Kurt Hiller (1885-1972)

It is worth briefly mentioning a most untypical refugee who sold his soul, if only because it helps us understand the paranoia amongst so many of the anti-Nazi refugees. A gay activist, Jewish, German anti-Nazi (who saw himself as a socialist) and a well-respected literary and political figure, Hiller had made pertinent criticisms of the ‘left’, highlighting that economic crisis, far from encouraging a move leftwards, drove people to the ultra-right.… read on...

Werner Lehmann (1904 – 1941)

Though this is a collection of biographies about refugees from Nazism who got to the UK and survived, Werner Lehmann’s significance is that Britain did not admit him – and he did not. This is not the place to discuss Baldwin’s Government’s policy towards refugees but the image of Britain as a welcoming country is far from the case.… read on...

Werner Ilberg (1896-1978)

llberg joined the SPD in 1925 , but was soon expelled as a communist. From 1932 he worked as a critic for the communist press in Berlin and became a member of the League of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers. After being imprisoned twice by the Nazis,, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1933 and in 1939 to England.… read on...

Jan Koplowitz (1909-2001)

Born in Bad Kudowa, Lower Silesia, then Poland, to a Jewish family, Jan Koplowitz supported a strike of spa employees at the age of 16, and was then expelled from his middle-class parents’ home. In 1923, he moved to Breslau and, in 1928, joined the communist movement, wrote for workers’ newspapers and joined the Association of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers, founded in 1928, essentially by the KPD. … read on...

Karl Friedrich GROEHL

(sometimes spelled Grohl), aliases Stanislas RETZLAW, also occasionally Erde Friedberg and Spartacus (1896- 1979)

Groehl is another little known and intriguing figure in the UK, whose life stretched from involvement with the Bavarian soviet, via the Comintern and Trotsky to working for SOE in the UK.read on...

Fritz Eberhard

Fritz Eberhard, born Helmut von Rauschenplat, joined, then left the SPD and joined the ISK. He became editor of their paper Der Funke and tried in 1932/33 to establish a non- KPD united front against the Nazis. In 1933, Eberhard had to go underground, then, in 1934, became head of the banned ISK in Germany and worked on building the Independent socialist trade union (Unabhängigen Sozialistischen Gewerkschaft).… read on...

Helmut Klose

Helmut Klose is a fascinating and unheard of German exile who fought in the Spanish Civil war and settled in the UK from 1939; details about him can be obscure.

When only a teenager, he joined the anarcho-syndicalist Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands (FAUD, Free German Workers’ Union), became a ‘professional’ ‘hobo’ and a writer.… read on...

Karl Otten (1889 -1963)

While Otten started off as an active socialist in Germany, he is included here because, while continuing to see himself as organising left-wing opposition to the Nazis, he informed on many left wing refugees in the UK. His files were only recently opened and now provide us with much interesting material!read on...

Friedrich Geyer

While Geyer started of deeply involved in grass-roots struggle, his ‘career’ represents the ambiguities of left reformism.

A member of the SPD from 1911, he worked for various social democratic daily newspapers, then in 1917, joined and became a leader of the newly founded USPD in Leipsig, a highly industrialised and radical area, where he became a popular public speaker, including against the early ultra-right, and ended up as a USPD delegate to the Reichstag.… read on...

Hermann Knüfken (1893-1976)

Knufken, originally a sailor and an active anti-Nazi German trade-unionist, had an extraordinary life which stretched from revolutionary activities in the USSR, Germany and Belgium to being a citizen of the UK, working for the British intelligence service. That such a significant anti-Nazi is unknown here is all the more intriguing as he lived in the UK for over 30 years.read on...