Lubitz’ TrotskyanaNet Jakob Moneta Bio-Bibliographical Sketch Contents: Basic biographical data Biographical sketch Selective bibliography Sidelines Basic biographical data Name: Jakob Moneta Other names (by-names, pseud. etc.): A.A. ; Anna Armand ; Jacob Moneta ; Jacob Monetta ; Jakub Moneta ; Jank(e)l ; Sonja Date and place of birth: November 11, 1914, Blasow (Austria-Hungary) Date and place of death: March 3, 2012, Frankfurt a. Main (Germany) Nationality: German Occupations, careers, etc.: Journalist, editor, trade union official, politician Time of activity in Trotskyist movement: from 1948 (lifelong Trotskyist) Biographical sketch Jakob (Jukub) Moneta, a German citizen from Jewish origin, was born on November 11, 1914 in Blasow (Blazowa), a small town in Western Galicia, then a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, where his father, who had come from Germany some years before, owned a textile factory. In view of militant anti-Semitic pogroms the family left Blasow which after the First World War had become Polish, and settled in Köln (Cologne), Germany, where Jakob Moneta attended primary and secondary school as well as Cheder, a Jewish religious school. At the age of 17 he became a member of the SJV (Sozialistischer Jugendverband, Socialist Youth Fed- eration), the youth organization of the SAPD (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, a left splinter party between SPD and KPD), engaged in workers' sports and was in contact with left Zionist youth groups and with left dissidents during the last phase of the Weimar Republic. After the Nazis had seized power in Germany and shortly after Jakob had finished secondary school by graduation (1933), the Moneta family in face of rapidly growing militant anti- Semitism had to leave Germany. While his parents emigrated first to Cuba, then to the United States, Jakob Moneta went to Palestine where he lived in a kibbuz and earned his living by agricultural and construction work. He became an active trade unionist in the Histradrut and later a founding member and co-leader of the Civil Service Association, the only trade union in Palestine which united Jewish, Muslim and Christian workers and employees. At the end of the 1930s Moneta eventually broke with Zionism because he abominated its anti-Arab terrorist policy, and in 1939 left the kibbuz. In 1939- 1941 he was interned without sentence by British authorities (at that time Britain controlled Palestine as mandatory power). After some years of work with the Regimental Paymaster of the Middle East, Moneta was employed © by Wolfgang & Petra Lubitz 2004 — page 1 Lubitz’ TrotskyanaNet Jakob Moneta Bio-Bibliographical Sketch with AFP (Agence France Presse, the main French news agency) and with the Economic Institute of the Midle East. In 1948 together with his wife Mathilda he returned to Germany (via France and Bel- gium), became a German citizen and settled in Köln (Cologne) again, later moving to Frankfurt- Ginnheim. In Köln Moneta soon got in touch with some Trotskyists and with survivors of pre-war left- ist dissident groups (e.g. of SAPD) forming one of the nuclei of what should become the German post- war Trotskyist movement; some of these people – thus Moneta, too – could gain some influence in the German trade union movement, and like many other German members or sympathizers of Trotskyist grouplets in those days Moneta became a member (until being expelled in 1990) of the SPD (Sozialde- mokratische Partei Deutschlands, Social-Democratic Party of Germany), practising for many years what has been called entrism. In 1949 Moneta became a staff writer of Rheinische Zeitung (Köln), a newspaper closely associated to the SPD which was edited by Willi Eichler (later a prominent left trade unionist and strike leader) and by Heinz Kühn who later should become chief of the social- democratic government of NRW (North Rhine-Westphalia). Besides journalistic work Moneta made translations and wrote some books and brochures, e.g. about Stalinism, trade union questions and decolonization. His work with the Rheinische Zeitung ended in 1951. After recovery from tuberculosis in Switzerland, in 1953 Moneta got a job as an official responsible for social affairs at the German Embassy in Paris (until 1962). Thanks to Otto Brenner, then president of the IG Metall (Industrial Trade Union of Metalworkers, the strongest single trade union in the Western world with regard to membership), Moneta was nominated a member of its board. From 1962 to 1978 he was chief-editor of the monthly trade union journal Metall as well as of Der Gewerkschafter, a newsletter for union officials. During those years as well as after retiring from his full-time job, Moneta published several books (see selective list below) most of which were distributed by ISP-Verlag, a German Trotskyist