-wing, non-Communist groups between 1933
and 1939.2 Despite his comprehensive discussion of Socialist exile politics in the pre-
War period, his analysis effectively ended with the fall of France. Edinger largely
dismissed the Socialist communities that continued to exist in Britain and America
after this date.
Although dramatic changes occurred between the 1960s and 1970s in
literature on Socialist resistance, research on Socialist resistance in exile remained
virtually non-existent. During this period, German historians began exploring
resistance to Nazism in regional studies. These studies allowed for an improved
understanding of resistance at the grassroots level, which meant that Socialist
resistance received attention.3 However, the activities of those Socialist opponents to
Nazism who had fled the country remained largely unexplored.
During the 1980s several authors began delving into German exile
experiences; some even focused on exiles in America. However, these authors tended
to highlight intellectual, rather than political exiles.4 Only Anthony Glees’Exile
Politics During the Second World War discussed political exiles at length.
2 Lewis Edinger, German Exile Politics: The Social Democratic Executive Committee in the Nazi Exile (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), xi.
3 Kershaw, 190-192.
4 These works include Robert E. Cazden, German Exile Literature in America, 1933-1950: a History of the Free German Press and Book Trade (Chicago: American Library Association, 1988). Anthony Heilbut,Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America, From the 1930s to the Present (New York: Viking Press, 1983). Jarrell C. Jackman and Carla M. Borden, eds. Muses Flee Hitler: Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, 1930-1945 (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983). Helmut F. Pfanner,Exile in New York: German and Austrian Writers After 1933 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983).
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However, Glees limited his analysis to the exiles in England, because he
posited that, “those [exiles] who did go to the United States, do not appear to have
achieved the sort of success that their English colleagues gained,” as they quickly
melted into the American “melting pot.”5 Glees’ assessment is comprehensible given
the diversity of the German Socialist exile community in America and the relative
weakness of the Sopade (German Social Democratic Party Executive in Exile).6
Having enjoyed a position of preeminence in Europe prior to the evacuation of France
as well as contemporaneously in Britain, the Sopade had been at the center of most
treatments of the exile Socialists, including the works by Glees and Edinger. Its lack
of influence in America easily led to the misperception that German Socialists in
America were inactive.
This study shows instead that the weakness of the Sopade in America did not
signify a lack of German Socialist activity in America during World War II. On the
contrary, it shows that influence within the community was spread among different
groups and individuals. Of these, arguably the most important was the leader of the
German Socialist splinter group Neu Beginnen, Karl Frank.7 As such, an examination
of Frank’s experiences will elucidate much about the general circumstance of the
exile community in America.
5 Anthony Glees,Exile Politics During the Second World War: the German Social Democrats in Britain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 32.
6 The Sopade was the official successor to the Executive o f the German Social Democratic Party once the Party was forced into exile in the summer of 1933.
7 Frank was better known in America under the pseudonym, Paul Hagen.
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The emigre disputes that dominated Frank’s life in America had their roots in
quarrels that originated in Europe. Frank’s supporters and detractors in America
extensively discussed his previous life. Chapter two therefore will survey Frank’s life
in Europe, suggesting the extent to which the emigre community in America
maintained its German identity.
Chapters three through five will address Frank’s wartime activities in
America. They utilize documents produced by members of the US government,
Frank, and fellow members of the German exile community, to reconstruct Frank’s
ideals, the composition and goals of the different emigre groups he initiated, his
schemes with the US government, and his public lectures, as well as how he
interacted with members of the German Socialist emigre community, American
government officials, and American civilians. In analyzing Frank’s political activities
during this period, I will also consider the German Socialist exile community in
America more generally, demonstrating that through both American private and
public support, this community maintained close ties to each other and to their
previous lives in Germany, and so maintained their German Socialist identity.
In chapter six I will briefly discuss Frank’s failed efforts in the immediate
post-War period to return to Germany. This chapter will demonstrate that Frank’s not
returning to Germany had much more to do with the US government not allowing
him to return than his not wanting to return. It will thereby illustrate conclusively the
extent to which Frank, like many of his compatriots, felt tied to Germany through
VE-Day.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II
FRANK’S POLITICAL CAREER BEFORE EXILE IN AMERICA
Early Political Career
Karl Frank began his political career during the First World War. In August
1914, at the age of 21, he abandoned his psychology studies at Vienna University and
volunteered to fight in the Austrian Army. However, in March 1916, after having
fought on the Russian and Italian fronts, and having been wounded, decorated, and
attained the rank of lieutenant, Frank refused to continue service and wrote a letter to
Emperor Franz Joseph requesting that he abdicate. Frank was then arrested in
Sumag, Hungary on May 16,1916 for refusal to continue military service. His trial
adjourned without decision; Frank was ultimately exempted from military service for
medical reasons.8 He returned to the University of Vienna and in July 1918 received
a doctorate in psychology.
In November 1918, as World War I came to a close and Eastern Europe
erupted in leftist uprisings, Frank joined the revolts in Vienna. In 1918, he became
the chairman of the Socialist Student Association of the University of Vienna and was
elected as a delegate for the University to the Austrian Workers’ Council. Although
8 It was concluded that only someone with a mental defect would write such a letter to the emperor. [Department o f Justice/Immigration and Naturalization Service Alien Registration Form, Karl B. Frank Papers, Box (B) 6, Folder (F) “Immigrationand Naturalization Service (re trip to Europe),” Hoover Institute.]
5
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a member of the Social Democratic Party, Frank joined the Communist fraction of the
Workers’ Council and began writing for a variety of Communist newspapers.
In 1920, Frank moved to Berlin where he officially joined the German
Communist Party (KPD). He then relocated to Bavaria, where he was arrested in
October 1923 for leftist activities. After serving three months in prison, Frank was
expelled from Bavaria.9 Frank returned the following year, only to be arrested again.
Although he was sentenced to six months in prison, Frank was released after serving
only twenty-one days of his sentence because he went on hunger strike. After his
second release from prison, Frank returned to Vienna where he continued his
psychology studies and Communist political writings. In 1926, Frank spent six weeks
in the Soviet Union; during this trip he began to harbor doubts about the policies and
methods of the Communist Party. Accordingly, upon returning to Austria, Frank
joined the right-wing Communist opposition and by the end of the year, thanks to a
general political amnesty, returned to Germany.10
In Berlin, Frank continued his Communist writings and engaged in perhaps
his most famous exploit as a Communist. In the fall of 1928, the German government
began preparing for a vote on naval rearmament. Frank and the Communists saw this
as a step toward further rearmament and a new war.' However, they were hindered
from making radio broadcasts to this effect as the state prohibited political
9 Hermann Goring ironically wasimprisoned at the same time and in the same prison as Frank. (Biographical Note on Paul Hagen by Dorothy Norman in a Radio Broadcast 19 January 44, Station WEVD, 9 pm. Karl B.Frank Papers, B 3, F “1944,” Hoover Institute.)
10 Karl Frank, Autobiographical NotesSubmitted to the State Department, May 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute.
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radio broadcasts.11 On October 8, 1928 Karl Frank participated in the brief
kidnapping of Wolfgang Schwartz. Schwartz, an SPD functionary, was slated to
make a radio broadcast that night. One of Frank’s cohorts, pretending to be
Schwartz’s chauffeur, picked him up but instead of driving him to the studio, drove
out of the city. In the meantime, a Communist Landtag delegate Karl Schultz,
showed up at the studio. By impersonating Schwartz, Schultz was able to get on the
air and speak out against rearmament.12 Although Schwartz was released
immediately after the broadcast, this incident caused a sensation, and Karl Frank, for
the last time, was sent to a German prison. He served four months for preventing a
speaker from speaking, not for kidnapping, which would have imposed a stiffer
penalty.13
Soon after his release from prison Frank split definitively with the Communist
Party. Since his trip to the Soviet Union in 1926, Frank had become increasingly
critical toward the Party. This criticism culminated in 1929 when Frank wrote and
distributed a mimeographed statement attacking the KPD at a Communist Party
Conference in Berlin. In his statement, Frank charged that the KPD consistently
acted divisively within the labor community, lacked internal democracy, and
11 Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, Edward Dimendberg, Eds.The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkley: University o f California Press, 1994), 594.
12 Karl Frank to Arthur Goldberg, 10 June 1942, Record Group (RG) 226- General Record of the Office o f Strategic Services, Entry (E) 210, Box (B) 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (NARAII). & Gerhard Bry,Resistance: Recollections from the Nazi Years (West Orange, N.J.: 1979), 41.
13 Department o f Justice/Immigration and Naturalization Service Alien Registration Form- Karl Frank, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Immigration and Naturalization Service (re trip to Europe),” Hoover Institute.
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employed “certain underhand[ed] methods.” Frank was expelled from the KPD the
next day and thereafter became a target for Communist animosity.14
Upon leaving the Communist Party, Frank joined the Socialist Worker’s
Party (SAP), a left-wing splinter party. However, he soon became disillusioned with
the SAP, as he believed that the labor movement should be uniting in opposition to
the increasingly influential National Socialists rather than splintering into rival parties
and organizations. In the winter of 1930/31, despite some reservations about its
policies, Frank applied to rejoin the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin. Having
been a member of the Communist Party, Frank was not welcomed quickly. It took a
personal intercession from Otto Bauer (the leader of the Austrian SPD) to Otto Weis
(the leader of the German SPD,) for his application to finally be approved. Frank
received his membership card in January 1933.15 However, by that time he had
already joined Org.
Org
Ernst and Walther Lowenheim founded the Leninist Organization, abbreviated
Org in 1929/1930.16 This group was established to infiltrate the many splintered
German labor organizations, win people over to their opinions, and thereby create a
“conciliatory force” within each of Germany’s left-wing parties. It was hoped that
this “force” would ultimately unite the labor movement and so enable it to effectively
14 Testimony of Paul Hertz, Investigating Committee Report, 9 October 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation of Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute, 93-95.
15 Ibid., 115-118.
15 This group would find greater renown under the nameNeu Beginnen
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combat fascism. Like Frank, each member of Org was also a member of a larger
labor party.17
To join Org, recruits were sponsored, then vetted by members; once accepted,
recruits attended a 12-week “F-Course” taught by Walther Lowenheim in which they
learned the tenets of the Marxist organization. In the F-courses, Lowenheim argued
that the SPD had become an opportunistic liberal democratic party and not a true
Socialist party; for a Socialist revolution to occur, the SPD would have to return to
the teachings of Marx. Yet, Lowenheim perceived a major flaw in Marxist
interpretation - the belief in a “spontaneous revolution.” He dismissed this tenet,
arguing that a Socialist revolution would have to be staged and maintained through a
conspiratorial Leninist group with superior insights into world history.*18
Frank attended one of Lowenheim’s F-courses in the winter of 1931/32 and
joined Org soon thereafter. From the beginning, Frank had misgivings about Org.
He felt that Lowenheim “had not only messianic ideas but also some truly
megalomaniac traits.”19 He overlooked these concerns, however, as he believed that
Org was the only group that took sufficient note of the threat posed by Nazism.
Moreover, he understood that the secretive nature of Org meant that it stood a better
chance of remaining in existence in the event of a Nazi seizure of power than did the
mass-based SPD and SAP.
17 Julia Ranmer, “Some Reminiscences and Reflections About Neu Beginnen,” Unpublished memoir, 1994, 3-16.
18 Ibid.
19 Bry,Resistance: Recollections from the Nazi Years, (Shady Glen, West OrangeN.J., 1979), 43.
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Within Org, secrecy was of paramount importance. While the SPD and SAP
enjoyed widespread popular support, international recognition, and well-documented
membership lists, no one outside of Org knew of its existence; even those in Org
(with the exception of a few leaders) knew only a handful of members. Everyone
within Org was organized into five person teams, and team members maintained
contact only with each other. In addition, everyone used codenames, so even
members that recognized each other visually often did not know each other’s real
names or identities. Moreover, Org maintained elaborate plans for how and where
members could meet. Although these measures may have seemed extreme during the
Weimar Republic, they stood the members of Org in good stead after the Nazi seizure
of power.20
The Nazi Seizure of Power
The Nazi seizure of power on January 30,1933 posed a double threat for Karl
Frank- not only was he a member of a covert Socialist anti-Nazi organization, but he
also had a prominent Communist past. Accordingly, his legal status in Germany
ended early, on March 12, 1933. On that day, Frank went to visit his friend, former
SAP Reichstag member, Max Seydewitz. Seydewitz was not home, but a servant let
Frank in to wait. While Frank was waiting, Storm Troopers raided the apartment with
the intention of arresting Seydewitz. They detained Frank until firmly establishing
that he was a foreigner (Frank still held an Austrian passport). When they released
20 Karl Frank to Calvin Hoover, 31 July 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute, 1.
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him, they told him to report to the Gestapo for more questioning. Frank went
underground. 21
Throughout 1933, Frank lived in Berlin doing political work out of different
friends’ homes, and making occasional trips out of Germany. He went to Austria
twice; on one of these trips he obtained an additional passport under the name Paul
Malles, one of several pseudonyms (including Willi Mueller and Maria) that he used
during this period. He also went to Zurich a few times to meet with Friedrich Adler,
the Secretary of the Second International, for advice and money for Org and the
Socialist Worker’s Youth, whose leadership had defected to Org prior to the Nazi
seizure of power.22
In late December 1933, Frank moved permanently to Prague to set up a
foreign bureau for Org. The Org leadership decided to set up their Auslandsburo in
Prague because it was close enough to Germany that contact could be maintained
between the bureau and the people still in Germany and more importantly because it
was the location of the Executive of the SPD in Exile (Sopade). Frank was selected
to become the foreign representative for Org both because ofhis strong and
charismatic personality and because the leadership felt that Frank’s remaining in
Berlin was becoming increasingly unsafe both to himself and to the other members of
21 Wolfgang Benz and Walter H. Pehle, eds., Encyclopedia o f German Resistance toNazi the Movement, trans. Lance W. Gamier (New York: Continuum, 1997), 27.
22 Karl Frank to Calvin Hoover, 31 July 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute, 2.
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Org. In January 1934, Org’s Auslandsbiiro, under the direction of Karl Frank, opened
in Prague.23
In the meantime, the Sopade was undergoing an identity crisis. In the wake of
the Nazis’ rapid and largely unexpected total seizure of power, the Sopade was forced
to rethink the principles on which the SPD had based its actions during the Weimar
Republic. This reconsideration led to a leftward shift in the principles of the Sopade
as expressed in their “The Tactics and Aims of Revolutionary Socialism,” published
on January 28, 1934, in which they claimed that compromise and reform no longer
had any place in their party, and that a revolutionary elite organization was the only
way to bring about a Socialist revolution in Germany. These views brought them in
line ideologically with Org whom, along with several other small left-wing exile
organizations, the Sopade began to cooperate with in 1933.24
In the fall of 1933 the Sopade paid for the publication of Walther
Lowenheim’s New Beginning: a Manifesto from Underground Germany. It also
helped in distributing an estimated 5,000 copies of the manifesto throughout Germany
in a clandestine format under the title “Schopenhauer on Religion.”25 That the
Sopade was induced to publish this manifesto demonstrates how far their self-
confidence had fallen and to what extent they were willing to accept criticism. While
the pamphlet made constructive arguments about the path to regenerating a Socialist
23 Ibid.
24 Edinger, German ExilePolitics: The Social DemocraticExecutive Committee in the Nazi Era, 114.
25 Michael C. Thompsett, The German Opposition to Hitler: TheResistance, the Underground, andAssassination Plots, 1938-1945, (New York: McFarland & Co., 1997), 72.
