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Tagebuch der Hölle
This now forgotten autobiography by an obscure German revolutionary was one of the great (and unlikely) bestsellers of 1941, selling more than a million copies in the US alone. It is one of the most wrenching and remarkable autobiographies ever written, the tale of an ordinary guy deeply involved in world historical events in an era when the fate of Europe and the world hung in the balance. It is also the best cautionary tale of political fanaticism ever written. Jon Valtin (aka Richard Krebs) first participated in the failed German uprising (that was to save the Socialist Revolution from its isolation in backward Russia), then became an agent of the Communist International, spreading subversion all over the globe. Becoming increasingly dubious of Stalinism's pathological tendencies, he intentionally botched an assassination he had been commanded to carry out in Los Angeles. He spent three years in San Quentin, mastering English, then returned to Europe to fight fascism. He was captured by the Gestapo, escaped after more than three years, survived a murder attempt by Stalin's thugs, and finally washed up on the shores of the US, friendless and penniless at the height of the great depression. Besides being hard to put down, this book is both epic and tragic, but not in a ponderous or grim way; rather, it gives one a sharpened sense of what is at stake and what is possible in life.
600 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1940
About the author
Jan Valtin
25 books9 followersJan Valtin was the alias of Richard Julius Hermann Krebs, a German writer during the interwar period. He settled to the United States in 1938, and in 1940 (as Valtin) wrote his bestselling book 'Out of the Night'.
Krebs became active in the Communist movement as a boy, when his father was involved in the naval mutiny that heralded the German Revolution of 1918–19. In 1923, he saw action in the failed Communist insurgency in Hamburg. Sometime after this he joined the German Communist Party, but was later expelled.
In 1926, Krebs entered the United States illegally and settled in California. He spent 38 months in San Quentin State Prison for attempting to murder a merchant navy seaman during a brawl, then was deported to Germany in 1929. He worked as a seaman until 1934, when he was arrested and tortured, and acted as a witness for prosecution in a trial that brought to the conviction of a fellow German seaman accused of treason.
In 1938, Krebs settled in the United States once again - this time under his most famous alias, Jan Valtin - where he published the highly publicized autobiography 'Out of the Night'. In the book he described in detail the actions he supposedly had carried on as a secret agent of the Soviet GPU. The 1926 attempted murder was described by Krebs/Valtin as a GPU operation. The book received great critical acclaim. A 1940 review for the Saturday Review of Literature reads: "No other books more clearly reveals the aid which Stalin gave to Hitler before he won power". As a result, he Valtin/Krebs was invited to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee as regards Soviet secret activities in Europe.
Valtin/Krebs married again, before 1941, to Abigail Harris, an American. In November 1942, Krebs was also indicted as a Gestapo agent. He was arrested in December 1942 and found innocent in May 1943. The Los Angeles court record revealed that the 1926 crime had no political purpose. This event marked the end of Krebs/Valtin's career as a "Soviet expert". The New York Mirror said about his book Out of the Night: "In effect, the decision means he perpetrated a huge literary hoax."
In August 1943, Krebs was drafted as an infantryman and deployed in February 1944 to the Philippines in fighting the Japanese in the Pacific War. In 1946, his book 'Children of Yesterday', an anecdotal history of the 24th Infantry Division was published, describing in graphic detail the horrors of the fighting and everyday life of the division’s troops.
He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1947 and died in 1951.
Krebs became active in the Communist movement as a boy, when his father was involved in the naval mutiny that heralded the German Revolution of 1918–19. In 1923, he saw action in the failed Communist insurgency in Hamburg. Sometime after this he joined the German Communist Party, but was later expelled.
In 1926, Krebs entered the United States illegally and settled in California. He spent 38 months in San Quentin State Prison for attempting to murder a merchant navy seaman during a brawl, then was deported to Germany in 1929. He worked as a seaman until 1934, when he was arrested and tortured, and acted as a witness for prosecution in a trial that brought to the conviction of a fellow German seaman accused of treason.