publishing house. Furthermore, he made translations (he had learned English and French at school and later as an autodidact learned Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, too, and he could read and comprehend Spanish, Italian and Dutch), held seminars and educational talks, and of course he participated in many trade union and party conferences. He was an activist, too, of several international solidarity movements (Algeria, Cuba, Vietnam, Poland). Last not least he has continually been contributing articles and comments to a great variety of – chiefly socialist/Trotskyist – journals and newsletters such as Was tun, Die Interna- tionale, International Viewpoint, or Sozialistische Zeitung (SoZ); in the latter he functioned as a regu- lar columnist for some 20 years; many of his earlier contributions to the Trotskyist press were pub- lished under pseudonym. For several decades Moneta was actively engaged in the formation of a German section of the Fourth International (United Secretariat), thus he was one of the leading figures of the GIM (Gruppe Interna- tionale Marxisten) from 1969 to 1986, then of the VSP (Vereinigte Sozialistische Partei, United So- cialist Party) which was formed by a merger of GIM with one of the German (ex-)Maoist splinter parties. After German reunification in 1990 Moneta joined the ranks of the PDS (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, Party of Democratic Socialism), 1991 he was elected a member of its board and of its Grundsatzkommission (Commission on Principles), and until 1995 he functioned as a speaker of the PDS in trade union matters. Moneta had very close ties with the long time leader of the Fourth Inter- national (United Secretariat), the late Ernest Mandel, and he regards himself – like Mandel – as a dedicated internationalist and imperturbable adherent of Marx, Trotsky, and Luxemburg, as well as an advocate of workers' democracy and workers' councils. To sum up, it can be said that Jakob Moneta was for several decades one of the most distinguished and perhaps most influential German Trotskyists after World War II. Jakob Moneta spent the last years of his life in a Jewish nursing home in Frankfurt am Main where he died, aged 97, on March 3, 2012. He was married twice (first to Mathilde Langermann, from whom he got a daughter, Dalia, then to Siglinde Lange). A memorial meeting in honour of the late Jakob Moneta was held in Köln-Ehrenfeld on March 28, 2012. © by Wolfgang & Petra Lubitz 2004 — page 2 Lubitz’ TrotskyanaNet Jakob Moneta Bio-Bibliographical Sketch Selective bibliography 1 Selective Bibliography: Books/pamphlets (co-)authored by Moneta Aufstand in Palästina : Hintergrundanalysen und Reportagen / Jakob Moneta und Jürgen Maier. - Frankfurt a.M. : ISP-Verl., 1988. - 120 pp. (ISP-Pocket ; 36) [Note: This booklet was announced but factually has never been published.] Aufstieg und Niedergang des Stalinismus / Jakob Moneta. Mit einem Vorw. von Siegfried Kreischer. Im Anh.: Zur Geschichte der KPdSU / Ernest Mandel [...]. - Frankfurt a.M. : ISP-Verl., [1976]. - [VI], XVI, 184 pp. - (Beiträge zur Geschichte der internationalen Arbeiterbewegung ; 5) Bundeswehr in der Demokratie - Macht ohne Kontrolle? / Jakob Moneta ; Erwin Horn ; Karl-Heinz Hansen. - Frankfurt a.M. [etc.] : Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1974. - XIII, 136 pp. Das kann doch nicht alles gewesen sein... : der Kampf um 35 Stunden / Peter Bartelheimer ; Jakob Moneta. - Frankfurt a.M. : ISP-Verl., 1984. - 159 pp. Die französische Metallindustrie. - Frankfurt a.M. : Vorstand der Industriegewerkschaft Metall für die Bundes- republik Deutschland, 1963. - 84 pp. Kein Kredit für Helmut Schmidt : für Sozialismus - wie und welchen? / Anna Armand [i.e. Jakob Moneta]. - Frankfurt a.M. : ISP-Verl., 1974. - 41 pp. - (Rote Hefte ; 8) Die Kolonialpolitik der französischen KP / Jakob Moneta. Mit einem Vorw. Von Horst Heidermann. - Hannover : Verl. Für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, 1968. - 303 pp. - (Schriftenreihe des Forschungsinstituts der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung : Reihe B, Historisch-politische Schriften) Kommentar zum Kurzen Lehrgang der Geschichte der Komunistischen Partei der Sowjetunion (Bolschewiki) : Aufstieg und Niedergang des Stalinismus. - Köln : Verl. für Politische Publizistik, 1953. - 125 pp. Kommunisten und Sozialdemokraten in einer Koalition? : ein historischer Exkurs. - Berlin : PDS-Literaturver- trieb, 1996. - 20 pp. - (Schriften zur Diskussion) Leo Trotzki : unbewaffneter, bewaffneter, ermordeter Prophet. - Berlin : Grundsatzkommission der PDS, 1997. - 48 pp. - (Controvers) Mehr Macht für die Ohnmächtigen : Reden und Aufsätze. - Frankfurt a.M. : ISP-Verl., 1991. - 154 pp. [Con- taining some autobiographical material, e.g. "Selbstverfaßter Lebenslauf" (1975)]