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Germany, it also unleashed a sustained attack on the SPD and its leadership in exile.26
Lowenheim wrote
The [Sopade] comrades abroad, by reason of both their previous experiences and their present fundamental political convictions, are entirely incapable of securing the existence of the revolutionary work of the party inGermany itself.. .Those leaders who from 1914 to 1918 approved of the Empire of Wilhelm II, who, from 1918 to 1933, worshipped the bourgeois republic, who either founded or supported the White Guardist movement, who elected Hindenburg and tolerated Bruning, who, under Hitler, placed a veto on preparations for illegal party work, and later even tolerated Hitler- such leaders cannot suddenly be converted into revolutionary fighters against the fascist state.. .The future leadership of the party must consist of those comrades who are developing and applying, amidst the serious perils of the fight itself, the forms and methods of the anti-fascist proletarian class movement.. .It [the future leadership of the Party] can, therefore, be recruited only from the ranks of those comrades who have remained in Germany.27
Although Frank was the foreign representative of Org, he was not included in
this indictment of exile leaders, because he maintained better personal contacts with
his comrades inside Germany than did the Sopade leaders. In fact, Frank made
several trips into Germany during 1934 working as a courier. His most notable trip
occurred that winter, when lacking a good fake passport, he crossed the Giant
Mountains into Germany. A blizzard hit, and he became disoriented and eventually
passed out in the snow. Two Sudeten German Nazis found him and took him to their
nearby cabin. That evening, while pretending to be asleep, Frank overheard them say
that they were planning to hand him over to the authorities the next morning. When
everyone was asleep, Frank sneaked out, and despite the pain in his frozen, hands,
26 These arguments are similar to those discussed above in the description of the “F-Courses” taught byLowenheim.
27 Miles [Walther Lowenheim],Socialism’s New Beginning: A Manifesto from Underground Germany (New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1934), 132-134.
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skied across the border into Germany. He went on to Berlin and Breslau and a few
weeks later returned to Czechoslovakia.
New Beginning was the first publication to come out of the underground, and
was also published in English in Britain and the United States. In combination with
Frank’s exploits, the tract gave Frank and Org (which increasingly came to be known
as Neu Beginnen) an increased visibility in the international Socialist community.
This was quite helpful to Frank when he made his first trip to England in late 1934 to
raise money, support, and awareness for the German underground and Org in
particular. Frank received a warm welcome in English labor circles. Among those he
befriended was Sir Stafford Cripps, who began to help Frank politically and
financially, as did the Socialist League in England.29
These funds became essential as the relations between the Sopade and Org
began to sour at the close of 1934. In Prague, the second year of exile seemed to
bring good news for the Sopade. During that year, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000
people in Germany read and discussed the party paper,Sozialistische Aktion, and
party leaders estimated that they had 200,00 members in Germany in 300 loose-knit
groups.30 Moreover, many SPD in exile saw the Rohm Purge as proof of opposition
to the Nazi government in the military. The Sopade thus began to regain its self-
28 James Wechsler, “An Early Anti-Nazi,” Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Selected Credentials,” Hoover Institute.
29 Karl Frank, Autobiographical Notes Submitted to the State Department, May 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute, 6.
30 F.L. Carsten, The German Workers and the Nazis (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Pub. Co., 1995), 59.
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confidence and faith that the Nazi regime would soon come to an end. The Sopade
-51 retreated from its newly formed radical stance.
This ideological retreat alienated Frank and Org. However, they were left
with little recourse for changing this new position because, as the Sopade distanced
itself from its previous denunciations of compromise and calls for Socialist
revolution, it became increasingly antagonistic toward Org. This antagonism had a
number of sources, including the attacks on the Sopade in New Beginning, Org’s
continued radical left-wing policies, and perhaps most significantly, Org’s growing
popularity and clout not only within the German Socialist exile community, but also
within the international labor community. This popularity was highlighted when
three SPD border secretaries (Waldemar von Knoringen, Erwin Schottle, and Franz
Bogler) defected to Org. These defections heightened the Sopade’s resentments
'%'y toward Org, which culminated in late 1934 when the Sopade cut off funding to Org.
Frank’s Leadership of OrgINeu Beeinnen
Despite the Sopade’s concern for Org’s growing influence, Walther
Lowenheim decided in 1935 that there was no room left for active resistance inside
Germany, believing that no democratic revolution was near. He called for the entire
Org leadership to go abroad and for the rest of the members to cease all political
activity. This decision shocked much of the rank and file, because in comparison
with other underground groups, Org was doing quite well. Karl Frank, Wemer
31 Edinger, German Exile Politics: The Social Democratic Executive Committee in the Nazi Era, 139.
32 Ibid., 144.
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Peuke, “a militant worker” who had left the KPD for Org, and the Marxist
theoretician Richard Lowenthal protested by forming an oppositional group within
Org.33 On June 25,1935, Frank went to Berlin to participate in a number of meetings
in which he, Peuke, and Lowenthal deposed the old leadership; most of the members
defected to Frank, Peuke, and Lowenthal’s reconstructed organization. In this group,
Frank became the overall leader, Peuke the leader of the forces in Germany, and
Lowenthal the semi-official theoretician. At this time, the organization officially took
the name Neu Beginnen. Lowenheim, feeling betrayed, emigrated to England.34
Two months after the leadership coup, the Gestapo raided Neu Beginnen for
the first time. GivenNeu Beginnen’s well-developed clandestine organization and the
fact that it had cells in cities throughout Germany, Frank believed that if he went to
Germany immediately and contacted those he deemed to be at risk, he could warn
them to flee (which would not only save their lives, but also prevent their being
forced by the Gestapo to betray those not yet compromised) and thereby keep the
damage to the organization minimal and localized. However, Neu Beginnen was
short of funds, so Frank called Erich Ollenhauer to ask the Sopade for the funds to
make an emergency trip to Germany. Ollenhauer promised Frank 100 marks.
However, several members of the Sopade decided that this was a good opportunity to
demonstrate to Neu Beginnen, and Frank in particular, their dependence on the
33 Although still small in size (estimates put the organization at about a couple hundred members) their members were spread out in cities throughout the Reich with the largest concentration of personnel at the headquarters in Berlin. Furthermore, the three defected SPD border secretaries mentioned above, helped in smuggling in copies Sozialistischeof Aktion to those in Germany, and thereby kept the ties to the outside constantly felt by those still in Germany. [Gerhard Bry,Resistance: Recollections from theNazi Years, 128.]
34 Ibid., 132.
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Sopade, and thereby quiet their dissenting voice. Instead of giving Frank 100 marks,
they gave him less then 50, which was a small amount for making an illegal trip in
and out of Germany.35 After arriving in Germany, Frank learned that the Gestapo
raid had been limited and that much of Neu Beginnen’s organization remained in tact,
but the Sopade’s action sealed Frank’s resolution to depend in the future on
independent funds.
When Frank returned to Prague from Germany, he learned that B. Chamey
Vladeck, an influential Jewish-American labor leader and editor of the Jewish Daily
Forward, had been to Prague in his absence to meet Frank. Frank immediately air
mailed Vladeck in London, asking for a meeting. Within a week, Frank was in
Brussels meeting Vladeck in the presence of Friedrich Adler, Secretary of the Second
International and Neu Beginnen supporter. Vladeck was favorably impressed with
Frank and invited him to come to America to do fundraising for Neu Beginnen.36
That same year, Neu Beginnen sent a representative, Dr. Henry Ehrmann, to France to
try to gamer support and money, which he succeeded in doing under the Blum
government.
During November 1935, Frank first landed in America. From the outset, he
used the name Paul Hagen at Vladeck’s suggestion.37 He stayed through January
35 Testimony of Paul Hertz, InvestigatingCommittee Report, 9 October 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute, 143.
36 Ibid., 51-52.
37 He continued to use this name throughout the war while in America although he did give his true name to the State Department upon arriving in America. He became so well known as Hagen in fact, several historians, and most government officials at the time, thought Frank to be the pseudonym. [Paul Hagen [Karl Frank],Will Germany Crack (New York: Harper & Bros, 1944), xiv- xv.]
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1936 and made a number of valuable contacts. In Washington DC, Frank
reacquainted himself with Charles Yost, whom he had met in 1934 during several of
his illegal trips into Germany and who was now at the State Department.38 More
important for Frank were his New York contacts. In New York Frank acquainted
himself with the noted Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, (to whom Friedrich
Adler and Stafford Cripps had both written letters of introduction and support on
Frank’s behalf), Mary Fox, the Secretary of the League for Industrial Democracy, and
Norman Thomas among others. These new friends along with the Neu Beginnen
people already in New York, including Gerhard Bry and Vera and Georg Eliasberg,
helped in establishing a new organization, the American Friends of German Freedom
to raise funds for Neu Beginnen.
After gathering $8,000 with the help of his supporters in America, Frank
returned to Europe with Anna Caples, a Vassar graduate from a wealthy American
family. En route to Prague, they stopped in England to deposit the funds they had
collected with Sir Stafford Cripps, who had agreed to serve as treasurer for the funds
raised byNeu Beginnen outside of continental Europe. They then proceeded to
France, so that Frank could meet with Neu Beginnen people there. Finally, they
returned to Prague.39
Frank continued his underground work in Prague. He made two trips that year
to Germany (aided by a new Czech passport, obtained because he had learned that the
Germans were looking for him at the borders), including one to Silesia and one to
38 Frank began regularly reporting his political activities in America to Yost.
39 Karl Frank, Autobiographical Notes Submitted to the State Department, May 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute, 8.
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Bavaria, where he met with the former Sopade border secretary, Waldemar von
Knoringen.40 Frank dared not return to Berlin, however, because Neu Beginnen was
being hit hard throughout the year by Gestapo raids and his presence was deemed too
great a threat both to Frank and Neu Beginnen activists in Berlin41
On April 16, 1937 Frank and Caples returned to New York, where they were
married. During this trip, Frank garnered much new support and strengthened his
existing relationships with his American supporters. After this trip, he deposited
$12,000 with Sir Cripps.42 Before returning to Prague, Frank went to Spain, having
learned that members of Neu Beginnen had disappeared after going to fight in the
Spanish Civil War for the Loyalists. He was unable to find any trace of them; their
disappearance was attributed to the Communists and became a sore point within the
non-Communist international labor community.
Upon returning to Prague, Frank decided that the political climate there was
no longer accommodating for Neu Beginnen work, ’$ so he began plans to move the
Auslandsbiiro to Paris. After the German Anschluss of Austria, the Auslandsbiiro
relocated officially to Paris, leaving only a regional office behind. Leon Blum,
having arranged for monthly stipends out of an executive purse, gave about 40,000
40 Karl Frank to Arthur Goldberg, 10 June 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARAII.
41 Karl Frank to Calvin Hoover, 31 July 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute, 3.
42 Karl Frank, Autobiographical Notes Submitted to the State Department, May 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute, 8.
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francs to Neu Beginnen during this period, and provided the group with much
encouragement.43
Upon arriving in France, Frank andNeu Beginnen began calling for unity in
the Socialist camp and so created an Arbeitsgemeinschaft with a number of the
smaller Socialist groups including the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists and the SAP.
This group challenged the Sopade to unite with them and so form a cohesive German
labor front. Marie Jucharez and Georg Dietrich, who had been elected to the SPD
Executive in April 1933, and had been living in Paris, along with Paul Hertz, who
was a member of the Prague Executive, immediately supportedNeu Beginnen's call
for unity. The majority of the Sopade did not; in the end the Sopade voted against
joining the Arbeitsgemeinschaft, realizing that the leftist groups would easily be able
to out vote them 44 Neu Beginnen’s unity drive led to a further break down in its
relationship with the Sopade, centered on Paul Hertz.
As a member of the Sopade, Hertz edited Sozialistische Aktion and still
espoused the Marxist views put forth in 1934 by the Sopade. During the debate in the
Sopade about unity, it was discovered that since 1934, Hertz had on his own
responsibility invited members ofNeu Beginnen to write for the Sozialistische Aktion,
and placed Sopade agents atNeu Beginnen’s disposal, including the three border
secretaries who had defected to Neu Beginnen. The majority of the Sopade was
furious and had the publication of Sozialistiche Aktion stopped in March 1938. By
43 Investigating Committee Report, 28 October 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation of Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute, 270.
44 Edinger, German Exile Politics: The Social DemocraticExecutive Committeein the Nazi Era, 217.
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June, the Sopade excluded Hertz from Executive meetings. He thereafter became an
avowed leader of Neu Beginnen.45 This incident deepened the animosity that the
Sopade felt toward Neu Beginnen and Frank.
In 1937,Neu Beginnen made contact with the ‘Ten Points Group,’ which had
been founded in 1936 on left-wing Socialist goals, similar to Neu Beginnen’s.46 This
alliance however, probably led to the Gestapo’s infiltration ofNeu Beginnen, which
led to crippling arrests in 1938. Despite the fact that during the unity debate in 1937
Neu Beginnen had partially based its claims to leadership within the Socialist exile
camp on its extensive underground network in Germany much of this network had
been destroyed by the Gestapo by 1938. In the wake of these arrests, Frank traveled
on a French passport for his final trip into Nazi Germany. He first went to Munich
for a few days, and then took an overnight express train to Berlin, intent on
discovering how much of the Berlin organization could be salvaged. Despite the
many arrests, little had been revealed in cross-examinations to endanger those
members still at large. Frank was able to warn those in danger to go underground and
then abroad, and was able to reactivate what few members were left
uncompromised.47
On December 15, 1938 Frank returned with Caples to America. He once
again made a number of speeches to gamer support and funds. During this trip, Frank
45 Edinger, German Exile Politics: The Social Democratic Executive Committee in the Nazi Era, 216.
46 F. L. Carsten, ed., The German Resistance To Hitler (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 192.
47 Karl Frank to Unknown, 6 February 1961, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence K,” Hoover Institute.
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learned of a smear campaign directed against him by members of the SPD in
America. Rather than respond to his detractors, Frank busied himself raising funds,
and helping the Neu Beginnen exiles in America and his American friends in New
York in promoting the visibility of the American Friends of German Freedom.
During this period the AFGF began publishing Inside Germany Reports. These
reports, which dealt with the contemporary situation inside Germany, were based on
information from underground sources, recent emigres, and news gleaned from the
German press. They were published about once a month, and were approximately
twenty pagest long. 48
In America, Frank reestablished ties with Esther Caukin Brunauer, Secretary
of the American Association of University Women, with whom Frank had become
acquainted in 1934, when Brunauer had permitted Org members to stage confidential
meetings in her home in Berlin.49 In March 1939, Brunauer offered Frank $1,500
from her Association to go to Europe to study the international social and political
development.50 Frank agreed.51 This job was important to him, not only because it
brought in much needed funds, but also because it provided him with a good excuse
for leaving the country. This was necessary, as Frank had applied for US
immigration papers on December 15, and feared he might encounter problems leaving
48 Karl Frank, “Autobiographical notes” May 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, Box 6 Folder “Autobiographical Notes and Projects” HI, 8.
49 Karl Frank to Arthur Goldberg, 10 June 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARAII.
50 Esther Caukin Brunauer to Karl Frank, 10 March 1939, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence B,” Hoover Institute.
51 Esther Caukin Brunauer to Unknown, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F“Immigration and Naturalization Service (re trip to Europe),” Hoover Institute.
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the country and re-entering if his acknowledged reason for leaving was to continue
his resistance activities.52
In the spring of 1939 Frank returned to Europe with a U.S. re-entry visa. He
first went to London where he obtained, with the help of Sir Cripps, permission for a
number of Neu Beginnen people to emigrate to England.53 He then went to
Copenhagen where he met for the last time with a delegation of Neu Beginnen
members from inside Germany. Finally, he returned to France to prepare his people
for the move to London, where Neu Beginnen’s Auslandsbiiro was to become
officially situated. (The Sopade would shortly set up itsAuslandsbiiro there as well.)
Shortly before the outbreak of war, Frank, Richard Lowenthal, Waldemar von
Knoringen, and Erwin Schottle joined Paul and Evelyn Anderson in England.
In December, Frank obtained an exit visa for himself to return to America
with the help of E. Burney of the Ministry of Information in London. Given that by
this time Germany had invaded Poland, and Britain was at war with Germany, it was
very difficult for a German to obtain such a visa; Frank’s ability to get one clearly
highlights the prestige he then enjoyed in certain British circles. This point is
underlined by the fact that Burney helped Frank in getting the visa because both he
and David Astor wanted Frank to do some uncompensated work for the British
52 Karl Frank, Immigration and Naturalozation Service Application for the Benefits of the Act o f June 25, 1936, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Immigration and Naturalization Service (re trip to Europe),” Hoover Institute.
