Otto Braun (Li De)
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Communist with a long and varied career.
His most significant role was as a Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
agent sent to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
in 1934, to advise the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
(CPC) on military strategy during the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
. At the time Braun adopted a Chinese name, Li De ; it was only many years later that Otto Braun and "Li De" came to be known as the one and the same person.
Early life
Otto Braun was born in IsmaningIsmaning
Ismaning is a municipality in Bavaria, Germany, located near Munich. In 2006 it had 14,638 inhabitants. Near Ismaning there is a large broadcasting facility called Transmitter Ismaning....
(near to Munich). Even though his mother was not dead, he grew up in an orphanage.
He enrolled at a teachers' training college in Pasing
Pasing
Pasing is a district in the city of Munich, Germany and part of the borough Pasing-Obermenzing.-Overview:Pasing is located west of the Munich city centre, at the north-western edge of the city's innermost traffic zone. The district is mainly residential; there is a large concentration of shops,...
in the Munich area. At June 1918 Braun was drafted into the ranks of the Bavarian army
Bavarian army
The Bavarian Army was the army of the Electorate and then Kingdom of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty of Bavaria into that of the German State in 1919...
, part of the Imperial German Army - but the First World War ended before he could face combat duty.
After the armistice he went back to complete his studies at the teachers' training college. However, he did not take a job as a primary school teacher. Rather, he joined the newly-founded Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD), embarking on what would be a lifelong vocation and career, and traveled widely, mainly in North Germany.
Communist activity in the 1920s and early 1930s
It seems that it was in 1921 that Braun became a full-time paid KPD party worker.He was involved in an affair concerning the theft of some sensitive documents from Colonel Freyberg, a White Russian
White Emigre
A white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....
emigre based in Berlin. For his part in this he was detained by the police in July 1921. He was put on trial but managed to hide his Communist connections and convince the court that he was a "right-winger." Due to the bias often exhibited by the judicial system of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, this masquerade helped him get off with a light sentence. In fact, he did not go to jail, but went into hiding.
By that time, he was already a central member of the KPD apparatus, not only regularly writing articles for the party papers but, after 1924, heading the party's "counter-espionage
Counter-Espionage
-Cast:* Warren William as Michael Lanyard* Eric Blore as Jamison* Hillary Brooke as Pamela Hart* Thurston Hall as Insp. Crane* Fred Kelsey as Detective Wesley Dickens* Forrest Tucker as Anton Schugg* Matthew Boulton as Inspector J...
" efforts. He was also deeply involved in its militia and para-military activities.
The police caught up with him again in September 1926. He first served his "Freyberg sentence" of 1922, then kept in detention at the Moabit
Moabit
Moabit is an inner city locality of Berlin. Since Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it belongs to the newly regrouped governmental borough of Mitte. Previously, from 1920 to 2001, it belonged to the borough of Tiergarten. Moabit's borders are defined by three watercourses, the Spree, the...
Prison. However, on April 11, 1928, a band of Communists including his then lover Olga Benario succeeded in staging his jail break.
Though the daring escape got worldwide publicity, the Braun and Benario made their way to Moscow, where they became involved in the International Communist movement. Both of them were at Lenin School operated by the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
. Braun went to the Frunze Military Academy while Benário worked as an instructor of the Communist Youth International, first in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, then in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, where she participated in coordinating anti-fascist activities.
Braun and Benário parted ways in 1931. She went on to marry the famous Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian revolutionary leader Luís Carlos Prestes
Luís Carlos Prestes
Luís Carlos Prestes was a leader of the 1920s tenente rebellion and the Communist opposition to the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas in Brazil....
and go to live in his country - finally to be arrested by the Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history to Emperor Pedro II...
dictatorship, extradited to Germany and suffer death at the hands of the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
. She is remembered as a martyr by the Brazilian and German Left. For his part, Otto Braun embarked on the most significant - and in some ways, the most controversial - part of his revolutionary career, as the Comintern representative in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
In China
In 1932, following his graduation at the Frunze Academy, Soviet Military Intelligence's Fourth Directorate dispatched Braun to HarbinHarbin
Harbin ; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian: Харби́н Kharbin ), is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China, lying on the southern bank of the Songhua River...
in Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, China. From there he traveled to Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
.
In that city, Otto Braun joined the local Comintern bureau. There he was in military affairs under the orders of "General Kleber" (nom de guerre of Manfred Stern
Manfred Stern
Manfred Stern was a member of the GRU, Soviet military intelligence. He served as a spy in the United States, as a military advisor in China, and gained fame under his nom de guerre as General Kléber, leader of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.- Early life :He was born into...
), who maintained a "military section" in the city, and in political issues under Arthur Ewert, a fellow German Communist.
However, Shanghai was at that time a backwater in Chinese revolutionary affairs - the local Communist movement having been effectively crushed by the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
(KMT) in a terrible bloodbath a few years earlier. In the later part of 1933 Braun managed to arrive in Ruijin
Ruijin
Ruijin is a county-level city of Ganzhou in the mountains bordering Fujian Province in south-eastern Jiangxi.The name derives from the ancient God, Rui Jin. It is most famous as one of the earliest centers of Chinese communist activity...
