Although individual German emigrants had already been arrested in the years prior to 1936, the German emigres first became aware of the Stalinist Terror with the first show trial in August 1936. Initially it was primarily the party leadership which panicked as a result of its connections to the accused in these show trials, of whom five were members of the KPD.14 It was the period in which meetings were taking place across the whole country pursuing excessive vigilance of the ‘enemies’.15 At this time, most people - including the German KPD exiles - were convinced by the official communiques. And if someone else was arrested, the recriminations of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) were legitimized. If someone - or indeed a loved one - was arrested, this was explained as an error due to the threatening or complicated situation which would soon be cleared up. Little by little, as the situation deteriorated, the truth came out, among emigrants as well, that the Terror was unjustified.
The huge operation, which was carried out at the same time as the show trials, targeted quite specific groups of citizens, such as specific nationalities or ‘former people’ (byvshie liudi) who were potentially ill-disposed to the Soviet regime. The latter included former landowners or wealthy farmers, tsarist officials, White officers, social revolutionaries and mensheviki, as well as clergy. The reach and the means of its implementation had the effect, however, that more or less every group of citizens felt threatened by the Terror. The outwardly observed arbitrariness of the arrests, seemingly to fulfil quotas, also induced fear among German emigrants and in consequence social fragmentation and denunciation. Party life was disrupted; the emigrant community which had functioned as a selfsufficient group was fractured and ultimately almost annihilated by the Terror. With the decrease in arrests in the summer of 1938, over 70 per cent of the German emigrants had been directly affected by the Terror.16
It was - as far as we can tell today - primarily two letters from the central administration of state security of the NKVD, and one directive, which led to the arrests of the Germans. The first directive, dated 14 February 1937, was targeted against the suspected or real Trotskyites.17 An outline of the foreign organizations of the German Trotskyites is attached. The second directive, dated 2 April 1937, concerns the February-March assembly of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and predicts fascist activity on USSR soil.18 It also refers to the imminence of the so-called German operation. NKVD directive number 00439, of 25 July 1937, required that lists be compiled of those Germans who were currently working, or had previously worked, in armaments factories, factories with armaments divisions or in railroad industries; they were then to be arrested within five days. This included emigrants who still held German citizenship. Political emigrants with Soviet citizenship - and this would have been the majority at this point - were explicitly excluded. Three aspects of the directive, however, pointed to particular dangers for the emigrants. For each German emigrant with Soviet citizenship a memorandum ‘regarding clarification of the issue of arrest’ was to be prepared by August after evaluation of the incriminating evidence. Moreover, at the same time, a record was to be prepared of all Germans working in other industrial areas, in the agricultural sector or for the Soviet authorities. And finally a passage of the directive refers to the danger of becoming involved that involved everyone: ‘In the course of the investigation newly uncovered German agents - spies, saboteurs, and terrorists of Soviet or foreign citizenship - are to be arrested immediately, irrespective of their professional position.’19 Directed at first at Germans who possessed German citizenship, this decree increasingly targeted the Soviet
Germans and their associates as well, so that in time more than 70,000 people were caught and imprisoned by this operation.
For the German anti-fascists who fell under the wheels of the Soviet Terror, the situation was incomprehensible for they felt a strong empathy with this socialist country. But the inability of the anti-fascist exiles to reflect on these events later is also inexplicable. Most emigrants, whether affected by the Terror or not, later found a home in the GDR. A return to Germany during the Terror years was contemplated by very few emigrants - as far as we can ascertain today. On the contrary, a conspicuous number attempted to participate in the Spanish Civil War. This seemed to be the perfect escape from the Soviet Terror for the communists who could not abandon their ideals.
For the family members left behind - mainly women and children - imprisonment also meant harrowing separation. Jakel, who as the successor of the imprisoned Dittbender acted as KPD spokesman for the political emigrants, formulated the sentiment in a report to the party leadership as follows:
The mood of a part of the comrades has been unusually aroused. They have been shocked and depressed by the many arrests. If one meets another, he says, ‘You’re still alive?’ If the comrades in our office come and count their contributions, they say: ‘Ah, your membership list is shrinking too! How many left? Still a dozen?’ and ‘Now you’re open just two days a week? We’re amazed that you haven’t already closed entirely!20
If accommodation was linked to the husband’s job, wives often had to look for another place to live. Many also lost their jobs or had to accept less desirable and badly paid work. Support payments from the Red Cross were discontinued, and the affected could hope for little help from the KPD. Many had to sell the few belongings they had brought with them from Germany or had acquired over the years. Wives of those arrested could count on the solidarity of other prisoners’ wives - as well as, in some cases, the wives of the non-arrested. Only a few separated from their imprisoned partners. New partnerships, which were sometimes embarked upon, were primarily for the security which this offered both the children and themselves. The queues in front of the Moscow prisons in which the relatives waited hours or days for, initially, information about their loved ones and, later, in order to make payments, are well documented. German political emigrants were also in the queues, just as some endeavoured to visit their husbands in the camps. Many also wrote despairing letters to the German diplomatic office, or more often to the Soviet authorities, in an effort to prove the innocence of their relatives.21 Although petitions were usually unsuccessful, they at least had the effect of confronting despondency with action. For some the situation was so difficult to bear that they went mad or committed suicide.
World History