53 At this time it was extremely difficult to obtain these visas.
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Government.54 Burney asked Frank to meet with Adam von Trott, who was then in
America, to “confirm his credibility as an anti-Nazi,” while David Astor hoped that
Frank could work with emigres in America in order to advise the British in writing
the leaflets they planned to drop over Germany.55
David Astor sent a letter of introduction and recommendation to the British
ambassador Lord Lothian about Frank, saying that he was welcome to return to
England whenever he desired. Lord Lothian then introduced Frank, through Edward
Carter, to Laughlin Currie from the White House.56 Equipped with such outstanding
connections and assurances that he could return to England at will, Karl Frank arrived
in America in January 1940.57
54 Frank insisted that as an anti-Nazi resister he could never accept paymentfrom any foreign government because that would make him a mercenary rather thanfreedom a fighter.
55 Klemens von Klemperer,German Resistance Against Hitler: The Search for Allies Abroad 1938-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 62.
56 Edward Carter to Laughlin Currie, Fall 1939, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Immigration and Naturalization Service (re trip to Germany),” Hoover Institute. & Lord Lothian to Edward Carter, 14 November 1939, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Immigration and Naturalization Service (re trip to Germany),” Hoover Institute.
57 Karl Frank, Autobiographical Notes Submitted to the State Department, May 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute, 11.
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FRANK’S INITIAL WARTIME ACTIVITIES IN AMERICA5 S GERMAN SOCIALIST EMIGRE COMMUNITY
American Friends of German Freedom
Upon arriving in America, Frank found that the American Friends of German
Freedom (AFGF) had fallen into bitter arguments over America’s entry into the War
in Europe. The isolationists, led by Norman Thomas, felt that the AFGF should give
aid to emigres from Nazi persecution, but that America should not become directly
involved in the war and that the organization should not do anything to encourage
America’s entry. The interventionists, as represented by Varian Fry, felt that
America should do everything, including going to war, to defeat Nazism, and that the
AFGF should support America’s entry into the War.58 Frank unequivocally argued
for intervention, and claimed that the AFGF, as his creation and a supporter ofNeu
Beginnen, would have to follow that line. Consequently, he asked for (and received)
Thomas’ resignation.59
With the American Friends of German Freedom united behind Frank’s stance
on intervention in the War, he went about reorganizing it to make it truly his.
58 Andy Marino,A Quiet American:The Secret War of Varian Fry (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999), 36.
59 Reinhold Niebuhr to Phillip Horton, 9 July 1942, RG 226 Office of Strategic Services Foreign Nationalities Branch Files, 1942-44 (OSS-FNB Files), Microfiche (M) INT-13GE-235, NARA II.
25
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Reinhold Niebuhr officially became the chairman, Frank became the research
director, and an executive committee was established which included Mary Fox and
David Seiferheld, an American textile executive. The group was provided with
$2,000 a month from William F. Cochran, thanks to Niebuhr’s name; it continued
printing its Inside Germany Reports (which increasingly relied on information
gleaned from the German press and radio broadcasts as contacts with the underground
disappeared) and began publishingIn Re: Germany, a publication that served as a
bibliography for all new material being published on Nazi Germany in English.60
Emergency Rescue Committee
While Frank consolidated his position within the AFGF, events in Europe
were rapidly coming to a head as “the Phoney War” became quite real. On May 10,
1940, Hitler’s armies launched their offensive in the West. By May 14, “schnelle
Heinz” Guderian’s armored division had crossed into France and within little over a
week, the only ports still open were Ostend and Dunkirk. Paris was occupied on June
14, and on June 16 Marshal Petain was asked to form a new French government.61 In
New York, Frank had become frantic, knowing that many of his people were still in
France and were on Nazi search lists.
Frank had always felt an almost paternal sense of responsibility for “his”
people in the resistance, as illustrated by the many dangerous trips he made to
Germany when risks to his comrades had increased. Moreover, he had since the
60 Richard Wightman Fox,Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 201.
61 Klaus P. Fischer,Nazi Germany: A New History (New York: Continuum, 1998), 456-458.
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seizure of power worked incessantly to gain exit visas and entry permits for them
whenever it seemed that a raid, a security leak, or Nazi expansion could have
compromised their positions. He had successfully managed to move the entire Neu
Beginnen organization from Prague to Paris, and had even obtained a few visas to
Britain at a time when it was almost impossible to obtain such visas. The prospect of
losing so many people was intolerable to Frank.
He began meeting regularly with a friend from the AFGF, Varian Fry, at
Child’s restaurant in midtown to discuss unfolding events and what could be done.
Although they could not decide on any concrete action, Fry suggested that they start
raising money for any eventuality. They contacted Harold Oram, who had been
responsible for fundraising for the Spanish Aid Committee; he agreed to help. The
three men began planning a fundraiser.62
They agreed that the American Friends of German Freedom would sponsor a
luncheon at the Hotel Commodore in New York on June 25. Frank recruited
Reinhold Niebuhr to chair the meeting and Dr. Charles Seymour, president of Yale
University; Dr. Robert Hutchins, president of Chicago University; Dr. William Allen
Neilson, president of Smith College; Dorothy Thompson; Sinclair Lewis; Elmer
Davis; Dr. Alvin Johnson, head of the New School for Social Research; and Frank
Kingdon, president of the University ofNewark as guests of honor. On June 24, with
the luncheon set for the next day, Frank learned the terms of the German treaty with
France. The country had been split in half with German troops only occupying the
62 Marino, A Quiet American: The Secret War o fVarian Fry, 37-40.
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north. Although due to Article 19, the southern authorities had to “surrender on
demand” any one demanded by the Germans, the division gave Frank hope.63
On June 25,1940, two hundred people gathered at the Commodore Hotel for
the fundraiser. The speeches began, and Reinhold Niebuhr asked those in attendance
to contribute. $3,400 was raised, as those present erupted in a wave of enthusiasm
and support.64 Many made impromptu speeches. Most notably, Thomas Mann’s
daughter, Erika, declared that her father, in California, was hearing daily from people
who needed help to get out of Europe. She called for the establishment of an
organization to rescue these people.65
After the luncheon, Frank and Fry conferred with the German novelist
Herman Kesten and Ingrid Warburg, an Oxford educated German emigre from a
financially prominent family. The four agreed, as suggested by Erika Mann among
others, that a committee should be established to help in rescuing those people
trapped in Europe. Their brainchild, the Emergency Rescue Committee, would
ultimately rescue almost two thousand people; and become “the most productive
action to come out of emigre intramural politics.”66
From the outset, the greatest problem facing the new committee would be
gaining entry visas to the United States for the people caught in France. At that time
there were in addition to traditional American nativist anti-immigrant sentiments and
63 Marino, A Quiet American: The Secret War o f Varian Fry, 40-42.
64 Ingrid Warburg-Spinelli and Annette Kopetzki,Die Dringlichkeit des Mitleids und die Einsamkeit, nein zu sagen (Hamburg: Dolling und Galitz Verlag, 1990), 174.
65 Mary Jayne Gold,Crossroads Marseilles, 1940 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), xi.
66 Anthony Heilbut,Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America, From the 1930s to the Present (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 107.
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fears that immigrants would take American jobs, concerns (particularly in the State
Department) about political radicals and fifth columnists entering the Unites States
under the guise of refugees. These concerns had led to significant cuts in the number
of American visas granted to Austrian and German citizens after the outbreak of
fighting in Europe.67
On June 27 Frank and Joseph Buttinger, leader of the Austrian Revolutionary
Socialists, went to Eleanor Roosevelt to see if she could help them in obtaining visas
for their friends caught in France.68 Roosevelt, in their presence, called her husband
at the White House and, having failing at trying to convince him of the importance of
granting emergency visas, threatened
If Washington refuses to authorize these visas immediately, German and American emigre leaders, with the help of their American friends, will rent a ship and in this ship will bring as many of the endangered refugees as possible across the Atlantic. If necessary, the ship will cruise up and down the East Coast until the American people, out of shame and anger, force the president and Congress to permit these victims of political persecution to land!69
Eleanor Roosevelt was not the only person in Washington angered at the cut
in the number of American visas being given to refugees from Germany and Austria.
The cut “clashed with the concern of the President’s Advisory Committee on Political
67 Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut,American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933- 1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 112.
68 Buttinger had in the early 1930s, joineddie Funke, a small and secret Austrian Leninist group who had developed ties toNeu Beginnen. Throughdie Funke, Buttinger had developed a close personal relationship with Frank, which continued afterdie Funke was disbanded in 1935. While working secretly withdie Funke, Buttinger had become a leader in the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists (ARS), the name taken by the Austrian SPD when it was forced underground in 1934. The ARS had maintained a close relationship withNeu Beginnen in exile, and had supported their attacks on the Sopade. Joseph Lash, a former member of the American Socialist Party, and Roosevelt friend, had introduced Frank to Roosevelt earlier that year. [Eric Thomas Chester,Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee, and the (NewCIA York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995) 12- 13.]
69 Gold,Crossroads Marseilles, 1940, xiv.
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Refugees to rescue ‘intellectuals and others [political refugees] now in unoccupied
France, Spain, Portugal, and England, whose lives were in danger....”’ The cut in
visas therefore had already instigated conflicts between the PACPR and the State
Department, who supported the cut.70
Representatives from the State Department, Justice Department, and PACPR
met on July 26th to smooth out these differences “and agreed to cooperate on the
issuance of immigration visas, visitor’s visas, and transit certificates to political,
intellectual, and other refugees who were imperiled in Spain, Portugal, Southern
France, and the French African colonies of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis.” It was
decided that lists of endangered persons would be given to the Presidential Advisory
Committee on Political Refugees, who would then investigate the pasts of those on
the lists and endorse those individuals deemed not to be risks to national security.
The names of these individuals would then move on to either the Department of
Justice or Department of State for final approval. Lastly, the names would be sent on
to the American consul, who ultimately had the final word in issuing visas.71
In the meantime, the Emergency Rescue Committee had established their
office at 122 East Forty-second Street, and began designing a strategy. Dr. Frank
Kingdon became the chairman.72 On July 3, Frank made a radiobroadcast at 9 p.m.
calling for Americans to support “the Dunkirk of European Democracy” and to rescue
70 Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut,American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933- 1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 128.
71 Ibid, 128-129. and Sumner Welles to Eleanor Roosevelt, 12 September 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Visa Questions,” Hoover Institute.
72 Jarrell C. Jackman and Carla M Borden, eds.,Muses Flee Hitler: Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, 1930-1945 (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983), 80-81.
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those “political fighters” still trapped in France.73 While working to gamer public
support, the Committee began gathering lists of people in France in need of
emergency visas; these lists would then be submitted to the PACPR. Karl Frank
compiled the list of German leftists, Hermann Kesten and Thomas Mann the lists of
intellectuals, Joseph Buttinger the Austrians, Max Ascoli the Italians, and Jacques
Maritain and Jules Romains the French.74 Later, Alfred H. Barr of the Museum of
Modem Art and William Green of the American Federation of Labor also compiled
lists. There were clearly more people than could be saved.
With American emergency visas approved for some of the people on the ERC
lists, the Committee needed a representative to go to France to contact the individuals
designated to receive the visas and to determine if there was anyone not on the lists in
imminent danger.75 Frank volunteered to go to, however, he was deemed too much at
risk. Varian Fry offered himself, but Frank did not think he was right for the job.
However, as time passed and no one better volunteered, Frank decided that Fry would
have to be the representative. So with more help from Eleanor Roosevelt, they
obtained an exit visa for Fry, who left for France at the beginning of August.76
On Fry’s fourth day in Marseille, several members ofNeu Beginnen (none of
whom were on any of his lists) arrived at his doorstep to give him a map with a route
73 Karl Frank Radio Broadcast, 3 July 1940, Station WQXR, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 3, F “Lectures and Speeches- Speakers’Engagements 1939-1942,” Hoover Instiute.
74 Frank’s list had a largenumber of Neu Beginnen people on it. Although this fact would cause Frank much harassment in later years, one wonders how anyone else would have acted in his place, given that these people were the very reason he had established the committee in firstthe place. [Warburg-Spinelli, Die Dringlichkeit des Mitleids und dieEinsamkeit, nein zusagen, 176.]
75 The visas issued to theERC were outside of the quota system.
76 Marino,A Quiet American: The Secret War o f Varian Fry, 48-49.
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across the Pyrenees into Spain. They discussed the path with him, explaining that it
would not be easy. Fry decided that the first people to try to cross should be Heinrich
and Clara Ehrmann (members of Neu Beginnen), for they were young and had hiking
experience. They tried the route twice, but were caught both times, and ended up
back in Marseille. On their second failure, they made contact with the friendly mayor
of a border town; he showed them a new route. They succeeded on this route on their
third trip. Upon arriving in Lisbon, they sent the new map to Fry.77
Fry used the Ehrmanns’ map to direct many more refugees across the
Pyrenees. In September 1940, the first boat of refugees, including the Ehrmanns,
arrived safely in New York. Although this trip is most remembered for the famous
intellectuals and artists aboard, there were also a number of labor leaders on ship,
including several members of Neu Beginnen.78
Despite this initial success, the work of the Committee remained stressful and
dangerous. In fact, shortly after the first boat of refugees arrived in America, Frank
telegrammed Fry, asking that he help four Neu Beginnen people held at Le Vemet
(who were about to be deported back to Germany) to escape the camp and get to
America. Getting them out of the camp would be difficult. Feeling desperate, Fry
asked Mary Jane Gould, the secretary of the Committee in France, to go to the camp
to use her feminine wiles to try to secure the prisoners’ release. After meeting with
the camp commandant, Gould gained their release for a trip to Marseille under armed
guard. Quickly she bribed the guards who went drinking, while she and the four men
77 Sheila Isenberg,A Hero o f Our Own: The Story o f Varian Fry(New York: Random House, 2001), 20-21,27-31.
78 Isenberg, 72.
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rushed to the American consulate to obtain the visas that Frank had arranged. The
Spanish border was closed at the time, so Fry secured passage for the men on a
French yacht. Unfortunately, after two days out to sea, the yacht ran into a storm and
returned to port. Fry could not publicly align himself with the men, but did pay for a
lawyer to defend them. Although all four were sentenced to go back to Le Vemet,
two escaped to Martinique and then to America; even though the other two did return
to prison camp, both, with Frank’s help, eventually made it to America.79
Although Frank was instrumental in the founding of the Emergency Rescue
Committee, he became less involved once it was firmly established.• 80 However,
Frank’s and Neu Beginnen’s interests continued to be represented by Fry, Buttinger,
Niebuhr, and Frank’s wife Anna, who remained important in the Committee. The
ERC remained in existence until May 1942, and ultimately helped approximately two
thousand people escape from France.81
Frank’s relinquishing his position in the ERC after ensuring its firm
establishment would prove to be something of a pattern for Frank while in American
exile. Given to bouts of extreme excitement and energy, he would also intermittently
suffer from extreme bouts of depression, during which he would retreat to a friend’s
home in Connecticut for days or weeks on end, severing all ties to his political
activities in New York. Although he proved a dynamic and successful initiator of
79 One o f these men, Franz Bogler, actually through Frank’s intercession via the American government made efforts at reestablishing resistance circles in Europe in 1943. That will be discussed in detail below. [Isenberg,A Hero o f OurOwn: The Story o f Varian Fry, 100-103.]
80 Varian Fry in his bookSurrender on Demand (New York: Random House, 1945) in his dedication m ote “for Anna and Paul Hagen who began it [the ERC].”
81 Heilbut, 42.
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emigre organizations during his periods of excited agitation, he tended, once the
organizations were established, to leave the day-to-day running and maintenance to
his friends and supporters.82
Investigation of the Emigre Attacks on Karl Frank. 1940
With his personal involvement in the ERC concluding in the fall of 1940,
Frank began attending to more personal problems. Since his second trip to America,
Frank had been subject to a smear campaign by a part of the German emigre
community, with the German Labor Delegation (GLD) in the lead. The organization
most equated in the United States with the Sopade, the GLD was taken over by
Friedrich Stampfer (a member of the Sopade, and former member of the Reichstag
and editor of the SPD party organ) when he arrived in America in 1940. Among the
members of the GLD were Gerhard Segher and Ruth Fischer, Frank’s most outspoken
antagonists.83 While this group had at first been content with a whispering campaign,
by 1940 they had begun to mount their attacks on Frank publicly in their paper,Neue
Volkszeitung.