In 1938, Krebs settled in the United States once again - this time under his most famous alias, Jan Valtin - where he published the highly publicized autobiography 'Out of the Night'. In the book he described in detail the actions he supposedly had carried on as a secret agent of the Soviet GPU. The 1926 attempted murder was described by Krebs/Valtin as a GPU operation. The book received great critical acclaim. A 1940 review for the Saturday Review of Literature reads: "No other books more clearly reveals the aid which Stalin gave to Hitler before he won power". As a result, he Valtin/Krebs was invited to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee as regards Soviet secret activities in Europe.
Valtin/Krebs married again, before 1941, to Abigail Harris, an American. In November 1942, Krebs was also indicted as a Gestapo agent. He was arrested in December 1942 and found innocent in May 1943. The Los Angeles court record revealed that the 1926 crime had no political purpose. This event marked the end of Krebs/Valtin's career as a "Soviet expert". The New York Mirror said about his book Out of the Night: "In effect, the decision means he perpetrated a huge literary hoax."
In August 1943, Krebs was drafted as an infantryman and deployed in February 1944 to the Philippines in fighting the Japanese in the Pacific War. In 1946, his book 'Children of Yesterday', an anecdotal history of the 24th Infantry Division was published, describing in graphic detail the horrors of the fighting and everyday life of the division’s troops.
He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1947 and died in 1951.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
June 1, 2013
1. This is one of the few stunning and amazing books that I would recommend to anyone.
2. This biography of German Communist between WWI and WWII will teach you more about humanity and evil and politics than anything else i have read.
3. I read this first at about 16 and I read it about every 10 years.
4. I think this should be required reading in every high school/college course on political science/International studies/ etc.
5. Not only is this a great history book. The writer wrote eloquently and imaginatively.
2. This biography of German Communist between WWI and WWII will teach you more about humanity and evil and politics than anything else i have read.
3. I read this first at about 16 and I read it about every 10 years.
4. I think this should be required reading in every high school/college course on political science/International studies/ etc.
5. Not only is this a great history book. The writer wrote eloquently and imaginatively.
February 1, 2008
As the newest addition to AK Press's Nabat series, I suspected that this would be an interesting book. In fact, it is an absolutely amazing account of the world political scene in the 1920s and 1930s, in the form of a memoir of an organizer in the German Communist Party. At heart, though, the book is an act of revenge; an attempt to expose the Communist Party for its betrayal of the author and all of those who sacrificed themselves for the benefit of The Cause. It is also one of the most incredible adventure stories that I have ever read, detailing one man's quixotic attempt to do anything possible for the advancement of the Comunist Party while living with the mantra "there's nothing a Bolshevik can't do."
This book is an excellent example of how powerful narrative history can be. It is much more compelling than abstract overviews of how many people Stalin murdered or how the Communist Party operated. Reading about how these things intersect with Jan Valtin in the context of his life, love, hopes, and dreams is priceless. Far from a historical account of the Communist Party from a wide-angle lens, this is a description of how the first world, Stalin's rise to power, and the emergence of the Nazi party affected the life of a German worker.
In the end, it is overwhelming to realize that this book is written by someone who rowed a dingy across the straights of Juan Del Fuca, did time in San Quentin, sacrificed the lives of his family, and endured four years of near-continuous Nazi torture for the benefit of the Communist Part -- only to end up wanted dead by the party itself. His life story vividly demonstrates how painful sacrifice to an organization or ideology can be, and how even victories in that context are empty victories. his life and death strongly warn us against organizations and ideas that make demands extending beyond the needs of the individuals involved.
This book is an excellent example of how powerful narrative history can be. It is much more compelling than abstract overviews of how many people Stalin murdered or how the Communist Party operated. Reading about how these things intersect with Jan Valtin in the context of his life, love, hopes, and dreams is priceless. Far from a historical account of the Communist Party from a wide-angle lens, this is a description of how the first world, Stalin's rise to power, and the emergence of the Nazi party affected the life of a German worker.
