Hilde Meisel (31 July 1914 – 17 April 1945) was a Jewish German socialist and journalist who published articles against the Nazi regime in Germany. While in exile in England, she wrote under the pseudonym Hilda Monte, calling for German resistance to Nazism in magazines, books and in radio broadcasts. She acted as a courier and repeatedly undertook secret operations in Germany, Austria, France and Portugal, although as a social democratSozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland, Der Freiheit verpflichtet. Gedenkbuch der deutschen Sozialdemokratie im 20. Jahrhundert. Schüren, Marburg (2000), p. 227. and Jew, it was extremely dangerous for her to do so.Thomas Tretzmüller, "Sozialistische Europapläne während des 2. Weltkriegs am Beispiel des Internationalen Sozialistischen Kampf-Bundes und der Socialist Vanguard Group" University of Vienna, official website. Internetgestützten Lehre (IGL) am Institut für Geschichte. Retrieved 9 July 2010 Other code names she used in exile were Hilde Olday, Selma Trier, Helen Harriman, Eva Schneider, H. Monte, Hilda Monte and Hilde Monte.
Early political influences Meisel was born to Rosa and Ernst Meisel, the younger of two daughters in a middle-class, German Jewish family in Vienna. With hostilities breaking out that resulted in the start of World War I, the family moved back to Berlin in 1915. They had previously lived there and her older sister had been born there in 1912.Knut Bergbauer, "Widerstand gegen Hitler: Den Namenlosen ein Denkmal setzen" der Freitag, No. 31 (23 July 2004). Retrieved 8 July 2010 Meisel's father exported and imported household goods for a living.
According to the Berlin address book, her parents lived in Berlin from 1915 until 1936. Meisel suffered with a physical problem until puberty, necessitating frequent trips with her mother to Switzerland. In 1924, Meisel and her sister, Margot joined a German-Jewish youth group with socialist revolutionary ideas, called the Schwarze Haufen, which was part of the liberal German-Jewish Wanderbund-Kameraden. Margot became friendly with the leader of the group, Max Fürst and Hans Litten, his childhood friend and the ideological head of the group. Margot later became Fürst's wife and Litten's secretary. After Litten's arrest by the Gestapo, as his secretary, she was able to maintain contact with him for a time; she worked tirelessly to secure his freedom.Cord Brügmann, Unvergessener Anwalt (PDF) Deutscher Anwaltverein, Deutscher Anwaltverlag (February 1998) pp. 75-81
Meisel attended the Berlin Lyceum from 1924 to 1929.Ilse Fischer, Biography of Hilda Monte Neue Deutsche Biographie, Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin (1997) p. 43 She then went to England, where her uncle, the conductor and composer Edmund Meisel, was then living and working in London. That same year, she undertook in the local London group her first activities with the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (ISK), a socialist group that split from the SPD during the Weimar Republic and was active in the fight against Nazism. In January 1931, Hilde Meisel went back to Germany. The ISK established its own press, Der Funke in 1932 and Meisel contributed a number of articles, writing about the economic problems in France, England and Spain.
Nazi era begins In 1933, the Nazis seized power, suppressing Der Funke shortly afterwards, and Meisel began getting active with the German Resistance, briefly moving to Cologne to help smuggle individuals associated with the labour movement and money out of Germany and into safety in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, as well as smuggling banned literature into the country. She then returned to Berlin, where she established underground socialist propaganda networks and organised efforts to oppose the 1934 referendum on elevating Hitler from Chancellor to Fuhrer. Toward the end of 1934 she emigrated to Paris, where she was needed for the editorial work at the ISK headquarters established there. She also began publishing numerous articles on politics and economics.
Meisel became active with the ISKFrédéric Stephan, Ideas about Europe in the German and French Resistance to National Socialism from 1933/40 to 1945 (PDF) Dissertation in two files (abstract in English at the end of file 2), pp. 51-52 University of Stuttgart, Faculty of Humanities. Retrieved 9 July 2010 established friendships with political contacts in different countries. She lived in Paris for a time, from where she made regular trips back to Germany to aid underground trade union groups, before relocating back to the UK in 1936. Writing under the pseudonym "Hilda Monte", she brought like-minded comrades in Germany information.Short biography of Hilde Meisel German Resistance Memorial Center. Retrieved 11 June 2010 She also acted as a courier and smuggled literature into Germany and helped those under threat by the Gestapo to escape from Germany.Werner Röder, "Wer war Hilda Monte?" cited in Peter Koblank, "Union Time, Hilda Monte und der Illegale 'A'", Online-Edition Mythos Elser 2006 The last time that Hilda Monte returned from Germany (in the direction of Belgium) was on September 3, 1939. Meisel also wrote for, and served as a member of the editorial board of, Sozialistische Warte, an exile publication of the ISK, writing primarily about problems with the economy.