Frank responded by calling for a commission of inquiry by the German Labor
Delegation. Before the inquiry began, Frank and the GLD agreed on the allegations
to be discussed. Five charges dominated the inquiry. They remained bones of
82 Chester, 13. and Interview with Harold Hurwitz, 2/17/03
83 Both Segher and Fischer made something o f a career o f denouncing “Communists.” Fischer, an ex-Communist herself, was noted in an FNB memorandum as a woman who “finds a Communist under every bed.” [Foreign Nationalities Branch Memorandum, 8 February 1944, RG 226, E 142, B 3, F “Save Germany Group.”] Despite her proclivity for denouncing people in general (she even denounced her brother to the House Committee on Un-American Activities) she made a special project out of Frank who she had known as a student in Vienna and whom she refused to believe had left the Communist Party.
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contention between Frank and the GLD after the inquiry, and they demonstrate to
what a great extent their problems were predicated on their previous conflicts in
Europe.84
Frank was accused of carrying out conspiratorial activities against the Sopade
between 1933 and 1935 and bribing a member of Otto Weis’ staff. This charge was
based on the fact that in 1934, Otto Schonfeldt, a Sopade employee and friend of
Frank, told him that he had seen in the Sopade office in Prague a report written about
Neu Beginnen’s organization inside Germany, including names of members and their
addresses.85 The reason Schonfeldt went to Frank was not because he had been
bribed, but rather because the man who had written the report was friendly with a
man whom Schonfeldt suspected (rightly) of being a Gestapo spy; he was afraid that
the members on the list were at risk. Given that by this time the Sopade had become
antagonistic toward Neu Beginnen, Frank went to Friedrich Adler about the matter.
When Adler asked the Sopade about the report, Otto Weis lied, denying that he knew
anything about the report.86
Another charge discussed at the inquiry was that Frank had duped B. Chamey
Vladeck in an effort to get money from American labor organizations. An article in
Neue Volkszeitung maintained that Frank had claimed during Vladeck’s trip to
Europe that he was the leader of the German resistance and had introduced Vladeck
84 Editors o fNeue Volkszeitung to FNB, February 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT- 13GE-72, NARAII.
85 At that pointNeu Beginnen was still officially called the Org, however I will be referring to it as Neu Beginnen in the discussion of this charge for reasons o f clarity.
86 Investigating Committee Report, 28 October 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute.
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to what Frank declared was an inclusive congress of German anti-Nazi resisters.
Although it was testified that upon returning to America in 1935, Vladeck told his
associates that in Europe he had met a congress of resistance leaders and the leader of
the resistance, no one testified that he had been introduced to this congress by Frank,
or that Frank was the leader he named. Frank stated that he had never made such
claims and had always acknowledged Neu Beginnen’s size. Furthermore, Frank’s
supporters argued strenuously that this charge had arisen only after Vladeck’s death.87
The third issue with which the inquiry dealt was how the money Neu
Beginnen’s raised in America was spent. Articles inNeue Volkszeitung alleged that
Frank squandered these monies on a lavish lifestyle. Paul Hertz testified extensively
in defense of Frank. He explained that Frank personally did not have access to the
funds he raised, as all the funds raised in America were deposited with Sir. Stafford
Cripps in England, who then transferred them to Hertz (who had become trustee of
Neu Beginnen’s general funds in 1936) when they were needed on the continent; it
was therefore impossible for Frank to personally access funds. During the discussion
of Neu Beginnen’s finances, Hertz broke down Neu Beginnen’s budget in 1936, and
compared it favorably to the Sopade, claiming that a much larger portion of Neu
Beginnen funds were spent inside Germany.88 Further, he explained that during that
87 Investigating Committee Report, 9 October 1940, KarlFrank B. Papers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute.
88 Investigating Committee Report, 28 October 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute.
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year, he had kept Frank on an allowance of less that $50 a month, which was indeed a
fraction of Neu Beginnen’s annual budget of over $10,000.89
Another allegation discussed at length during the inquiry was the charge that
Frank had written letters to American labor leaders denouncing Wilhelm Sollmann, a
member of the Sopade, as an anti-Semite. Frank admitted that he had verbally
criticized “volkish ’’ tendencies in the German SPD to Norman Thomas {Neu
Beginnen had even published a pamphlet on this subject) and that in the course of this
discussion he had cited certain “foolish remarks” by Sollmann. However, he denied
that this criticism constituted a denunciation. The accusation made in Neue
Volkszeitung, also specified that Frank’s denunciation had been in a number of letters
(none of which were produced) written from Europe by Frank to American labor
leaders. Frank proved that he was not in Europe at the time that the GLD alleged the
letters had been written; no recipient of any of the alleged letters was produced.90
The final issue that resurfaced during every day of the inquiry related to
Frank’s past membership in the Communist Party. TheGLD!Neue Volkszeitung
representatives on the inquiry suggested that Frank had never left the KPD, never
joined the SPD, and was therefore still a Communist. Hertz testified extensively on
Frank’s behalf, explaining that as a former member of the Sopade he would know if
89 Investigating Committee Report, 17 October 1940, KarlFrank B. Papers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute.
90 Investigating Committee Report, 2 October 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute, and Investigating Committee Report, 9 October 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute.
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Frank had never joined the SPD. Despite Hertz’s support, the issue was not
dropped.91
After the fifth day, Frank refused to continue with the inquiry. He had called
for, and agreed to, the investigation in the expectation that it would be a fair and open
forum, which would allow him to discuss his past with his detractors and therefore
clear his name, allowing him to develop a working relationship with the GLD.
However, his most vocal antagonists, Segher and Fischer refused to attend the
hearings. Furthermore, as the inquiry progressed, Frank increasingly felt that the
members of the GLD in attendance were staging a personal attack on him rather than
a legitimate investigation. The investigation ended without conclusion.92
Despite the fact that the inquiry did nothing to clear Frank’s name in the GLD,
it is still significant for what it enlightens about the exile community. Perhaps most
significantly, it demonstrates the extent to which the German Socialist exile
community in America did maintain their German Socialist identity. The fact that the
exile community not only published newspapers and maintained their political
factions, but also created within its own community a body to investigate one of its
members clearly illustrates that the German Socialist exiles maintained a distinct civil
society.
All of the issues under question related in some way to charges made against
Frank and Neu Beginnen in Europe, most notably the charge that he had tried to
91 Investigating Committee Report, 9 October 1940, Karl B. FrankPapers, B 7, F “Investigation o f Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute.
92 Investigating CommitteeReport, 6 November 1940, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Investigation of Paul Hagen,” Hoover Institute.
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infiltrate the Sopade between 1934 and 1936. There was also a distinct American
aspect to some of these allegations (Frank had misrepresented himself to Vladeck to
get money, he had misused funds raised in America, or he had denounced a member
of the Sopade to America labor leaders), these belie the root cause of these
allegations- the GLD’s jealousy for the support Frank and Neu Beginnen enjoyed in
exile. The GLD’s animosity toward Frank demonstrates the extent to which they
maintained their German Social Democratic (as opposed to a new American) identity.
International Coordination Council
In the wake ofFrank’s inquiry before the German Labor Delegation, he and
Ingrid Warburg founded the International Coordination Council (ICC). The Council
immediately began producing a publication, Voice o f Freedom: The Monthly Bulletin
o f the International Coordination Council. Given the failure of the inquiry to resolve
the disagreements between Frank and the GLD, it furnished Frank with a means for
responding to any future GLD attacks in the Neue Volkszeitung. 93 This * is not to
suggest however that the ICC and Voice o f Freedom were founded as a staging
ground for attacks on the GLD.94 The ICC was founded with the intention of
bringing together Americans and Europeans (as opposed to Germans exclusively)
living in America, for democratic political programs. Discussions of these programs
93 Although Frank was still involvedin the publication ofThe Inside Germany Reports and In Re: Germany put out bythe AFGF, both had very specific purposes, which did not allowFrank room to deal with emigre issues.The Inside Germany Reports dealt entirely with what was happening in Europe while In Re: Germany was exclusively a bibliography of books being published on Nazi Germany.
94 FNB Memorandum, 15 August 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-382, NARA II.
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and different activities within the emigre community, dominated the pages of Voice o f
Freedom.
The International Coordination Council also made efforts toward producing
short wave radio broadcasts to Europe; for this purpose a Radio Committee was
created under the direction of an ICC member, Myra Blow. Although nothing came
of these efforts within the confines of the ICC, out of the Radio Committee, Myra
Blow (who continued to be a member of the ICC and friend to Frank) founded Short
Wave Radio Research Inc., which after America entered the War, made broadcasts to
Europe for a short time. In addition, some of the staff of Short Wave Radio Research
Inc. were later hired as scriptwriters and broadcasters for the US Office of War
In formation (OWI). Although by this time Short Wave Radio Research Inc. was not
officially tied to the ICC, personal relationships and overlapping personnel meant that
the two organizations maintained a close relationship, which allowed Frank to
influence who was hired by Short Wave Radio Research Inc and thereby OWI.95
Unity in England, Division in America
While the German Socialist exiles in America remained divided, in England
the Sopade leaders were mending the breach between themselves and the smaller
German Socialist groups. On February 25, 1941, Hans Vogel and Erich Ollenhauer
95 A letter Frank sent to a member o f the AFGF, Hasso von Seebach, living in California during the fall of 1941, makes clear how much Frank’s groups remained intertwined for he asked Seebach to return to New York to make radiobroadcasts to Germany “on behalf of the American Friends of German Freedom” with Short Wave Radio Inc. Although in the end the deal fell through, as they were not able to make broadcasts at that time, Frank’s acknowledgement o f the tie between AFGF and Short Wave Radio Research Inc. in this letter demonstrates the closeness o f the organizations he helped to create. [Karl Frank to Hasso von Seebach, RG 226, E 136A Downes Papers, B 7, F “von Seebach, Hasso,” N A R AII. and Karl Frank to Elmer Davis, 17 April 1943, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Autobiographical Notes and Projects,” Hoover Institute.]
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met with representatives fromNeu Beginnen, the SAP, the International Socialist
Fighting Union (ISK), and German trade unions at the Transport House in London.
Soon thereafter ‘The Union of Socialist Organizations in the United Kingdom’ was
formed under Hans Vogel. The Sopade maintained a central role in the new Union.96
The contrasting position of the leaders of the Sopade in Britain and America
contributed to the inability of the American exiles to develop the type of unity created
in Britain. Where in Britain the smaller groups were persuaded to join with the
Sopade, at least in part due to its superior renown in the general public and strong
relationship with the Labour Party, no such inducement existed in the United States.
In fact, it was Frank who arguably held the highest level of popular recognition and
political influence.
Frank’s personal ties, some of which were initiated as early as 1935, to a
number of wealthy and influential members of the American elite, meant that he more
than the Sopade, had access to the corridors of power. Moreover, while extending his
renown in these circles, his work in the ERC had, initiated a working relationship
between him and his supporters, and the American Federation of Labor. Finally, the
many lectures he gave to a variety of groups in and around New York City, as well as
an extensive speaking tour through the Midwest meant that his reputation spread
0 7 beyond elite circles to a more popular audience.
96Anthony Glees,Exile Politics During the Second World War: The German Social Democrats inBritain, 91 and 94.
97 His popularity is well demonstrated by the fact that in November o f 1941, a representative of Harper & Brothers offered Frank a book deal to write about the current situation in Germany. [Briggs to Karl Frank, 11 November 1941; MM Lockwood to Karl Frank, 19 August 1941; Donald
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Given Frank’s visibility and influence, a committee without him would have
been considered by many Americans to have not been truly representative. However,
members of the GLD, the group most equated with the Sopade, refused to work with
him at all, and a committee without any Sopade members would have been
unacceptable to the emigre community in America. Any plan for unification would
have had to reconcile Frank’s current influence in the United States with the claims
the Sopade leaders made due to their past influence in Germany and contemporary
influence in Britain. Had the inquiry the GLD held concerning Frank been resolved
differently, unity in America might have been possible in 1941. It was not; the
German Socialists in America remained fractured.
Will Germany Crack? and Lectures
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese Imperial Air Force bombed Pearl Harbor.
On December 11, Hitler declared war on the United States. That which Frank had for
years been hoping for had finally occurred: America entered the War in Europe.
With America’s entry into World War II, Frank began working incessantly on a book
he had agreed to write for Harper & Bros on the current situation inside Germany.
By April 1942, Frank finishedWill Germany Crack? It was released in early
summer. 98
In Will Germany Crack?, Frank highlighted the bleak situation in Europe, and
particularly in Germany. He discussed extensively shortages in labor, food, fuel,
Kingsley to Karl Frank, 13 June 1941; Esther Brunauer to Karl Frank, 18 April 1941: All letters located in the Karl B. Frank Papers, B 3, F “1939-1942,” Hoover Institute.
98 Elmer Davis, the future head of the Office of War Information, and AFGF supporter, wrote an introductory recommendation for the book.
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iron, steel, transportation, and clothing, contending that the German people were
suffering and that some opposition did exist. Although he warned not to overestimate
the opposition, admitting that it was small, splintered, and not always sincerely
democratic, he believed that the labor opposition was sincere and could and should be
utilized by the Allies.
Frank argued that Germany would “crack,” only if the Allies encouraged
Germany’s internal opposition. He explained that most Germans thought that if they
lost the War, every German would be severely punished. Frank called on the Allies
to combat this sentiment by declaring that after the War a world federation would be
established in which Germany would be included and that only those Germans who
had committed crimes would be punished. Frank believed that this encouragement,
combined with the worsening conditions inside Germany, might make a revolt
feasible. However, Frank stated plainly that without Allied encouragement, he did
not think a revolt possible."
While working on his book, Frank was offered an extensive and lucrative
speaking tour in Canada by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. The leader
of the organization, John W. Holmes, contacted Frank early in March, asking if he
would be interested in touring Canada to discuss the current situation in Nazi
Germany. Frank responded favorably. Not only would such a tour provide him with
the opportunity to spread his views and perhaps win a few converts, but also it would
bring in much-needed funds. However, as a sign of what was to come, Frank learned
99 PaulHagen [Karl Frank], Will Germany Crack? A Factual ReportonGermany from Within (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942)
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that due to the Alien Registration Act, he would have problems getting an American
re-entry visa because of his Communist past. Frank contacted Eleanor Roosevelt who
asked Sumner Welles to see if anything could be done, while the Canadian Institute
had the Office of External Affairs in Ottawa contact the US Departments of State and
Justice. However, nothing could be done, and so Frank began looking for lecture
opportunities in the United States for the coming spring.100
With America’s entry into the War, Frank found that as a long-time anti-Nazi,
his opinions gained a certain premium. He soon had various appointments in New
York, including lectures for the American Friends of German Freedom and several
radio broadcasts. He also lectured at Bennington College and in Asheville, NC at the
Summer Institute of the International Student Service of the United States. He also
began working on a proposal for the US government on how it could use the German
underground in its war against Nazi Germany.
100 Frank could not have been helped in this effort by the factthat members of the German Labor Delegation hadbegun sending articles, which they hadwritten, as well as letters denouncing Frank (mostly for the charges brought against him in the Investigating Committee Hearing) to different government agencies. [Letters between the Canadian Institute of Internal Affairs and Karl Frank, 6 March 1942,20 March 1942, 24 March 1942, 14 April 1942, 21 April 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 3, F “Lectures and Speeches- Speakers’ Engagements 1939-1942,” Hoover Institute, and Sumner Welles to Eleanor Roosevelt, 23 April 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Visa Questions,” Hoover Institute.]
