Karl I. Albrecht

Karl Iwanowitsch Albrecht (a pseudonym for Karl Matthäus Löw ; born November 18, 1897 in Weingarten (Württemberg) ; † August 22, 1969 in Tübingen ) was a German communist , later National Socialist and author.

Life

At the age of 17 Albrecht fought in World War I and was seriously wounded. He went to the Soviet Union in 1924 because he had to serve a two-year sentence that he had received in Germany for illegal activities for the temporarily banned KPD . His escape was organized and financed by the Red Aid . Albrecht began an apprenticeship as a forest assistant. Albrecht became a member of the CPSU and was involved in Russian politics. In 1928 Albrecht was expelled from the CPSU because of Trotskyism . Nevertheless, he managed to become a candidate for the post of Deputy People's Commissar for Forestry. In 1932 Albrecht was arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment for "fornication".

Since Albrecht had remained a German citizen and was able to contact the embassy, he was deported to Germany on April 1, 1934 after 18 months of imprisonment. He was previously sentenced to death by a revolutionary court in the presence of Béla Kun , Fritz Heckert and Heinz Neumann . Jagoda and Krylenko belonged to the judges' college .

In Germany, Albrecht was transferred to the Ludwigsburg state prison for several months by the National Socialists . This was followed by interrogations in the Gestapo prison in the Columbia House in Berlin, from where he was finally released. Due to his communist past, Albrecht was unable to find work in Germany. He also believed that outside of National Socialist Germany, he had better chances of getting his Russian wife out of GPU custody. This was followed by a stay in Turkey , where he established contact with the communists there and found that all trust there had been lost. Here he decided to change his mind, because he had good experiences with Nazi Germans abroad. But first he left for Switzerland.

After being recruited by Nazi propaganda, the Anti-Comintern published Albrecht's book The betrayed socialism , which is subordinate to the Goebbels Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and directed by Eberhard Taubert , in 1938 . The book was very popular and, despite its high price, was in great demand. It described the first case in which a high-ranking Soviet functionary had defected to the National Socialists. Julius Streicher judged that the book was “the best and most credible” that had come out of the Soviet Union so far and that “the best means to finally free misguided national comrades from delusional delusions”. The sales success continued, supported also by reading trips and radio lectures by the author. Due to the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 1939, sales were temporarily suspended until September 1941, after which a “people's edition” appeared with a circulation of 700,000, and in 1944 the total circulation exceeded the two million mark. The book was the most successful of the Nibelungen Verlag.

Albrecht became a staunch supporter of the Nazi regime. From the sales proceeds or RM 300,000 fee, he bought a villa near Berlin and acquired a vegetable wholesaler. In 1944 he became SS-Hauptsturmführer and worked with Gottlob Berger .

In the Soviet occupation zone , Socialism Betrayed was placed on the list of literature to be discarded.

Works

Socialism betrayed: 10 years as a senior civil servant in the Soviet Union . Nibelungen-Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig 1939, DNB 571694802 .
But you will destroy the world . Verlag Herbert Neuner, Munich 1954, DNB 861031180

literature

Hermann Kuhn : Break with communism. About autobiographical writings by ex-communists in divided Germany . Münster 1990, ISBN 3-924550-45-X
Michael Rohrwasser : Stalinism and the renegades. The literature of the excommunists . Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-476-00765-0
Toralf Staud : The old man and the book . In: Die Zeit , No. 4/2001
Klaus Körner : Eberhard Taubert and the Nibelungen Verlag . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 12, 1997, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 44–52 ( luise-berlin.de - about the Nibelungen-Verlag and the book The betrayed socialism ).

Web links

Literature by and about Karl I. Albrecht in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ Christina Jung: Flucht in den Terror - the Soviet exile in autobiographies of German communists , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38744-4 , pp. 68f.
↑ Christina Jung: Flucht in den Terror - the Soviet exile in autobiographies of German communists , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38744-4 , p. 72f.
↑ Christina Jung: Flight into Terror - the Soviet Exile in Autobiographies of German Communists , Frankfurt 2008, p. 68ff.
^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet zone of occupation: List of the literature to be sorted out. Zentralverlag, Berlin, 1946, accessed on August 16, 2018 (published by Olaf Simons on August 20, 2005 on polunbi.de).

personal data
SURNAME	Albrecht, Karl I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Löw, Karl Matthäus (real name); Albrecht, Karl Ivanovich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German communist, national socialist and author
DATE OF BIRTH	November 18, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH	Weingarten (Württemberg)
DATE OF DEATH	22nd August 1969
Place of death	Tübingen

[1] Christina Jung: Flucht in den Terror - the Soviet exile in autobiographies of German communists , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38744-4 , pp. 68f.

[2] Christina Jung: Flucht in den Terror - the Soviet exile in autobiographies of German communists , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38744-4 , p. 72f.

[3] Christina Jung: Flight into Terror - the Soviet Exile in Autobiographies of German Communists , Frankfurt 2008, p. 68ff.

[4] German administration for popular education in the Soviet zone of occupation: List of the literature to be sorted out. Zentralverlag, Berlin, 1946, accessed on August 16, 2018 (published by Olaf Simons on August 20, 2005 on polunbi.de).