Hede Massing

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Hede Massing (born as Hedwig Tune; married / married Hedwig Eisler ; married / married Hede Gumperz , January 6, 1900 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died March 8, 1981 in New York City ) was an Austrian actress, who had been active as a communist since the 1920s and became known in the USA for her espionage activities for Soviet secret services ( GRU and NKVD ) .

Life

Hedwig Tune moved with her first husband Gerhart Eisler from Vienna to Berlin in early 1921, where Eisler made a career in the KPD . The couple separated, however, whereupon they lived from 1924 with the wealthy American communist Julian Gumperz , who owned part of the Malik publishing house . Gumperz joined the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research in 1923 and later helped significantly in the reorganization of the Institute in New York. In May of the same year she was a participant in the Marxist Work Week . Gumperz and Hede Tune married in 1927, which gave them American citizenship, but separated soon after returning to Germany. She then lived with the Marxist social scientist Paul Massing , who had been imprisoned for several months in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1933 and was later able to emigrate to the USA.

Hede Massing was recruited in Frankfurt in 1928 by Richard Sorge for the secret service work; her supervisor at the GRU was Ludwig ( Ignaz Reiss ). Both massings were later part of the NKVD apparatus and worked for Boris Basarow in New York. Hede Massing first performed courier services (to Paris). In the United States, her main job was to recruit agents. It was successful, which was also due to the political climate in Washington, DC and the anti-fascist sentiment of the officials it addressed.

The high official (Secretary of State) Laurence Duggan was recruited by her. She was able to recruit Noel Field and his wife, but soon lost them to the GRU in a dispute with Alger Hiss . In 1947, in the second trial against Hiss, Massing testified that she spoke with Hiss in 1935 about whether Field - a State Department employee - should work for the NKVD or the GRU . On the other hand, contrary to her testimony, she (and her husband) did not leave the Soviet espionage apparatus at the end of the 1930s after a terrible stay in Moscow (which she probably only survived because of her US citizenship and a "reference" to the Fields) . Only after the defeat of Nazi Germany did she confess her job.

She appears as a "redhead" in the Venona files.

The redhead people

This group consisted of (according to the so-called Gorsky Memo )

  • Laurence Duggan, Chairman of the State Department, Central and South America Division ( Division of Research for American Republics ), responsible for South America.
  • Hede Massing, who worked as a journalist.
  • Paul Massing, who worked at the Frankfurt Institute in Exile, the Institute of Social Research at Columbia University .
  • Franz Neumann , political scientist.

Fonts (selection)

  • I was Stalin's spy in the United States. Part I to VI [1] . In: The time. June 1–6. July 1950 (in six episodes).
  • This deception. Duel, Sloan & Pearce, New York 1951.
  • Richard Sorge: the almost perfect spy. In: Deutsche Rundschau. Volume 79, 1953, number 4, pp. 360-377.
  • The great delusion. Story of a Soviet agent. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1967.

literature

  • Robert L. Benson : The Venona Story. Ft. Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, 2001

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Massing, Hede etc. In: Bernd-Rainer Barth and Werner Schweizer: Der Fall Noel Field , Basisdruck, 2006 (2 volumes), Volume 2, p. 426 f.
  2. ↑ Robert L. Benson's The Venona Story (on page 36)
personal data
SURNAME Massing, Hede
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tune, Hedwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actress, communist and Soviet spy in the USA
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1981
Place of death New York City