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FRANK’S ACTIVITIES WITH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
Frank’s Efforts with the US Government Toward Establishing Contact with the German Underground, 1942
On April 10, 1942 Frank submitted a proposal, “How To Prepare
Collaboration With the Anti-Nazi Underground Movement” to the Coordinator of
Information (COI).101 Frank recommended that the US government set up an agency
to study German anti-Nazis and develop a plan for contacting those still in continental
Europe. He advocated establishing a separate agency, which could gather
information on the contemporary situation in Germany by questioning German POWs
and researching and analyzing German newspapers and radio broadcasts. He
projected that such agencies might, in time, be able to train and parachute agents into
Europe to make contact with the underground.102
Frank’s proposal met with a very positive response in the COL Two weeks
after it was submitted, Allen W. Dulles, the head of the
101 This office had been set up the previous summerunder the direction of William J. Donovan to synchronize the information collected by America’s several intelligence agencies (the FBI, Department o f Justice, Office of Naval Intelligence, and Military Intelligence Division)and to conduct espionage. Donovan however, had never been able to do this sufficiently because the other branches jealously guarded their particular domains and would not cooperate with him. Accordingly,June in of 1942 Roosevelt decided to disband the COI and in its place established two offices the Office of War Information (OWI) under the direction of Elmer Davis and the Office o f Strategic Services (OSS) under Donovan’s direction. [Joseph E. Persico,Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (New York: Random House, 2001), 187.]
102 Karl Frank, “How To Prepare Collaboration With the Anti-Nazi Underground Movement,” RG 226, E 136A, B 4, F “Hagen,” NARAII.
45
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Manhattan division of the COI, invited Frank to meet with him and fellow COI
Special Activities Branch staff member Arthur J. Goldberg. Goldberg, the future
head of the Labor Section of the OSS, was at that time a well-established labor lawyer
with contacts at the Jewish Labor Committee and the Emergency Rescue Committee;
through these contacts, Goldberg had previously become acquainted with Frank.104
Goldberg had already contemplated the establishment of agencies along the lines of
those outlined by Frank.105 Frank’s proposal was clearly receiving considerable
consideration at this time, for he soon met with Col. William Donovan, the head of
the COL Donovan also seemed pleased with Frank’s proposal.106
In May, Frank submitted a follow-up memorandum to Goldberg, entitled
“Cooperation with the German Labor Movement.” Although similar in its general
contours to the previous proposal, this proposal was much more detailed and limited
to the labor underground. Frank advocated establishment of a center, which could
immediately begin efforts toward contacting the underground. Frank called on the
American labor movement to cooperate with the COI in establishing and financing
this center, “as a kind of loan to the coming post-Hitler German Labor Movement”
and proposed that the board of directors for the center include several Americans
103 Allen W. Dulles to Karl Frank, 24 April 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78,F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARAII. '
104 Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins o f the CIA(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992) 91. and Richard Harris Smith,OSS: The Secret History of America ’sFirst Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1972) 208.
105 Arthur I. Goldberg to Allen W. Dulles, 8 May 1942, RG 226,E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
106 Allen W. Dulles to Hugh Wilson, 23 May 1942, RG 226, E 92,B 4, F 7540, NARA II.
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(unnamed), as well as himself as a representative ofNeu Beginnen, Paul Hertz as a
representative of the SPD, and Jacob Walcher as a representative of the SAP.107
In the meantime, Frank met with Donald Downes, an American schoolteacher
who had worked with British Intelligence before the establishment of the COI and
was now with the Special Activities Branch of the COI.108 He offered Frank a
position on an emigre committee, which Downes, Goldberg, and several other
members of the Special Activities Branch had been developing. This proposed
committee of anti-Nazi Germans would work “as a front for American support for
German resistance activity” and advise the US government on “political strategy
directed at the German question.”109 It was to be headed by former chancellor
Heinrich Briining, as a representative of the political center, Gottfried Treviranus a
former German Nationalist Party leader as a representative of the political right, and 110 Frank as the representative from the political left. Although Frank accepted a
place on the proposed committee, the committee never got off the ground because of
107 Any non-supporter oNeu f Beginnen would have found the proposal that Paul Hertz be made a representative of the SPD unacceptable. Although Hertz was a former member of the Executive Committee, he had been removed/resigned in the late 1930s after having joinedNeu Beginnen. This proposed board was clearly centered onNeu Beginnen. [Allen Dulles to Hugh Wilson. 23 May 1942, RG 226 E 92 B 4, F “7540,” NARA II.]
108 Donald Downes,Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage (London: Derek Verschoyle, 1953), 57-65.
109 Karl Frank to Donald Downes, 16 May 1942, RG 226, E 136A, B 4, F “Hagen,” NARA II. and Harris, 208.
110 R. Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1972), 208-209.
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State Department opposition to the idea of an exile committee, as well as concerns
about the political pasts of the three men involved.111
By this time, reports about Frank’s past had begun circulating throughout the
COL The majority were produced in, or received by, the Foreign Nationalities
Branch (FNB) of the COI, several of whose members, including Emmy C. Rado,
John Wiley, and DeWitt C. Poole (director of the FNB), had cultivated ties with the
Sopade-run German Labor Delegation. Accordingly, the FNB, by writing a multitude
of negative reports about Frank, became enmeshed in the animosity-born GLD
campaign against Frank.112
Nearly every FNB report concerning Frank was derogatory. Many reiterated
the allegations discussed during Frank’s investigation in 1940, highlighting the
FNB’s tie to the GLD. Particularly prevalent in FNB reports was the charge that
111 Although Frank accepted the offered position, he made a few stipulations: that he retain full political independence, be permitted to leave the committee at will, and receive no financial remuneration as he believed that that would be incompatible with his identity as “a member of the German labor movement.” This was significant in that Frank, unlike many of his fellow exiles who later worked for the OWI, the Labor Section of the OSS, or the German Division o f the Research and Analysis Branch o f the OSS, never officially worked for the US government. [Karl Frank to Donald Downes, 16 May 1942, RG 226, E 136A, B 4, F “Hagen,” NARA II.]
112 This tie is clear in two letters. In one, Donald C. Downes wrote to George K. Bowden on October 19,1942 “For over a year, since long before I was connected with OSS Hagen has been the victim of an unrelenting campaign of vilification both personal and political by Grzesinski [GLD], his small group of social democratic exiles, and their friends now in the Foreign Nationalities of OSS...Mr. Horton o f Foreign Nationalities told me some time back that he did an investigation of Hagen and wrote a memorandum which he described to me as favorable, too favorable to please Mr. Wiley.”[Donald C. Downes to George K. Boden. 19 October 1942, RG 226, E 136A, B 4, F “Hagen,” NARA II.] Significantly, although the memo which Horton wrote to Poole about an interview with Frank in June o f 1942 was favorable, it was not glowingly so. [Philip Horton to DeWitt C. Poole, 29 June 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-226, NARA II.] On the other hand is a letter from Emmy Rado to DeWitt C Poole and Malcolm Davis on September 24,1943. In this letter she once again endorsed a variety of the claims that the GLD was making against Frank. However, in the letter she quoted Frank as saying “Only one government agency.. .the OSS, is partly in favor of the men of the German Labor Delegation, but here only the Foreign Nationalities Branch of that agency.” Instead of contradicting Frank’s claim Rado went on to discuss the efforts she had made in trying to get Gerhart Segher a position in the OSS. [Emmy C Rado to DeWitt C Poole and Malcolm Davis, 24 September 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-799, NARA II.]
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Frank was still a Communist.113 In fact, one FNB memorandum prepared in the
winter of 1942 charged, “Neu Beginnen is subsidized by the Soviet Embassy in
Washington.” The source for this “information” was termed “special and well
informed,” but not named.114 Another common allegation was that Frank seduced
women to use for his work; this charge was most often made in connection with
Ingrid Warburg.115 Despite these allegations, Dulles and Goldberg continued their
working relationship with Frank.
At a meeting with Goldberg on May 28, Frank with Heinrich Ehrmann, Anna
Caples, Vera Eliasberg, and Bernard Tauer laid out a detailed plan of how the COI
could, with their help, contact the German underground.116 They proposed that
Caples and David F. Seiferheld (an American textile executive who was already
working in counter-intelligence for the COI and who, as the treasurer of AFGF, ERC,
ICC, and Short Wave Radio Inc., served as a link between Frank and the COI) go to
Switzerland, Ehrmann to unoccupied France, Tauer to Sweden, and Frank to
Switzerland initially, but then on to Germany once he had established firm contacts;
they would all report back to a support center based in New York, which would be
113 Frank’s part in the kidnapping o f Wolfgang Schwartz was regularly mentioned in FNB memorandums in this regard. Richard Rohmann to DeWitt C. Poole, 1 April 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-31, NARA II. & Philip Horton to DeWitt C. Poole, 26 June 1942, RG 226, E 210, Box 31, Folder “#8,” NARA II. & John Wiley to DeWitt C. Poole, 21 January 1942, RG 226 OSS- FNB Files, MINT-13GE-18, NARA II.
114 FNB Memorandum, 1 December 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-1718, NARA II.
1,5 Emmy C. Rado, FNB Memorandum, 25 March 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT- 13GE-68, NARA II.
116 The same Heinrich Ehrmann who had representedNeu Beginnen in Paris, receiving financial support from Leon Blum, and who had been rescued by the Emergency Rescue Committee.
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run by Vera Eliasberg.117 The role of the COI would be limited to furnishing means
of communication and helping them get to and from Europe. 118
Goldberg brought this proposal to Calvin Hoover of the Special Activities
Branch of the COI. Hoover told Goldberg that it would be almost impossible to
obtain visas for people of foreign nationality to go to and from Europe. Hence,
Goldberg decided that although he wanted to move ahead with Frank’s plan in
principle, it would have to be changed with regard to sending foreigners. This meant
that everyone except Caples and Seiferheld would not be able to go.119
As security checks on Caples and Seiferheld progressed gradually, Frank
became impatient, feeling that precious months were being lost. Moreover, he
learned that he was being investigated by different government agencies and guessed
that the GLD attacks on him might be impinging on his ability to see his proposals
realized. Accordingly, he wrote to Wallace Deuel of the Office of War Information
(OWI) stating that the accusations made against him by members of the German
Labor Delegation, and already discussed but not dismissed at the inquiry in 1940,
were “the product of a battle of Europe in America.” Further, he blamed the GLD for
preventing the American exiles from creating something approximating the Union of
German Socialist Organizations in London and concluded that given the
1,7 Seiferheld’s ties to COI are discussed in Robin W. Winks,Cloak and Gown: Scholar in the Secret War (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1987), 256-257. & R. Harris Smith, 217- 218.
118 Arthur J Goldberg to Allen W Dulles, 29 May 1942, RG 226,E 210, B 78,F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
119 Arthur J. Goldberg to Allen W. Dulles, 10 June 1942, RG 226,E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
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120 circumstances, any allegation made against him by the GLD should be ignored. At
this point, Frank was clearly in good favor, for Dulles immediately contacted
Donovan (to whom Frank’s concerns had been passed) to assure him that he was
doing everything possible for Frank and that the delays were due to problems with
passport restrictions and “State Department inhibitions,” not a lack of interest.121
Perhaps in an effort to demonstrate to Frank how seriously they took him,
Arthur Goldberg agreed in late August to allow Frank to begin using US diplomatic
pouches to contact his people abroad. Using this method, Frank contacted friends in
1 99 England, Palestine, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, and France. Despite this
apparent show of favor on the part of OSS, Frank began working with Lt. Colonel
Julius Klein of G-2 (whom he had met on a trip to Washington DC) to see if the army
would be able to realize his proposal in a more timely fashion than OSS.
Frank began writing his last proposal on how the US government could make
use of the German underground. Fifty pages long, it would be Frank’s most detailed
plan, with five appendices including his first proposal from April 10. Although
similar to the previous memos, this new proposal reworked and expanded on their
details.
Frank recommended that, to ensure its inconspicuous nature, an organization
for contacting the underground should grow out of the American Friends of German
120 Karl Frank to Wallace Deuel, 14 July 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
121 Wallace Deuel to William Donovan, 17 July 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II. and Allen W. Dulles to William Donovan, 16 July 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
122 Arthur J. Goldberg to George K. Bowden, 22 August 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
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Freedom, the International Coordination Council, and Neu Beginnen ’$ Auslandsburo.
In his proposal, Frank called for the Neu Beginnen Auslandsburo to “resume its
former activities, the publication of its political information organ, its
correspondence, its research work, its lectures and other organizational work.” 123
Once this had happened, Frank advocated pulling Americans from the AFGF, both to
helpNeu Beginnen in developing its contacts in Europe, and to staff a support center
in New York. He proposed that a governmental representative, potentially Klein,
serve as head of the center with Frank appointed civilian assistant to the chief.
Finally, Frank suggested that further recruitment could be done through the ICC. He
argued that using the AFGF and ICC was perfect because it was well known that both
were tied to Neu Beginnen so their working together would not arouse suspicion.124
Despite his and Frank’s hopes, Klein’s superiors told him that although they
thought Frank’s plan promising, they saw it as a project more suitable to OSS than G-
2.125 Klein submitted Frank’s newest proposal to Col. Donovan in late September.126
Frank was back where he had started.
In the meantime, Goldberg had begun to work full force at getting Frank’s
plan moving by getting David Seiferheld to Switzerland.127 He expedited
123 Karl Frank, “A Plan to Make Contact With the German Underground,” Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “A Plan to Make Contact With the German Underground,” Hoover Institute, Appendix 2.
124 Ibid.
125 Col. Sexton to Julius Klein, 13 September 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Immigration and Naturalization Service,” Hoover Institute.
126 James Murphy to Julius Klein 25 September 25 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Immigration and Naturalization Service, Hoover Institute.
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Seiferheld’s security check, which was completed on August 26, and in an effort at
developing a suitable cover story, contacted the visa division and a number of
businessmen.128 It was hoped that Seiferheld would make contact with Neu Beginnen
people in Switzerland and then pass on any information he collected to the OSS office
in Switzerland, which could then forward it to the United States by diplomatic pouch.
Donovan was kept abreast of all of these developments.1 70
Despite Goldberg’s efforts, the plan to get David Seiferheld to Switzerland
died by November 1942. No workable cover position could be found. This left
Frank feeling that he and Neu Beginnen had landed at their lowest point.130 Not only
did his efforts with the OSS seem to have ended in failure, but also having contacted
Lowenthal in England through the auspices of the OSS, Frank had learned for the first
time how bleak the situation was for his friends in England.
German Socialist Exiles in Britain
In November 1941, Walter Loeb, a member of the Sopade, began publicly
attacking the Socialist emigres in London, including Neu Beginnen, as nationalistic
Germans. Curt Geyer, also Sopade, soon seconded him, arguing that the “SPD had
127 Given the fact that Seiferheld was a employee of the OSS, it is unsurprising that he was the person who Goldberg was pushing to get to Europe.
128 Arthur J. Goldberg to George K. Bowden, 24 August 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
129 “Switzerland Project,” RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II. & Arthur J. Goldberg to Allen Dulles, 13 July 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
130 George O. Pratt to George K. Bowden, 27 October 1942, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
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always been nationalistic simply because the German people had always been
nationalistic.” These views began to rapidly gain acceptance in Britain.131
The man who was to personify the belief that all Germans were at heart Nazis,
Lord Vansittart, made his maiden speech in the House of Lords on March 18,1942.
“He stated that he was quoting Nietzsche when he said that the only way to become a
good German was to stop being a German and start becoming a good something
else.”132 This was clearly not a good sign for Frank’s friends in England.
Moreover, Vansittart’s views found resonance not only in conservative circles
but also increasingly in leftist circles. On October 2,1942 William Gillies, who as
the Secretary of the International Subcommittee of the National Executive of the
Labour Party, had invited the Sopade to England and then encouraged them and Neu
Beginnen to work with the Labor Party, advised them that the Labour Party would no
longer financially or politically support the Socialist emigres. The situation seemed
so grave to Ollenhauer that he wrote to a friend in Sweden that the Sopade “no longer
had any money, their opponents Geyer and Loeb received far greater publicity than
they did, and he and Vogel often thought it would be better if they gave up their party
labours altogether and devoted themselves to their gardening.” 133
Although Ollenhauer seemed more dejected than Richard Lowenthal,
Lowenthal had written Frank in the fall of 1942, explaining the general situation for
the emigres in Britain, claiming that they had been roundly attacked both publicly and
131 Glees, Exile Politics During the Second World War: the German Social Democrats in Britain, 127.
132 Ibid, 133.
133 Ibid, 177.
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privately by their former supporters, as well as by the Vansittarites, and that their
room for action was constricting rapidly.134 With this bleak news compiled with the
apparent failure of his government proposal, Frank decided to cease “making any
effort to force his views upon government agencies” and to concentrate on emigre
politics.135 However, he would soon have one more opportunity to try to contact the
German underground with the help of the Office of Strategic Services.