As the situation with Litten deteriorated when he went to Dachau concentration camp in October 1937, Meisel began to work intensively to secure his release. She corresponded with other supporters and arranged to publish an article in the Manchester Guardian on 26 January 1938, "In Dachau Camp. The Tragic Case of Hans Litten". These efforts were without success; Litten committed suicide just days later on 5 February 1938.Knut Bergbauer, Sabine Fröhlich and Stephanie Schüler-Springorum, Denkmalsfigur. Biographische Annäherung an Hans Litten 1903 - 1938 p. 292, Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen (2008) Retrieved 9 June 2010
To avoid being deported, Meisel entered into a marriage of convenience with the British-German caricaturist and cartoonist John Olday in 1938. In so doing, she became a "British subject by marriage",H. Lauterpacht, International Law Reports Volume 107, Cambridge University Press (1 January 1994), p. 183. Retrieved 11 July 2010 allowing her to carry out her work in England more easily and Meisel developed a busy career as a journalist, writing articles for The Vanguard, Sozialistische Warte, Left News and Tribune. In addition she was a lecturer for the Workers' Educational Association. During this period she lived in Sleights in the North Riding of Yorkshire with Austrian artist Hannes Hammerschmidt and his wife Tess. Also at this time, she approached George Strauss, left-wing Labour MP and one of the financiers and founders of Tribune, for money to fund an assassination attempt on Hitler: according to him, he arranged for her to meet financial journalist Werner Knop, who agreed to provide support, although the attack did not materialise.
How to conquer Hitler In March 1942, Hilda Monte and Hellmut von Rauschenpalt (= Fritz Eberhard) published How to Conquer Hitler – A Plan of Economic and Moral Warfare of the Nazi Home Front. Monte specifically signed Chapter 10, which deals with educational issues. In the 1970s, Rauschenplat mentioned his association with Monte in exile in England.
The outbreak of the war was a turning point in my work in exile. I separated myself from the organization, from the ISK at that point. After that, I was not political, but rather worked with unions; so then, in England, I was a political loner. My admission ticket, to speak, to a more tolerable and fertile life in exile, was a book which I had written with Hilde Monte very soon after the war began because of previously ongoing preparations. She left Germany just one day before the outbreak of war, but had previously been in England. She had recently experienced the psychological situation of the population in Germany. This book, How to Conquer Hitler, gave advice on the economic and psychological war against Hitler. This book had magnificent reviews; the book is a rarity, since most of the edition happened to be in a warehouse at the port when it was destroyed by Nazi bombs. Even if, as a result, the book never became very widespread, some important people did know of it, and so many doors opened for me.Fritz Eberhard, "Arbeit gegen das Dritte Reich" (PDF) German Resistance Memorial Center, Berlin, pp. 23-24. Retrieved June 18, 2010
Leaves the ISK In April 1939, Monte leaves the ISK due to differences with Willi Eichler regarding her work assignments. Hellmut von Rauschenplat followed later that year for his own personal reasons.
Sender der europäischen Revolution In early 1940, Meisel and Eberhard were appointed to be advisors with the , under the direction of . They were to develop concrete plans to set up a "black propaganda" radio station. Called the Sender der europäischen Revolution ("European Revolution Broadcasting Station"), it first went on the air 7 October 1940.
After the Gillies Committee was dissolved in 1941, she continued working till 1943 with the trade unionist , the lawyer Otto Kahn-Freund and Eberhard to form a discussion group that would work in the fight against National Socialism in Germany.
On assignment by the Minister of Economic Warfare, Hilde Meisel worked with the Central European Joint Committee, which was set up by émigrés to Great Britain to create propaganda and to analyze news and information coming from Germany.
The Ministry of Economic Warfare also contained the Special Operations Executive, which was responsible for secret operations in Europe. Meisel's experience and skills from her underground work led to her being dispatched to Lisbon for a period in 1941, where she acted as a courier of international telegrams using the codes of both SOE and Auerbach's International Transport Workers' Federation.
Help Germany to Revolt! The booklet, Help Germany to Revolt! was published in 1942. It is the last book she wrote with Fritz Eberhard. About this project, Eberhard wrote, "On behalf of the Fabian Society, I wrote a small booklet with Hilda Monte, Help Germany to Revolt. It was written as a letter to the members of the Labour Party and proceeded from the idea that not all Germans were Nazis."
German Educational Reconstruction In 1942, Meisel worked with , , Minna Specht, Walter Auerbach, , Fritz Eberhard and Otto Kahn-Freund to establish the , a project of the "Union of German Socialist Organisations in Great Britain" launched to plan and prepare a reorganization of the system of education and upbringing in postwar Germany.
Founded in spring 1941 at the request of the British Labour Party, the Union was a consortium of German Socialist refugees from several German political parties, Sopade, the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, Neu Beginnen and the ISK. They set themselves to work on the downfall of the Hitlerian system and to work with the Allies to defeat Hitler. They also discussed the conditions and work of a future united socialist party in Germany, exchanging ideas on a common objective so as not to repeat the mistakes of the Weimar Republic in a democratic, postwar Germany.
BBC Meisel also appeared on the broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) geared toward German workers, worked with the education program of the British forces, and toward the end of the war, got involved again with the ISK group in London.
One surviving radio manuscript, written in mid-December 1942, deals with the murder of European Jews.
What is happening today in Poland, the cold-blooded extermination of the Jewish people, this is being done in your name, in the name of the German people. [...] Show evidence of your solidarity to these people, even if it requires courage - especially if it requires courage.
The Unity of Europe