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Otto Braun (28 September 1900 – 15 August 1974) was a German Communist journalist and functionary of the Communist Party of Germany with a long and varied career. His most significant role was as a Comintern agent sent to China in 1934, to advise the
Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
(CPC) on military strategy during the
Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...
. 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 same person.


Early life

Otto Braun was born in Ismaning,
Upper Bavaria Upper Bavaria (german: Oberbayern, ; ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat o ...
, near Munich. Even though his mother was still alive, he grew up in an orphanage. He enrolled at a teachers' training college in
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 res ...
in the Munich area. In June 1918, Braun was drafted into the ranks of the
Bavarian army The Bavarian Army was the army of the Electorate (1682–1806) and then Kingdom (1806–1919) of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty (''Wehrhoheit'') of Bavaria into that of ...
, part of the Imperial German Army, but the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
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 (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 emigrant 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 The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...
, 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 Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
" 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 was kept in detention at the
Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood i ...
Prison. However, on April 11, 1928, a band of Communists including his then-lover Olga Benário succeeded in staging his jail break. The daring escape got worldwide publicity. Braun and Benário then made their way to Moscow, where they became involved in the International Communist movement. Both of them were at the
Lenin School The International Lenin School (ILS) was an official training school operated in Moscow, Soviet Union, by the Communist International from May 1926 to 1938. It was resumed after the Second World War and run by the Communist Party of the Soviet Unio ...
operated by the Comintern. Braun went to the
Frunze Military Academy The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (russian: Военная академия имени М. В. Фрунзе), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (rus ...
while Benário worked as an instructor of the Communist Youth International, first in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, then in
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
and
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, where she participated in coordinating anti-fascist activities. Braun and Benário parted ways in 1931. She went on to marry the famous
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
ian revolutionary leader Luís Carlos Prestes and went to live in his country. She was finally arrested by the
Getúlio Vargas Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Brazi ...
dictatorship and extradited to Germany, where she was eventually gassed to death at the
Bernburg Euthanasia Centre The Nazi Euthanasia Centre at Bernburg (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Bernburg) operated from 21 November 1940 to 30 July 1943 in a separate wing of the State Sanatorium and Mental Hospital (''Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt'') in Bernburg on the River ...
. She is remembered as a martyr by the Brazilian and German Left. For his part, Otto Braun embarked on the most significantand in some ways, the most controversialpart of his revolutionary career, as the Comintern representative in China. In 1933, Otto Braun married a Chinese communist Xiao Yuehua. They had a son, but they divorced because Otto fell in love with a more beautiful and educated LI Lilian. In 1938, Otto Braun married another Chinese communist actress LI Lilian. On August 28, 1939, Otto Braun flew back to the Soviet, never meeting LI Lilian.


In China

In 1932, following his graduation at the Frunze Academy, Soviet Military Intelligence's Fourth Directorate dispatched Braun to Harbin in
Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...
, China. From there he traveled to
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
, where he joined the local Comintern bureau. There he was in military affairs under the orders of "General Kleber" ( nom de guerre of
Manfred Stern Manfred (Moses) Stern (also known as Emilio Kléber, Lazar Stern, Moishe Stern, Mark Zilbert) (1896–1954) 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 ...
), 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 affairsthe local Communist movement having been effectively crushed by Chiang Kai-shek's
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
(KMT) in the
Shanghai massacre of 1927 The Shanghai massacre of 12 April 1927, the April 12 Purge or the April 12 Incident as it is commonly known in China, was the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organizations and leftist elements in Shanghai by forces supportin ...
. The
Chinese Communists The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...
had subsequently retreated to the countryside and started to organize in the province of
Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
. In the later part of 1933 Braun arrived in Ruijin, at that time capital of the "
Chinese Soviet Republic The Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) was an East Asian proto-state in China, proclaimed on 7 November 1931 by Chinese communist leaders Mao Zedong and Zhu De in the early stages of the Chinese Civil War. The discontiguous territories of the ...
" set up by the surviving Chinese Communists, 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, " rauns memoirs are an important, though dubious, source for the events of these years". At that time the Kuomintangperceiving the Communists as a dangerous threat to its rulelaunched 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 The Long March (, lit. ''Long Expedition'') was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the National Army of the Chinese ...
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 (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Ma ...
and
Bo Gu Qin Bangxian or Ch'in Pang-hsien (), better known as Bo Gu (; Wade-Giles: ''Po Ku''; May 14, 1907 – April 8, 1946) was a senior leader of the Chinese Communist Party and a member of the 28 Bolsheviks. Early life and education Qin was born in ...
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 The Zunyi Conference () was a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in January 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 re ...
where
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
and Peng Dehuai 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 already distrusted European advisors from the Comintern, especially considering that in the 1920s advisers such as the Dutch
Henk Sneevliet Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie (Henk) Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or by the ''pseudonym'' "Maring" (1883 - 1942), was a Dutch Communism, Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. As a functionary of t ...
had given Chinese Communists disastrous advice.) Other military wing leaders agreed with Mao, so Braun and Bo Gu were removed as the military commanders and Mao become the leader of the Long March. After this conference, the Comintern 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 Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. At the time, that was a very dangerous place for foreign Communists, many of whomincluding German Communistswere imprisoned, tortured or killed by
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's secret police (
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
), 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 is a publishing house located in China. Based in Beijing, it was founded in 1952 and currently forms part of the China International Publishing Group, which is owned and controlled by the Publicity Department of the Chi ...
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 officers 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 (russian: Красного́рск, ) is a city and the administrative center of Krasnogorsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Moskva River, adjacent to the northwestern boundary of Moscow. Population: History ...
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(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **G ...
(East Germany) Braun became a fellow at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism maintained by the Central Committee of ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED), as the Communist Party was officially called. His main responsibility was the publication in German of the writings of
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
. He was First Secretary of the German Writers' Association from 1961 to 1963when he fell from grace. Already in his mid-sixties, he was for some time a pensioner doing some freelance translation from
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
. His return to the authorities' good books was evident when in 1964 the ruling party's organ ''
Neues Deutschland ''Neues Deutschland'' (''nd''; en, New Germany, sometimes stylized in lowercase letters) is a left-wing German daily newspaper, headquartered in Berlin. For 43 years it was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany ...
'' 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 historiographybut in themselves far from objective or impartial. They were written in the late 1960s when Braun was also a fellow of the Institute for Social Sciences. The memoirs were published in book form at 1973 and translated to Chinese, English and other languages. Braun died at age 74, while on vacation in Varna,
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
. He was buried in East Berlin, and his obituaries appeared in ''
Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' and in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''.


References

* * "Otto Brauns frühes Wirken in China (1932–1935)" ("Otto Braun's Early Activity in China (1932–1935") by Freddy Litte


Freddy Litten (Frederick S. Litten), abstracts from "China and intelligence history" (on the Long March)
* Litten, who made a through research on Braun, gave the following note on his sources: ** The article o
"Braun in Germany"
is based on documents in archives in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
,
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream o ...
and
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
, contemporary newspaper reports and publications. ** "Braun in China" is based on Litten's own paper "Otto Brauns frühes Wirken in China (1932–1935)

*
"Otto Braun's Curriculum Vitae"
is based on some further unpublished documents (especially his privately held cv), but mostly on a wide array of publications in German, English, Russian and Chinese. {{DEFAULTSORT:Braun, Otto 1900 births 1974 deaths People from Munich (district) People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Communist Party of Germany politicians Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians National Committee for a Free Germany members People of the Chinese Civil War German Comintern people East German writers Writers from Bavaria Escapees from German detention German escapees Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold German expatriates in China German male writers Frunze Military Academy alumni