Frank’s Efforts with the US Government Toward Establishing Contact with the German Underground. 1943
In the late fall of 1942, Frank learned that Franz Bogler, a member of Neu
Beginnen, had been interned in a Swiss concentration camp.136 Bogler’s wife, who
had arrived in the United States on an emergency visa secured by Frank, approached
him about securing Bogler’s release. Frank went to Arthur Goldberg in January for
suggestions about what could be done. After contacting people in Switzerland,
Goldberg suggested that Bogler’s wife “increase the remittances to Bogler so that his
parole can be effected.”137 Accordingly, Frank raised $500 and asked Goldberg to
have an OSS representative in Geneva secure Bogler’s release.
04 The continued use of German emigres for radio broadcasts to Germany was coming under increased attack by Vansittart and his allies. This was particularly threatening forNeu Beginnen, several of whose members were employed in making these broadcasts. Sering [Richard Lowenthal] to Karl Frank, 28 October 1942, Karl B. Frank Papers, Box 5, Folder “Neu Beginnen,” Hoover Institute.
135 Phillip Horton to DeWitt C. Poole, 21 December 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT- 13GE-462, NARA II.
136 Bogler was one of the men who Frank had asked Fry to help escape from Camp Vemet but who had been recaptured and sent back in 1940. He had proceeded on to Switzerland in 1942.
137 Arthur J. Goldberg to David Shaw, 16 January 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
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Frank and Goldberg’s concern for Bogler was not purely philanthropic. Frank
believed that Bogler was a perfect candidate for re-establishing contact with the
German underground from Switzerland, and so reviving Frank’s plan for initiating in
Europe an underground network of German opponents to Nazism. To facilitate
communication between Frank and his connections in unoccupied Europe, including
Bogler, Goldberg arranged again for their use ofUS diplomatic pouches. It was
agreed that if the people Frank contacted in neutral Europe made contact with the
underground inside Germany and began establishing a network, they would be
1 "lO allowed to continue using these lines of communication.
By June 1943, Frank’s plans seemed close to realization. Bogler had been
released and had agreed to help set up a network under Frank’s direction.
Accordingly, Frank had sent Bogler the names of several contacts in Switzerland and
Germany who could help in establishing border contacts in Basel, Schaffhausen, and
1 OQ St. Gallen, and in finding a Swiss courier to make contact in Germany. Frank also
wrote to Max Hoffmann in Lisbon to see if he could help in reactivating the networks
in Europe.140 As for Sweden, Frank had begun working, with the help of Jacob
Walcher (SAP), with August Enderle and Willy Brandt (SAP), both of whom seemed
willing to help establish a network.141
138 David C. Shaw to Arthur J. Goldberg, 2 February 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
139 Mortimer Kollender to Arthur J. Goldberg, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II. and Arthur J. Goldberg to Mortimer Kollender, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA II.
140 Karl Frank to Max Hoffmann, 25 June 1943, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 5, F “Neu Beginnen,” Hoover Institute.
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Furthermore, Frank had been pledged funds from the American Federation of
Labor.142 This was ideal, for in Frank’s proposal to G-2, he had argued against
receiving funds from any government because “political underground sources [like
himself and Neu Beginnen] do not work for money, like spies. They work as
volunteers for their own liberation.”143 Funding by the AFL would mean total
financial independence from the US Government.
Finally, it appeared thatNeu Beginnen had reactivated its network in
continental Europe. Bogler had begun developing contacts in Switzerland and had
written to Frank asking for the names of additional contacts.144 Frank had contacted
Erwin Schottle in London (once again through a US diplomatic pouch), asking that
Neu Beginnen people there send along information on potential contacts in
Switzerland.145 Schottle had responded and Frank had sent Bogler contact
information for people in Berlin and Munich, as well as $500.146
The reactivization of Neu Beginnen turned out to be an illusion however.
Despite their first encouraging letters, it appeared that Frank’s contacts in Sweden
would not be able to get any type of resistance circle going. August Enderle was ill
141 Mortimer Kollender to Arthur J. Goldberg, 8 May 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, F “Paul Hagen Group,”NARA II.
142 Ibid.
143 Karl Frank, “A Plan to Make Contact With the German Underground,” Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “A Plan to Make Contact With the German Underground,” Hoover Institute, 43.
144 OSS Official Dispatch to Arthur J Goldberg and Mortimer Kollender per a telegram from Franz Boegler to Karl Frank June 22,1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA
145 Memorandum from Karl Frank toArthur J Goldberg June 25, 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA
146 Memorandum from Karl Frank to Arthur J Goldberg June 27, 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA and Memorandum from Mortimer Kollender to Arthur J Goldberg July 16,1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA
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and Willy Brandt had not been heard from in months. Moreover, Frank learned that
he would not be receiving the funds promised by the AFL.147 The final straw came
on, October 11,1943 when Frank learned that Bogler had been sent back to
Appenzell Concentration Camp.148 Frank tried to secure his release, but he could not.
Frank reverted to his old proposal about sending someone from America to Sweden,
but the OSS was not willing to consider this option.149 Despite his efforts over the
past year and a half, Frank’s work with the OSS ceased once Bogler had been re-
interned.
It appears that the smear campaign against Frank that had been building up
during the previous two years within the German emigre community, and among their
supporters in the OSS, had finally effected its goal of preventing Frank from
maintaining his influence in government circles.150 Although Frank’s detractors had
been making a number of charges against him since his first trip to America, these
allegations took on a new character during the spring of 1943. That spring, Gunther
Reinhardt, a member of the German Labor Delegation, wrote a memorandum in
147 Letter from Mortimer Kollender to Carl Devoe with attached letters from Frank to contacts in Sweden October 4, 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA
148 Letter from Carl Devoe to Mortimer Kollender October 11, 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA
149 Memo from AE Jobs to Arthur I Goldberg August 18, 1943, RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA
150 This point is really driven in home in a letter from David C. Shaw to Arthur J Goldberg November 27, 1943 (RG 226, E 210, B 78, Folder “Paul Hagen Group,” NARA) in which Shaw discussed the prospect of using Bogler again but dismissed this option due to the differences between Frank and other German emigres in America working for the OSS based in old animosities from Europe
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which he alleged that Frank ran the Office of War Information through behind-the-
scenes machinations, and that both the OWI and Frank were Communist.151
On May 23,1943 Rudolf Katz, the managing editor of the Neue Volkszeitung,
sent Reinhardt’s memorandum to Gen. Donovan. In his accompanying letter, Katz
claimed that this memorandum had been “prepared for a government agency” and
that he had only come by a copy “by chance.” (This assertion is hard to believe given
that both Reinhardt and Katz were members of the GLD.) Katz added that a few days
earlier he had met with Walter L. Dorn, the head of the German Division of the
Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services. He claimed that he
felt troubled because Dorn, who was working on a memorandum on the German
emigre community, seemed to look favorably on Frank. Katz asserted that, “Up to
now our relations with the O.S.S. offices in Washington and New York have been
excellent. That is why I want to mention the above facts [Dom’s favorable opinion of
1 S9 Frank] which, to put it bluntly, my friends and I do not like at all.”
151 Reinhardt, like Ruth Fischer, made a career for himselfby denouncing “Communists” (including his Australian girlfriend), and like Fischer he made Karl Frank a special project. He later claimed to have delivered over 400 reports denouncing Frank to different US Government agencies during the Second World War! Not content to end his activities with the Second World War, Reinhardt in 1952, had a book published,Crime Without Punishment; The Secret Soviet Terror Against America, in which he reiterated the charges brought against Frank during the Investigation in 1940, and bragged about his efforts to prevent Frank from returning to Germany after the War. [Karl Frank, 11 August 11 1954, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 7, F “Gunther Reinhardt and Walter Winchell,” Hoover Institute.]
152 The noted excellent relations presumably refer to the Foreign Nationalities Branch of the OSS who as mentioned earlier, incessantly attacked Frank. That Katz is referring to FNB is demonstrated by a letter writtenby Emmy C. Rado to John C. Hughes and dated the same day as the letter Katz wrote to Donovan (before Dom’s proposed memorandum had even been written) in which she attacked Dorn for trying to find out about Hagen independently instead of just excepting hers and Philip C. Horton’s word that he was a political adventurer. In this letter, she also suggested that Frank exerted undue influence throughout the emigre community and suggested that this was tied to his position on the Emergency Rescue Committee through which he was able to save so many members o f Neu Beginnen. This charge is one, which was regularly made by the German Labor Delegation in the Neue Volkszeitung. The similarities however between her letter and Katz’s are striking. [Emmy C.
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This letter and memorandum aroused the opposite response to what Katz and
the GLD had hoped. Reportedly Donovan “was disgusted and turned over the
document to Dorn.”153 Dorn, who correctly assumed the memorandum had been
written by a member of the GLD, then wrote a memorandum to Donovan, in which
he claimed the assertion by Katz that Frank had duped him was absurd and based
solely on his not having taken Katz’s word alone when assessing Frank’s political
position.154
In his memorandum, Dorn offered a scathing indictment of the members of
the German Labor Delegation and their animosity toward Frank. He dismissed the
GLD memorandum as “an unscrupulous attempt to introduce into an important war
agency of the American Government the factional quarrels going on within the
German emigration in New York.” Noting a letter Friedrich Stampfer had written to
Hans Vogel “charging him and his London friends with being dominated by New
Beginning and Paul Hagen,” Dorn described the GLD’s conviction that Frank and
Neu Beginnen’s influence could be found everywhere, even the OWI, as neurotic.
Further, he claimed that because of these attacks, which appeared in nearly every
issue of Neue Volkszeitung, Frank, whom Dorn termed a “competent mediocrity,” had
become “the most widely publicized person in the German emigration, next to ex-
Rado to John C. Hughes, 25 May 1943, RG 226, E 142, B 3, F “Foreign Groups- German in America,” NARA II. and Rudolf Katz to William J. Donovan, 25 May 1943, RG 226 Office of Strategic Services- Washington Director’s Office, Microfilm 1642, Roll 92, Frames 52-53, NARA II.]
15j Henry Ehrmann to Karl Frank, 2 August 1943, Karl B Frank Papers, B 7, F “Frank: Gunther Reinhardt and Walter Winchell,” Hoover Institute.
154 Dorn suggested that Grzesinski, Segher, or Katz probably wrote the memo. He leaned toward seeing Katz as the author because he felt that its swinging “between Teutonic dogmatism and downright vulgarity” as well as the documents lack o f “dignity and close logic” resembled Katz’s writing as the editor o f theNeue Volkszeitung. [Walter Dom to William Donovan, 3 June 1943, RG 226 OSS- Washington Director’s Office, M 1642, Roll 92, NARA II.
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Chancellor Briining.’’155 In conclusion, he explained that the animosity between the
progressives in the GLD and Frank was not rooted in any substantial ideological
difference, but due rather to personal animosity based on their relations in Europe.156
Although in the end Dom’s portrayal of Frank was generally favorable in so
far as his being an earnest anti-Nazi, Frank had become the center of so much public
controversy for so long that he was no longer considered someone who the
government could feasibly work with. Frank’s working relationship with the US
government therefore ceased. Hence Frank increased his activities in the German
emigre milieu.
155 In so noting Frank, Dorn made clear that he was obviously not one of “Frank’s people” and so a fairly unbiased observer to the Frank / GLD conflict.
156 Walter Dorn to William J. Donovan, 3 June 1943 RG 226 OSS-Washington Director’s Office, Microfilm 1642, Roll 92, NARA II.
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CULMINATION OF FRANK’S WARTIME ACTIVITIES IN AMERICA’S GERMAN SOCIALIST EMIGRE COMMUNITY
Emigre Activities during Frank’s Work With the Government
While working with the US Government, Frank exerted significant efforts at
developing his role as a leader in the German emigre community. He continued his
activities with the American Friends of German Freedom and held a number of
lectures in the eastern states, especially between November of 1942 (when the plan to
send Seiferheld to Switzerland fell through) and the spring of 1943 (when his
activities with Bogler began). He held very few lectures at the time when he was in
written contact with Bogler, but quite a few thereafter. Late in 1942, staff members
of the Foreign Nationalities Branch began pursuing Frank and taking notes at many of
his meetings and lectures. These notes were passed on to John Wiley and DeWitt C.
Poole.
Frank had engagements to speak in a variety of forums. He did many lectures
for the American Friends of German Freedom, which in April of 1943 sponsored a
dinner attended by over 600 people, with Eleanor Roosevelt as a guest of honor. 157
Although for the most part Frank spoke to small groups, he also participated in a
157 Foreign Nationalities Branch Memorandum, 15 April 1943, RG 266 OSS-FNB Files, M INT-13GE-633, NARA II.
62
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number of roundtable debates, and made several radio addresses. In his addresses,
Frank usually discussed the contemporary conditions in Germany.
During this period, Frank also continued his efforts toward unifying the
German Socialist community in the United States. Like his lectures, these efforts
tended to increase when his activities with the government decreased. In October
1942, after Paul Hertz had moved from California to New York, the two men initiated
discussions with Marie Jucharez and George Dietrich, both of whom were former
Sopade members; Emil Kirschmann, a former SPD Reichstag deputy; Hans
Hirschfeld, a former high SPD ministerial official; and Erich Rinner and Siegfried
Aufhauser, both of whom were members of the Sopade. Frank and Hertz planned
through these discussions neither to found a new party nor to subsume the other
groups under Neu Beginnen. Rather, they hoped to make the first steps toward
building “a coalition of democratic forces” among the divided German Socialist
emigre community in America, similar to the Union established in England in
1941.158 But these efforts came to naught because Rinner and Aufhauser were
ultimately unwilling to cooperate with Frank.159 Once his work with the government
resumed in the spring of 1943, Frank appears to have dropped these exertions.
However, when the National Committee for a Free Germany in Moscow
published a Manifesto on July 23,1943, Frank felt the need to resume his activities
toward unity in the American German Socialist camp. Written by German POWs and
158 “German Politics in the United States,” 5 November 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT-33GE-5, NARA II. & Philip Horton to John C. Wiley, 15 October 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-367, NARA II.
159 Frank had not even considered the possibility o f Stampfer cooperating with him.
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emigres in Russia, the Manifesto called on the German people to revolt against Hitler.
It promised that by revolting “they will win for themselves” in the post-War period a
democratic government, a free economy, a restoration of political rights, including
freedom of speech and press, and “the right to decide about their future and to be
heard in the world.”160 Frank welcomed the content of the Manifesto and considered
the Committee to be a stroke of brilliant propaganda by the Russians, superior to
anything the British or Americans were doing.161 It encouraged him to try to develop
a similar organization in America which would not be Communist run and so could
counteract the Russian Communist launched Committee.162
Frank called for a meeting to initiate cooperation within the German leftist
emigre community in America. The meeting, held on September 8, 1943 at the home
of a Social Democratic jurist, Ernst Frankel on Long Island, was attended by a
number of Social Democrats. Although they agreed with Frank that the Manifesto
was effective propaganda, and lamented that it had originated in the Soviet Union
rather than in England or America, they still were not willing to work with
“extremists,” meaning Frank. The discussion eventually degenerated into an
160 Bodo Scheurig,Free Germany: The National Committee and the League of German Officers, trans. Herbert Arnold (Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1969), 49-50.
161 FNB Memorandum, 4 August 1942, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-740, NARA II.
162 Frank was not the only person in the United States to appreciate the importance of the Free Germany Committee. Frank’s longtime antagonist, DeWitt C. Poole, chief of the FNB, in the wake of the publication of the Committee’s Manifesto, called on the OSS to create a similar exile committee. However, the State Department opposed the idea just as they had the proposed “Bruning committee” in 1942. Richard Harris Smith in OSS: The Secret History o f America ’$ First Central Intelligence Agency, 217-218, noted that because of State Department blocks, “unofficial links to the Frank group and the Institute [of Social Research] were the closest OSS could come to duplicating Moscow’s plans for German political subversion.”