In the end, it is overwhelming to realize that this book is written by someone who rowed a dingy across the straights of Juan Del Fuca, did time in San Quentin, sacrificed the lives of his family, and endured four years of near-continuous Nazi torture for the benefit of the Communist Part -- only to end up wanted dead by the party itself. His life story vividly demonstrates how painful sacrifice to an organization or ideology can be, and how even victories in that context are empty victories. his life and death strongly warn us against organizations and ideas that make demands extending beyond the needs of the individuals involved.
December 21, 2021
This book, published in 1940, was a national best seller and generated a lot of sparks in the international communist world. In summary they hated it and did what they could to discredit Valtin calling him everything from a Nazi collaborator and turncoat (he had become a member of the Gestapo to escape a Nazi jail) to a fabulist who made everything up. One goodreads member concludes Valtin's work is an act of revenge.
Many people--especially those coming of age after the Cold War--have probably never heard of the Communist International (or Comintern in Soviet newspeak). Ostensibly an international organization working towards world communism, Valtin, one of its more passionate and active members, gradually learns that it is little more than an arm of the Soviet GPU--the predecessor of the KGB.
The book is long but it is kept moving by lots of action and lots of profound insights salted along the way. For example, reflecting, during his imprisonment in a filthy cottage before being shipped back to the Soviet Union to be shot in some GPU dungeon or worked to death in a labor camp, on the fates of similar victims who had preceded him, Valtin writes,
I had no feud with the Comintern. But neither had the others...It was not only a feud between individual rebels and the International. It was, often as not, a war between conscientious proletarian internationalists and the bureaucratic clique that followed Stalin. The clique always won. Its creed was the GPU. If Stalin commanded [Georgi] Dimitrov [secretary general of the Comintern in Moscow] to hoist the swastika over the Comintern building, Dimitrov would do it. If Stalin told [Ernst] Wollweber [ranking member of the German Communist Party] to publish a pamphlet proclaiming Lenin was a pickpocket--Wollweber would do it...The revolutionary vangard was now no more than a poisoned dagger in Stalin's hands.
To all the fiery-eyed radicals who thought they were fighting for world revolution and a just order, the truth of the matter is the banner under which they fought, betrayed, sabotaged, and sacrificed was just a prop sent up by a government agency in perpetuation of its own bureaucratic interests and, perhaps just the tool of a single individual working for his own benefit. Lots of things go limp when the idealistic mind embraces a truth like this; which, I also think, shows that this work is more than an act of revenge, but a lament and an awakening as well. Those who have had their eyes opened are often desperate that the blind shall see.
The little known fact--again, especially having in mind the younger generations--is that thousands of passionate (and influential) adherents to the world communist movement chucked it in upon learning something similar. Stalin's famous betrayal vis-a-vis his concordat with the Nazis and, later, Khrushchev's revelations at the famous party congress more or less put an end to the Communist Party in the United States; reducing it to little more than splinter movement that, after reaching a sizable membership during the depression, never regained its stature. Many conservatives sprung from events like these and books like Valtin's. And many who could not go that far just dropped their involvement with the party.
Empirically, Communism, socialism, Leninism, Stalinism--whatever the label--have never been about anything other than as Orwell put it, "a boot ground in the face of humanity." Some have wondered whether or not the brutalisms attending communism's gaining power are endemic; as opposed to the claim of its defenders that the immiseration it has brought about is due to doctrinal impurity, defects in leadership and imperfect organization. Valtin's book seems to answer this affirmatively for the first alternative; placing the reader into the action and letting him see for himself as he wends with the author the on the path to the ultimate realization.
Many people--especially those coming of age after the Cold War--have probably never heard of the Communist International (or Comintern in Soviet newspeak). Ostensibly an international organization working towards world communism, Valtin, one of its more passionate and active members, gradually learns that it is little more than an arm of the Soviet GPU--the predecessor of the KGB.
