Willi Munzenberg

(14 August 1889, Erfurt – June 1940, "suicide" by hanging)

Willi Munzenberg, an early confidante of Lenin, organized the Popular Fronts in the 1920's and 1930's and referred to them as "my innocents' clubs". He pioneered the protest march, the demonstration, the radical bookstore and publication, the arts festival, and the recruitment of naïve celebrities ("fellow travellers.")

In the words of historian Stephen Koch, Munzenberg "was amazingly successful at mobilizing the intelligentsia of the West on behalf of a moralistic set of political attitudes responsive to Soviet needs. In the process, he organized and defined the 'enlightened' moral agenda of his era." (Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West, New York, 1994, p.14.)

In a 1989 interview, Babette Gross, the wife of Willy Munstenberg, described the Popular Front modus operandi:

"You do not endorse Stalin. You do not call yourself a Communist. You do not call upon people to support the Soviets. Never. You claim to be an independent minded idealist. You don't really understand politics but you claim the little guy is getting a lousy break." (Koch, p. 220)