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argument, when Ruth Fischer, having shown up uninvited, began attacking Frank as a
Communist. Consequently, despite Frank’s hopes at finding common ground among
the different German Socialist groups on which they could build an inclusive
organization, a few days after the meeting, Neue Volkszeitung published an article
saying that the GLD wo uld never work with Frank, Neu Beginnen, or any of their
associates.163
Unabashed, Frank continued trying to realign the emigre community. To this
end, he approached the Free World Association (FWA) in New York to see if they
would be willing to help him by sponsoring a German committee within the
Association. The FWA “was an organization of statesmen exiled from the various
countries occupied by the Axis or actual refugees from axis (sic) countries.. .Their
purpose was to organize their fellow exiles for propaganda, for political presentation
against the day of liberation...” For this purpose, they were in touch with hundreds of
thousands of refugees. The FWA had been in existence since the outset of the War
and was not aligned with, and is not to be confused with, the Free Germany
Committee in Moscow.164
Frank began working with the Austrian representative of the FWA, Julius
Deutsch, on seeing the realization of a German committee within the FWA.165 On
September 21, Deutsch called for a meeting, which was attended by Frank, Hertz,
163 FNB Memorandum, 15 September 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-33GE-24, NARA II.
164 Emmy C. Rado to Malcolm W. Davis, 24 September 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT-13GE-799, NARA II. and Downes 59.
165 Frank worked with Deutsch as no German representative belonged to the inner circle o f the Association.
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Horst Barensprung, a Social Democrat and chairman of the German Democratic
Study group, Ferdinand Bruckner, a writer for the Tribune for Free German
Literature and Art, Dr. Felix Bdnheim of the German-American Emergency Rescue
Conference, Hans Hirschfeld, formerly an SPD Prussian official, and Dr. Werner
Thorman to inquire into their willingness to participate in a committee under the
auspices of the FWA that would represent a broad cross-section of the German
emigre community.166 Those present responded favorably. Although Deutsch
informed them that the GLD had declined to participate, thereby inducing
Barensprung to refuse to be secretary of the committee, most members agreed to
1 r n continue; Hans Hirschfeld was selected as secretary in Barensprung’s place.
The group then planned a rally in support of the new German committee of
the FWA and electing German representatives to the International Congress of the
Free World Association.168 They scheduled the German rally for October 25, two
days before the International Congress of the Free World Association was to hold its
rally in New York City. The president of Hunter College, George Schuster, was
slated to preside, and was asked to provide use of a college auditorium. Thomas
Mann, Carl Zuckmayer, Dorothy Thompson, and Matthew Woll of the CIO were
166 Emmy C. Rado to Malcolm W. Davis, 24 September 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT-13GE-799, NARA II.
167 Emmy C. Rado to Malcolm W. Davis, 24 September 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT-13GE-799, NARA II.
168 “German Anti-Nazis in The United States Still Seeking National Committee,” 15 October 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-33GE-26, NARA II.
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asked to be speakers; the Social Democrat Wilhelm Sollmann was asked for a letter
of support.169
Planning and Establishment of the Council for a Democratic Germany
No sooner had Frank successfully established a German Committee within the
Free World Association, than he moved on to his ultimate goal of uniting the German
left in exile. Frank considered the possibility of post-War Germany becoming a
Russian satellite as an increasing threat given the propaganda being put out by the
National Committee for a Free Germany in Moscow. He believed strongly that the
leftist emigre community in America should unite to counter the propaganda coming
out of Russia.170
On October 27, Frank met with Thomas Mann, who was in New York for the
Free World rally, to ask if he would be willing to head up an unofficial committee of
the German emigre left. Although Frank acknowledged that the US government was
not willing to support a German committee officially, he suggested that it might be a
good idea to establish one unofficially, without for the time being producing a
manifesto or holding public meetings. He proposed that should Mann accept the
leadership of such a committee, he should invite representatives of all the important
169 Emmy C. Rado to Malcolm W. Davis, 24 September 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT-13GE-799, NARA II.
170 “German Anti-Nazis in The United States Still Seeking National Committee,” 15 October 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-33GE-26, NARA II.
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German leftist emigre groups to join and then contact potential* American • sponsors. 171
Mann accepted.1 7 “7 ~
The Office of Strategic Services reacted quite unfavorably to these
developments. Emmy C. Rado and DeWitt C. Poole, as GLD supporters and Frank
opponents, were clearly distressed because it appeared that, by winning over Mann,
Frank finally had “the strings [of the German emigre community] in his hands.”173
Rado on November 6 met with Gen. Donovan to complain about the proposed
committee and thereafter received Donovan’s endorsement for trying to quash it. 174
Accordingly, Poole contacted A. A. Berle, the Assistant Secretary of State, informing
him that Thomas Mann would soon be calling him for advice. Poole asked Berle to
convince Mann to resign from the proposed committee.175 On November 26, the two
men lunched together, and Berle convinced Mann to step down. 176
Although Mann’s resignation was a disappointment to Frank and the
supporters of the establishment of a German Socialist exile committee, even more
disheartening were the reasons Mann gave for his resignation. He said Berle had
asked him not to join because there would be great displeasure in the government if
171 Franksuggested Dorothy Thompson,Niebuhr, Alvin Johnson, President John Schuster and unnamed representatives from the AFL and CIO.
172 EmmyC Rado to DeWitt C. Poole, 29 October 1943, RG 226,E 142, B 3, F “Foreign Groups- Germans in America,” NARA II.
173 Ibid.
174 Irving H. Sherman to Hugh R. Wilson, 6 November 1943, RG 226, E 142, B 3, F “Save Germany Group,” NARA II.
175 DeWitt C. Poole to A.A.Berle, 10 November 1943, RG 226,E 142, B 3, F “Save Germany Group,” NARA II.
176 Emmy C. Rado to Dewitt C. Poole, 8 December 1943, RG 226, E 142, B 3, F “Foreign Groups- Germans in America,” NARA II.
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refugees began discussing post-War Germany, since in all likelihood Germany would
be occupied for at least fifty years and would be quarantined so that “for 30 years no
Allied child would be permitted contact with a German child.” Apparently, Mann
confused what Berle had said with what he had heard from other people, possibly his
daughter Erika.177 However, at the time Frank and his supporters believed that these
views were held by the State Department.178 Despite this setback, Frank and the
supporters of an emigre committee agreed to continue their activities.
Late December brought positive news for Frank and the supporters of the
proposed committee. Paul Tillich, a professor at Union Theological Seminary and a
noted theologian, agreed to chair the proposed committee in Mann’s place.
Moreover, two members of the German Labor Delegation, namely Siegfried
Aufhauser and Hedwig Walchenheim, agreed to openly discuss the idea of their
joining the proposed committee.179
However, both remained concerned at the prospect of working with
Communists.180 On January 8 and 15, they met with the representatives of the
Communist led German American Emergency Conference. At the meeting the two
177 Erika Maim had actually contacted the FNB asking for help to get her father to quit the Committee as she felt that Frank was controlling her father and that her father was not able to compete with his wiles. [Emmy C. Rado to DeWitt C. Poole, 15 November 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT-13GE-913, NARA II.]
178 “German National Committee Plans in the United States,” 15 December 1943, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-33GE-30, NARA II.
179 FNB Memorandum, 8 February 1944, RG 226, E 142, B 3, F “Save Germany Group,” NARA II.
180 Frank and the supporters of a committee of the German left had decided to include a few Communists. They had decided that Communists would be limited to a tiny minority, but that they should be included on the democratic grounds that they did represent a portion o f the German left in exile.
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GLD members agreed to work with the Communists personally, but said they would
have to check back with the other members of the GLD. After a heated debate, the
GLD decided not only, not to work with any committee with Communists, but also
that no GLD member could do so either. But Aufhauser, demonstrating the isolation
and inner turmoil in which the GLD increasingly found itself, decided to openly work
toward reversing this decision.181
By spring plans for creating a committee to represent the German emigre left
in America were clearly progressing. In mid-April, Aufhauser informed committee
supporters that he would join them even if it meant breaking with the GLD.182 On
April 22, Tillich called the first large scale meeting for the discussion of the
formation of an exile committee, which by speaking for the Germans inside Germany,
would agitate for the establishment of a democratic post-War Germany.183 A week
later a letter signed by Reinhold Niebuhr and Dorothy Thompson was sent out to a
large number of refugees, asking them to endorse the establishment of the
committee. 184
On May 3, 1944 the creation of the Council for a Democratic Germany (CDG)
was officially announced in the press. Signed by 65 emigres, The Declaration of the
181 In an FNB memorandum dated April 10, 1944 it was stated that the GLD have “been sorely beset by their inability in fact to find wide support or sympathy in private circles here, the more so in view of Paul Hagen’s shining success among American intellectuals and liberals.” [FNB Memorandum, 10 April 1944, RG 226, FNB Files, M, INT-33GE-62, NARA II.]
182 Charles B. Friediger to DeWitt C. Poole, 20 April 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT- 13GE-1084, NARA II.
183 FNB Memorandum, 12 May 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-33GE-45, NARA II.
184 Wilhelm and Marion Pauck,Paul Tillich: His Life and Thoughts (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989) 202.
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Council for a Democratic Germany stated that the post-War period should see the
IOC destruction of Nazism, but not of Germany. It called for the return of all lands and
goods taken by the Germans, for disarming Germany, for Germany joining the United
Nations, and for depriving Nazi bureaucrats, industrialists, large landowners, and the
military castes from power and punishing them in the post-War period. The
Declaration pointed out that the first victims of Nazism were Germans and that
accordingly punishment should not be meted out to all Germans collectively. It
argued that economically and politically dismembering Germany would be disastrous
for international stability and unjust for das andere Deutschland. Further, it appealed
to the Allies to let the Germans, with particular help from the exiles, establish
democracy and “self-educate” themselves.186
Although the Council proved to be the closest the German left in America
ever came to establishing an Arbeitsgemeinshaft along the lines of the Union created
in Britain in 1941, its cohesion was never complete for “behind this show of unity
there raged in fact a fierce battle.”187 The decision to exclude members of the
political right, including former Chancellor Briining remained divisive for the more
185 Following protracted discussions about who should belong to the Council and who should not, in the end, the sponsors were: Karl Frank, Paul Tillich, Siegfried Aufhauser, Horst Barensprung, Friedrich Barwald, Felix Bonheim, Bertolt Brecht, Hermann Budzislawski, Frederick Forell, Kurt Glaser, Albert Grzesinski, Frederick Haussmann, Paul Hertz, Hans Hirschfeld, Julius E. Lips, Erwin Mueller, Otto Pfeiffenberger, Maxxnillian Scheer, Albert Schreiner, Walther Viktor, and Jacob Walcher.
186 FNB Memorandum, 12 May 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-33GE-45, NARAII.
187 Wilhelm and Marion Pauck,Paul Tillich: His Life andThought (San Francisco: Harper & Row Pub, 1989) 203.
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conservative members of the Council. Moreover, many of the Council’s members
continued the feuding that had characterized their previous relationships.1 RR
The Council was not only assailed from within, but from without as well.
Some emigres such as Eduard Heinemann, of the New School for Social Research,
questioned whether Germany should be allowed to create its own democratic
government, in light of Nazism.189 Most notably, Ruth Fischer attacked the Council,
alleging that it was secretly a Communist organ because it included three Communist
Party members.190
To address these concerns, Frank proposed to DeWitt C. Poole that the two
men meet to discuss the Council. When they met in early June, Frank assured Poole
that there was no tie between the CDG and Moscow and that Communists were given
a part in the Council not because they covertly ran it, but on the democratic grounds
that they made up a portion of the German emigre left community and therefore
deserved a voice. Moreover, Frank explained that in his opinion “Russia would be
less interested in socialism than in power” in post-War Germany. Accordingly, he
assured Poole that he would never allow Communists and Moscow to gain sway over
the organization.191 Once he had done all he could to firmly establish the Council and
188 Ibid.
189 Ibid.
190 Including “The Network” a bulletin whichRuth Fischer had stated putting out at the beginning of 1943 toexpose Communists and former Communists.
191 FNB Memorandum, 15 June 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-33GE-51, NARAII.
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to gain acceptance for it in official channels, Frank became increasingly less
involved.192
Germany After Hitler, The American Association for a Democratic Germany, and Speaking Engagements
With Germany’s defeat in the foreseeable future, Frank became increasingly
concerned about the terms of the peace treaty that would be forced upon a defeated
Germany. Accordingly, he began writing a new book, Germany After Hitler, to
address these concerns.193 The arguments made in this book, published in 1944,
were in keeping with the Declaration of the Council for a Democratic Germany.
Frank argued that, “a German revolt against Hitler is imminent. It will be part of the
European revolt against Hitler’s tyranny over all Europe.”194
Frank firmly believed that democratic forces were still alive in Germany and
that they would topple the Nazi regime. Although he admitted that before the
military defeat of the Nazis any kind of revolution was unlikely, he did believe that in
defeat the German people would rise up and that this forthcoming revolution could be
accelerated by the Western Allies improving their propaganda along the lines
employed by the Free Germany Committee in Moscow. Throughout Germany After
192 Throughout its existence, the Council continued to be plagued by internal arguments. It finally collapsed in September 1945 in the wake o f the Yalta Conference, the previous February, to which the Council failed to develop a unified response. (Pauck, 204.)
193 Frank was not the only member ofNeu Beginnen to publish while in America. In 1943, Bernard Tauer and Georg Eliasberg wrote and publishedThe Silent War: The Underground Movement in Germany. Niebuhr wrote the introduction for the book, which explored the everyday activities of committed German opponents to Nazism within Germany. Although the authors, given that they were writing during the War, do not name any anti-Nazi individuals or organizations, the book is clearly a history o fNeu Beginnen; many o f its members, including Frank, can be discerned from the descriptions in the book.
194 Karl B. Frank, Germany After Hitler (New York: Farrar & Reinhardt Inc., 1944), 23-24.
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Hitler, Frank maintained his belief that the German people would revolt before the
war ended. Although he warned that such revolts would at first be spontaneous and
without leadership (because of the sustained Nazi attacks on the leadership of all
opposition) he did believe that they would occur and culminate in “dependent
revolutions.” He used the term “dependent” because he believed that the revolution’s
character and success fully depended on how the victorious powers would act.193
In Germany After Hitler, Frank called on the Allies to conclude an “agreement
on non-occupation of Germany” to allow the future German revolution to occur.
Although Frank called for non-occupation, he did not want non-participation, for he
hoped that the Allies would reorganize transportation and provide emergency
housing, food, and fuel supplies to the German people. This limited role for the
conquering armies, Frank predicated on his unwavering assumption that in the face of
total military defeat, the German people would revolt.196
He contended that in every town there were enough democratically minded
anti-Nazis “tested, approved, honored, and respected,” who could, with the help of
liberated prison camp inmates, emigres, and the “active centers of underground
resistance,” lay the foundation for democracy in Germany. He argued that if given
the chance, Germany’s democratic forces would totally eliminate Nazism from
German life, punish the perpetrators of Nazi crimes, reeducate the German populace,
return all stolen goods, pay reparations (with reparations to Jews having highest
priority,) organize a vote for self-determination in Austria and the Sudetenland (with
195 Ibid.
196 Ibid.
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Frank obviously assuming that the Austrians would chose union with Germany while
the Sudetens would not), and return Germany to its old Eastern border, enacting a
population exchange because of the settlement of Germans in this land during the
War.197
With the Council for a Democratic Germany founded and Germany After
Hitler written to impact American treatment of post-War Germany, Frank helped to
reorganize the American Friends of German Freedom for a similar purpose.
Although much of the staff remained the same, in June 1944, the AFGF became the
American Association for a Democratic Germany (AADG). Rather than centering its
activities on the current situation in Germany, as had the AFGF, the newly
constructed AADG began to concentrate its activities on post-War Germany and how
the Allies should deal with Germany in the post-War period. These changes
facilitated an alliance with, and support for, the Council for a Democratic Germany,
and allowed the AADG to promote Frank’s speaking tour for Germany After
Hitler
While working on founding the CDG and AADG, Frank made ceaseless
public lectures and addresses in and around New York, Boston, and Pittsburgh,
hoping to gamer American support for his views on post-War Germany as expressed
in Germany After Hitler. In March 1944, he debated Rex Stout of the Society for the
Prevention of World War III in New York. In this debate Frank held to his argument
that Germans with democratic sympathies still existed both in Germany and abroad
197 Frank,Germany After Hitler, 131.
198 FBM Memorandum, 12 July 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-1173, NARA II.
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and that these individuals should take the lead in reeducating the German people.