, at that time capital of the "Chinese Soviet Republic" set up by the surviving Chinese Communists
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
, where he became a military adviser.
The precise circumstances of his getting this appointment and his activities in the following years are still debated with some aspects remaining unclear. As noted by Freddy Litten, who thoroughly researched this part of Otto Braun's career, "[Braun]'s memoirs are an important, though dubious, source for the events of these years".
At that time the Kuomintang - perceiving the Communists as a dangerous threat to its rule - launched a series of vigorous attacks on the CPC in urban areas. Its forces came near to Ruijin, which was in danger of being surrounded and became untenable. The CPC initiated the Long March
Long March
The Long March was a massive military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south...
to escape this danger. Braun, under his assumed Chinese name "Li De" was nearly the only foreigner to participate in the Long March, and might have even been the original proposer of the idea of embarking on such a march in an effort to reach the safer interior of China.
In the later part of 1934 Braun/Li De assumed a position of command in the early First Front Army, together with Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
and Bo Gu - with authority to make all military decisions. Braun advocated that the First Front Army directly attack the far larger and better equipped KMT Army. The First Front Army's suffered great casualties, so that CPC forces fell drastically, from 86,000 to about 25,000, within a year.
In 1935, the CPC met at the Zunyi Conference
Zunyi Conference
The Zunyi Conference was a meeting of the Communist Party of China in January of 1935 during the Long March. This meeting involved a power struggle between the leadership of Bo Gu and Otto Braun and the opposition led by Mao Zedong. The result was that Mao left the meeting in position to take...
where Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
and Peng Dehuai
Peng Dehuai
Peng Dehuai was a prominent military leader of the Communist Party of China, and China's Defence Minister from 1954 to 1959. Peng was an important commander during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese civil war and was also the commander-in-chief of People's Volunteer Army in the Korean War...
expressed their opposition to Braun, Bo Gu, and their tactics. Mao argued that the direct attacks were costing lives, and suggested that their smaller, poorer equipped forces should run and surround the KMT, using the guerrilla tactics for which Mao was to become famed. (Mao was already distrusting towards European advisors from the Comintern, especially considering that in the 1920s earlier such advisers like the Dutch Henk Sneevliet
Henk Sneevliet
Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym Maring , was a Dutch Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies...
had given Chinese Communists disastrous advice.)
Other military wing leaders agreed with Mao, so Braun and Bo Gu were removed as the military commanders, with Mao taking Braun's position. After this conference, the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
was pushed aside, and "Native Communists" took control of the CPC.
Still, Braun stayed in China until 1939 and participated in the Long March along with the CPC. No longer holding a military command, he was mainly involved in advisory work and some teaching of tactics.
Though never returning to China after leaving in 1939, for the rest of his life he continued to show interest in Chinese affairs.
Soviet period in the 1940s
In 1939 Braun arrived in the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. At the time, that was a very dangerous place for foreign Communists, many of whom - including German Communists - were imprisoned, tortured or killed by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's secret police (NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
), despite being completely loyal to the revolutionary cause and having often undergone persecution for its sake in their own countries. Braun managed to avoid such a fate, though he did face some political difficulties immediately upon his arrival.
The Moscow Foreign Languages Press
Foreign Languages Press
The name Foreign Languages Press was given to two publishing houses, respectively in the Soviet Union and in the People's Republic of China.-Moscow Foreign Languages Press:...
gave him employment as an editor and translator. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, use was made of his German antecedents by making him a "polit-instrukteur" striving to turn the loyalty of German officer captured by the Soviets. In that role he used an old alias from the 1920s, "Kommissar Wagner". He later performed a similar tactic towards captive Japanese officers as well.
Between 1946 and 1948 he was based at Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast
Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast
Krasnogorsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnogorsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, adjacent to the northwestern boundary of Moscow, on the Moskva River...
where he lectured in the Antifascist Central School. Afterwards he had another period of working in the Moscow Foreign Languages Press.
Return to Germany and later years
Only after the death of Stalin was Otto Braun allowed to return to his homeland after nearly three decades of exile.Following his arrival at the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
(East Germany) Braun became a fellow at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
maintained by the Central Committee of ruling Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(SED), as the Communist Party was officially called. His main responsibility was the publication in German of the writings of Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
.
He was First Secretary German Writers' Association between 1961 and 1963, when he fell from grace. Already in his middle sixties, he was for some time a pensioner doing some freelance translation from Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
.
His return to the authorities' good books was evident when in 1964 the ruling party's organ Neues Deutschland
Neues Deutschland
Neues Deutschland is a national German daily newspaper. It was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany , which governed the German Democratic Republic , and as such served as one of the party's most important organs...
carried the revelation that the otherwise unknown Li De, involved in the Chinese Long March of the 1930s, had been in fact none other than the German Otto Braun.
This gave Braun the possibility and the impetus to write his "Chinese Notes". As mentioned, researchers consider these as full of interesting information, particularly useful as offering a different angle to that of official Chinese Communist historiography - but in themselves far from objective or impartial. They were written in the late 1960s, when Braun was also a fellow of Institute for Social Sciences. The memoirs were published in book form at 1973 and translated to Chinese, English and other tongues.
Braun died at age 74, while on vacation in Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
. He was buried in East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
, and his obituaries appeared in Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
and in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.