The book is long but it is kept moving by lots of action and lots of profound insights salted along the way. For example, reflecting, during his imprisonment in a filthy cottage before being shipped back to the Soviet Union to be shot in some GPU dungeon or worked to death in a labor camp, on the fates of similar victims who had preceded him, Valtin writes,
I had no feud with the Comintern. But neither had the others...It was not only a feud between individual rebels and the International. It was, often as not, a war between conscientious proletarian internationalists and the bureaucratic clique that followed Stalin. The clique always won. Its creed was the GPU. If Stalin commanded [Georgi] Dimitrov [secretary general of the Comintern in Moscow] to hoist the swastika over the Comintern building, Dimitrov would do it. If Stalin told [Ernst] Wollweber [ranking member of the German Communist Party] to publish a pamphlet proclaiming Lenin was a pickpocket--Wollweber would do it...The revolutionary vangard was now no more than a poisoned dagger in Stalin's hands.
To all the fiery-eyed radicals who thought they were fighting for world revolution and a just order, the truth of the matter is the banner under which they fought, betrayed, sabotaged, and sacrificed was just a prop sent up by a government agency in perpetuation of its own bureaucratic interests and, perhaps just the tool of a single individual working for his own benefit. Lots of things go limp when the idealistic mind embraces a truth like this; which, I also think, shows that this work is more than an act of revenge, but a lament and an awakening as well. Those who have had their eyes opened are often desperate that the blind shall see.
The little known fact--again, especially having in mind the younger generations--is that thousands of passionate (and influential) adherents to the world communist movement chucked it in upon learning something similar. Stalin's famous betrayal vis-a-vis his concordat with the Nazis and, later, Khrushchev's revelations at the famous party congress more or less put an end to the Communist Party in the United States; reducing it to little more than splinter movement that, after reaching a sizable membership during the depression, never regained its stature. Many conservatives sprung from events like these and books like Valtin's. And many who could not go that far just dropped their involvement with the party.
Empirically, Communism, socialism, Leninism, Stalinism--whatever the label--have never been about anything other than as Orwell put it, "a boot ground in the face of humanity." Some have wondered whether or not the brutalisms attending communism's gaining power are endemic; as opposed to the claim of its defenders that the immiseration it has brought about is due to doctrinal impurity, defects in leadership and imperfect organization. Valtin's book seems to answer this affirmatively for the first alternative; placing the reader into the action and letting him see for himself as he wends with the author the on the path to the ultimate realization.
April 3, 2021
Autobiography of a former communist agent.
Though a bestseller in 1941, this is Another timely read with all of the organized unrest happening.
“Our immediate aim was to arouse discontent...”
“We were taught by our leaders to hate the rich, to tell the poor that they must rise in a body & fight, to disrupt...”
“When the time came, the theory was, it could be turned into a shambles at a signal. Other forces working simultaneously on land would complete a chaos which would paralyze the capitalistic system & pave the way for revolution & a communist dictatorship.”
“My attitude toward conventional respectability was a derisive one. Policemen were enemies. God was a lie, invented by the rich to make the poor content with their yoke. Class-consciousness had been ground into me since childhood. Every employer was a hyena in human form. I dreamed of the approaching revolution, & shied at no lawless deed as long as it would further the cause.”
“All courses were directed toward the seizure of power through revolution, & the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat under communist leadership.”
“We despised the bourgeois ideals of a settled existence, of marriage & love, of ownership & law & order. We were the youth of international conspiracy. Our job was destruction - utter, uncompromising destruction - of capitalist society, an overturning of all standards grown out of the basic conceptions of my land, my country, my wife, my factory or ship or railroad.”
“The task allotted to the Communist Parties abroad was to prevent such an attack by aggravating the internal difficulties of all nations, by paralyzing them through strikes, civil strife & disruption of national morale.”
“As Part of this propaganda I described a scene of world injustice & misery brought on by a handful of rich men.”
“How can people who talk of nothing but destruction & bloodshed lead humanity to freedom & happiness? She asked.”
Unfortunately communism is not dead today. Much of that fake news all over the Internet is owned by diehard communists & (as I used to work for several of the pages before realizing what they were) their purpose is spreading hate, fear, anger & unrest. Be careful what you allow in your mind.
Though a bestseller in 1941, this is Another timely read with all of the organized unrest happening.
“Our immediate aim was to arouse discontent...”