Stout responded explosively. He claimed that Germans were historically totalitarian
and cited Martin Luther as an example. When this argument led to a discussion of
reeducation, Frank again asserted that Germans on the ground would know best how
to deal with the perpetrators of crime and would not need international intervention
for doing so. Like the majority of those Frank debated during this period, Stout
scoffed at his propositions.199
Despite his intentions, Frank’s call for a “soft peace” increasingly prompted
attacks not only from those Frank debated, but also from people in the audiences. In
a typical meeting in Pittsburgh, Frank argued that existing “democratically-minded
elements in Germany” needed to be encouraged to bring about a German revolution.
He then went on to say that once this revolution had come about, the German state
would require UN “surveillance” but not direct, on the spot supervision. After this
address, a member of the audience who “visibly worked himself up into hyper
querulousness (sic)” attacked Frank thoroughly “for letting the Germans off that
easily.”200
Once the establishment of both the AADG and the CDG had been completed,
in June 1944, Frank extended his speaking engagements beyond the northeast. These
lectures were primarily arranged by a speakers’ bureau Frank had engaged, which not
only gave him increased access to the American public, but also brought in more
199 Charles B. Friediger to DeWitt C. Poole, 7 March 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT- 13GE-1018, NARAII.
200 FNB Memorandum, 20 April 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-1083, NARA II.
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money. Frank spoke throughout the Midwest in June and July, had two engagements
in Chicago, and conducted a radio broadcast from Omaha.201 When he returned to
New York in August, he learned that he had been appointed to a Visiting
Professorship for the spring semester of 1945 at Knox College in Galesburg, 111,
where he would teach courses on the reconstruction of Germany and the European
labor movement.202 During the fall of 1944 and the winter of 1944/45, Frank traveled
back and forth between the East Coast and the Midwest where he held a number of
paid speeches, addressing groups ranging in size from 100 to 1,000 persons.
In March 1945, before departing for his professorate at Knox College, Frank
contacted a representative of the Foreign Nationalities Branch, Bjarne Braatoy. Frank
opened their discussion by apologizing for the “accidents” which he claimed had
characterized his past dealings with the FNB; ascribing these “accidents” to himself.
He went on to lament the collapse of Neu Beginnen. He claimed that the leaders had
always allowed the younger members to go their own way so that “of the original
group only ten people could still be said to pursue the activities of the iVewBeginnen
(sic) in a positive way.” Finally, he said that he was losing any influence in the
CDG and that only those friends who belonged to the AADG remained loyal.203
In this dejected mood, Frank departed for Illinois, feeling that before he
returned to New York, the European situation would have changed decisively and he
201 FNB Memorandum, 1 July 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-1169, NARA II.
202 Frank welcomed this development as he had been experiencing financial straits. [FNB Memorandum, 10 March 1945, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-1436, NARA II.]
203 Bjarne Braatoy, FNB Memorandum, 10 March 1944, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, M INT- 13GE-1435, NARA II.
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would be out of the loop. He was right. On May 7, 1945 Admiral Donitz sent
representatives to sign the Allied terms of unconditional surrender.204
204 Klaus P. Fischer, Nazi Germany: A New History (New York: Continuum Pub., 1998)559- 569.
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FRANK’S POLITICAL CAREER IN THE POST-WAR ERA
Frank returned to New York from Knox College in mid-June 1945 after
stopping to lecture in Chicago.205 From New York, he proceeded to Washington
because a representative of the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration
Section had informed him that he had to register as a foreign agent for Neu
Beginnen.206 Frank explained to him that since the close of the War it had become
clear that Neu Beginnen had not survived the War. He claimed “it would be of course
a great honor for me to represent it, but that I would sell empty barrels if I would do it
since it has ceased to exist as far as I know.”207
Frank then returned to New York. Although he had been offered teaching
positions by four different universities, Frank did not accept one. He hoped to return
to Germany. From New York, Frank returned to Washington to talk about that
possibility with Bjame Braatoy from FNB. He made clear that he wanted to return as
soon as possible, but did not want to go to Germany as a representative of the US
government. Although other government officials with whom Frank spoke gave him
205 FNB Memorandum, 11 July 1945, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-1528, NARA II.
206 M.A. de Capriles to KarlFrank, 31 May 1945, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Passport,” Hoover Institute.
207 Karl Frank to Evelyn Anderson, 18 September 1945, KarlB. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence- A,” Hoover Institute.
79
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to understand that to return immediately would be quite difficult, they felt that there
was hope for him in the future.208
Frank continued his speaking engagements and work with the AADG, all the
while developing plans for returning to Germany.209 He believed that his returning
would bring his life stability and allow him to reach his greatest potential.210
Accordingly, Frank began writing to various friends in the US government, hoping
they could exert influence in helping him return to Germany as soon as possible.211
Aware of the problems he might encounter from American authorities, he also
requested a visa from the British.212
Despite his efforts, Frank received no positive news in 1945. In fact, on
October 23,1945 he received a letter from Jerry Voorhis, a Democratic Congressman
from California, informing him that the US government had a policy of not allowing
German exiles to participate in the reconstruction of Germany unless they were
handpicked and employed by the government.213 Frank therefore stood no chance of
208 FNB Memorandum, 2 July 1945, RG 226 OSS-FNB Files, MINT-13GE-1625, NARA II.
209 However he did say that if it became impossible to return, he would become an American, as he did not want to become a “permanent exile.”
210 Karl Frank to Evelyn Anderson, 18 September 1945, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence-A,” Hoover Institute.
211 Karl Frank to Walter Dorn, 19 September 1945, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence- D,” Hoover Institute.
212 Karl Frank to Evelyn Anderson, 18 September 1945, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence-A,” Hoover Institute.
213 Jerry Voorhis to Karl Frank, 23 October 1945, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 9, F “Correspondence-V,” Hoover Institute.
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obtaining a visa to return. Feeling defeated and as though his life’s work were a
failure, in April 1946, Frank became an American citizen.214
Despite Frank’s own sense of resignation, in February 1946 Reinhold Niebuhr
tried to help by formally requesting that Frank return to Germany in order to write a
report for his Union for Democratic Action on the situation there." 7 1^ Niebuhr would
finance the trip with $1,200.71 fi Frank agreed and decided once again to try to return
to Germany.217 Knowing however, that his chances were slim, Frank applied for
several positions to teach social psychology at the university level. This proved to be
a good idea for on September 16, 1946 Frank learned that his passport application had
been denied without any given reason.218 At the same time he did not receive any of
the teaching positions he had applied for.
Still not totally dispirited, Frank in 1947 began working on a new plan for
returning to Germany while continuing to apply for teaching positions. In early 1947,
the journal, Survey Associates, began contacting many of “Frank’s old friends” to see
if they would contribute to a fund to send him back to Germany as a correspondent
214 Karl Frank to Patrick Gordon Walker, 17 April 1946, Karl B. Frank Papers,B 9, F “Correspondence -W ,” Hoover Institute.
215 Niebuhr remained a loyal Frank supporter throughout the War and post-War period and expended considerable efforts, writing letters on Frank’s behalf, defending himfrom his many detractors. Richard WightmanFox suggested that he did so because to him Frank was “a Niebuhrian model for the 1940s: heroic action tied to the realistic, responsible goal of defeating Hitler.” [Fox, 201. and Paul Merkley,Reinhold Niebuhr: A PoliticalAccount (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1975), 157.]
216 Reinhold Niebuhr to Karl Frank, 8 February 1946, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence-B ,” Hoover Institute.
217 Reinhold Niebuhr to Karl Frank, 6 June 1946, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 9, F “Correspondence-N,” Hoover Institute.
218 Visa Division to Karl Frank, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Passport,” Hoover Institute.
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for their journal.219 So, on May 21, 1947 Frank applied again for a visa, this time as a
reporter for Survey Associates. In July, Frank learned from his friend Bill
Kemsley, Education Director of the Michigan State C.I.O., that the War Department
was holding up his passport because he was an ex-Communist.221 Frank soon
thereafter learned that he would not receive the visa. Consequently, Frank
unsuccessfully applied for a few more teaching positions. It did not help that Vienna
University had abrogated his PhD in 1942 for “anti-Fascist writings,” and had not
since reinstated it.222
By late 1947, Frank at 54, resigned himself to the fact that he would never
return to Germany permanently. Furthermore, he decided to cease all political
activity, including working with the AADG, and so turned his attentions to his
psychology studies. He felt disappointed in the results of his life’s work. No
revolution had occurred, he believed that Neu Beginnen had ceased to exist, post-War
Germany was the polar opposite of what he had hoped for, he felt isolated, and finally
he was not pleased with the reconstituted SPD 223
219 Paul Kellogg to Elmer Davis, 9 January 1947, KarlFrank B. Papers, B 6, F “Passport,” Hoover Institute.
220 Karl Frank, Visa Application, 21 May 1947, Karl B. FrankPapers, B 6, F “Passport,” Hoover Institute.
221 Bill Kemsley to Karl Frank, 29 July 1947, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “Passport,” Hoover Institute.
222 Karl Frank to Maurice Goldbloom, 13 November 1947, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 8, F “Correspondence- G,” HI
223 Letter from Karl Frank to “friends” in Berlin November 26, 1947, Karl B. Frank Papers, Box 8, Folder “Correspondence- K,” HI
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Despite his loss of hope in making a permanent return, in late 1947 and into
1948, at the behest of his friends in Germany, Frank tried to arrange a short visit to
Germany. He claimed that he merely wanted to visit friends and relatives and see to
some property he owned in Austria. With these goals stressed, he and his friends
contacted Sir Stafford Cripps, General Draper the Undersecretary of the Army, Kurt
'J'JA Schumacher, and the CIO for help. However, in January 1948, Frank learned from
his friend Victor Reuther, a leader of the United Auto Workers’ Union, that once
again Frank’s visa was being held up because of his Communist past.225 Frank did
not receive the visa.
Frank lived out the rest of his life in New York City where he went into
private practice as a psychologist. Although he continued to maintain personal ties
with many friends from this period, among them Paul Hertz and Willy Brandt, and
was eventually allowed to visit Germany in the 1950s, Frank’s active political career
had by then ceased. Karl Frank died in 1969.226
224 Letter from Karl Frank to Evelyn Anderson January 24, 1948, KarlB. Frank Papers, Box 8, Folder “Correspondence- A,” Hoover Institute, and Erwin Schottle and Waldemar von Knoringen to General Draper, 19 November 1948, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6,“The F Trip to Germany which never came off,” HooverInstitute, and Kurt Schumacher to Paul Kellogg, 25 October 1947, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “The Trip to Germany which never came off,” Hoover Institute and Victor Reuther to CIO, 29 January 1948, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 9, F “Correspondence-R,” Hoover Institute.
225 Leo Werts to Victor Reuther, 19 January 1949, Karl B. Frank Papers, B 6, F “The Trip to Germany which never came off,” Hoover Institute, and Victor G. Reuther,The Brothers Reuther and the History of the UA W (Boston: Houghlin Mifflin, 1976).
226 Interview with Harold Hurwitz 2/17/03 and Werner Roder, Herbert Arthur Strauss, and Jan Foitzik. Eds.Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach vol. 1933, I (New York: Gale Research Company, 1980-1983.), 186.
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CONCLUSION
Frank’s wartime career demonstrates that although the majority of German
Socialist exiles in America did not return to Germany after the War, they did not
necessarily lose their German Socialist identities during the War either. Admittedly,
many may not have wanted to go back to Germany as much as Frank did in the post-
War period; however, his difficulties in obtaining a visa to return demonstrate that it
was not always up to the emigres to decide if they could go back. Furthermore,
Frank’s experiences highlight that even those who did not want to return to Germany
after the War, as was the case with Gunther Reinhardt, often did maintain their
German identities during the War. Finally, although only a minority of the emigres
returned to Germany permanently, some did, including Paul Hertz who became a
representative of the Berlin city government.
Frank’s wartime activities in America therefore disprove the assumption that
the German Socialist exile community in America drifted into the American “melting
pot,” losing their German Socialist identity during the Second World War. That the
German Socialist community in America was able to maintain its German Socialist
identity during the War was no small accomplishment. By staying in existence, and
continuing to agitate, Frank and his supporters and detractors, demonstrated to the
American public and government that there were Germans who opposed Nazism.
84
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Moreover, despite the fact that the German Socialist community in America never
entirely got over its Old World animosities, no prominent member of the German
Socialist exile community ever turned on their countrymen as a whole as had Curt Geyer
and Walter Loeb in Britain. Admittedly, Frank was called a Communist and a fraud from
many quarters; however, it was never alleged by other members of the German exile
community that he could not be trusted because he was German or that his failings could
be attributed to his nationality.
This difference therefore forces a reconsideration of the claim that the exiles in
Britain maintained a closer relationship with the British government and British elites
than did their peers in America with American elites. While the absence of a Labour
Party in America meant that there was no pre-existing nucleus of American support for
German Socialist exiles, this also meant that where in Britain the Labour Party “delivered
a death blow to the SPD in exile” in 1942, when it suspended its financial support, no
such death blow was or could have been delivered to the emigre community in America
because of its diverse support from within both the US government and private American
sources.227 The diversity of this support begs the question of its ultimate effect.
Given that Karl Frank has remained at the center of this analysis, it is worthwhile
to ask what was the effect of his activities in America. Financially speaking, from his
first trip to America, Frank was able to raise thousands of dollars to help Neu Beginnen in
continuing its oppositional activities inside and outside of Germany. This financial
support meant thatNeu Beginnen consistently maintained economic independence from
the Sopade. Without this independence, the preeminence of the Sopade in exile would
have been total, which would have meant that the German Socialists in exile would have
227 Glees 33, 135.
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in all likelihood been more conservative than they were. Moreover, without the
concessions which Neu Beginnen’s influence forced, it is unlikely that Sopade leaders
would have joined the Union in Britain or the Council for a Democratic Germany in
America, groups which taught the German non-Communist left how to compromise and
work together.
Although Frank’s plan for developing a government sponsored group, which
could contact the German underground never came to pass, his activities with the US
government were not futile. The organization of the Labor Section of the OSS ultimately
proved quite similar to that laid out in the proposal Frank submitted in April 1942.
Moreover, many of his friends were able to find employment in the US government on
behalf of the Allied war effort, through his influence. It was this influence that led to the
false allegation that he ran the OWI. Although this was certainly untrue, through a
personal relationship with Elmer Davis he was able to help in getting severalNeu
Beginnen supporters jobs in that department. Finally, despite the fact that he was not able
to build a network of German anti-Nazis in 1942/43 he did give the US government
practice in trying to set up such organizations and contact information for people such as
Willy Brandt, who maintained relations with the US Government even after it had ended
its working relationship with Frank.228
Probably the most significant accomplishment to come out of German Socialist
exile politics in America was the establishment of the Emergency Rescue Committee.
Clearly its establishment was contingent on a number of factors, but among these was
Frank and his friends’ willingness to work on creating it as compounded with the
228 Jurgen Heideking and ChristofMauch, eds.American Intelligence and the German Resistance to Hitler: A Documentary History (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996) 210-213.
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influence they already enjoyed in certain elite American circles, circles which would help
them in obtaining moneys, support, and most importantly visas. If nothing else were to
have come out of German Socialist exile politics in America, this alone would make it
worth exploring.
In the final analysis, by exploring Karl Frank’s political career in exile it becomes
clear that the German Socialist exiles in America maintained a distinct community during
the War years and accomplished a number of feats. Frank, a man who unlike so many of
his contemporaries realized the threat posed by Nazism early, could have easily ignored
these signs and worked as a psychoanalyst in Vienna. Moreover, once in America, as the
husband of an American woman, he could have given up his political activities. Like the
other emigres who constituted America’s Wartime Germany Socialist community, he did
not. Instead, he and they, incessantly worked, despite the implicit dangers and
frustration, against Nazism. For this, Frank and his fellow members of the German
Socialist community in America during the Second World War deserve to be recognized.
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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Archival Materials
Karl B. Frank Papers, Hoover Institute, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.
Record Group 59 Department of State, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
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