“We were taught by our leaders to hate the rich, to tell the poor that they must rise in a body & fight, to disrupt...”
“When the time came, the theory was, it could be turned into a shambles at a signal. Other forces working simultaneously on land would complete a chaos which would paralyze the capitalistic system & pave the way for revolution & a communist dictatorship.”
“My attitude toward conventional respectability was a derisive one. Policemen were enemies. God was a lie, invented by the rich to make the poor content with their yoke. Class-consciousness had been ground into me since childhood. Every employer was a hyena in human form. I dreamed of the approaching revolution, & shied at no lawless deed as long as it would further the cause.”
“All courses were directed toward the seizure of power through revolution, & the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat under communist leadership.”
“We despised the bourgeois ideals of a settled existence, of marriage & love, of ownership & law & order. We were the youth of international conspiracy. Our job was destruction - utter, uncompromising destruction - of capitalist society, an overturning of all standards grown out of the basic conceptions of my land, my country, my wife, my factory or ship or railroad.”
“The task allotted to the Communist Parties abroad was to prevent such an attack by aggravating the internal difficulties of all nations, by paralyzing them through strikes, civil strife & disruption of national morale.”
“As Part of this propaganda I described a scene of world injustice & misery brought on by a handful of rich men.”
“How can people who talk of nothing but destruction & bloodshed lead humanity to freedom & happiness? She asked.”
Unfortunately communism is not dead today. Much of that fake news all over the Internet is owned by diehard communists & (as I used to work for several of the pages before realizing what they were) their purpose is spreading hate, fear, anger & unrest. Be careful what you allow in your mind.
February 1, 2021
En el enlace comparto información detallada:
https://youtu.be/EuSenPnKMvE
Debo decir que me sorprende enormemente que no exista una película basada en este libro. Es emocionante, es de espías, y además de todo es real. La narrativa es excepcional y detallada de todo lo histórico además de contener algunas referencias literarias y cinematográficas. Hace pensar que toda novela es histórica y que toda vida-historia es algo novelesca: su autor siendo espía hizo de todo un poco, fue hasta actor en Hollywood.
https://youtu.be/EuSenPnKMvE
Debo decir que me sorprende enormemente que no exista una película basada en este libro. Es emocionante, es de espías, y además de todo es real. La narrativa es excepcional y detallada de todo lo histórico además de contener algunas referencias literarias y cinematográficas. Hace pensar que toda novela es histórica y que toda vida-historia es algo novelesca: su autor siendo espía hizo de todo un poco, fue hasta actor en Hollywood.
February 18, 2013
This might be the best written and most thrilling autobiography by a revolutionary (Jan Valtin, real name Krebs) ever written. I discovered it in the back of a closet when a teenager and read it several times since. It's a huge (700+ pages) book which was a best seller in 1941. It describes the experience of a German Communist revolutionary from 1918 onwards: his training in the Soviet Union; his imprisonment in America; his capture by the Nazis and placement in a concentration camp; his release after convincing the Gestapo that he would work with them against the Communists (following a meeting with Himmler); his return to the Communist fold but breaking with them because of their refusal to help him free his wife and toddler son who were being held hostage by the Nazis, and the ongoing Communist political turmoil (it was the time of the Moscow trials and Valtin was ordered to go to the Soviet Union for likely execution); and his flight to America. He later became a decorated American soldier, dying in the early 1950s of pneumonia in a Maryland hospital while rambling about the Nazis, he then being a PTA president. What a life! I referred to this this book in one of my novels, Lies In Progress, and was contacted by one of Valtin's American relatives who wrote that Valtin's son, who had been placed with his mother by the Nazis in a concentration camp, had wound up eventually in America. This was like a blast from the past, the same feeling which I had when, at a literary cocktail party at the Finnish consulate in Manhattan a few years ago, I spoke with a woman who described her experiences as a child during the Finnish-Russian war in 1940. It's a tragedy that this book isn't available in an E-book edition. It's widely available used for a few dollars.
December 26, 2018
Detailreiche politische Memoiren eines beinahe lebenslangen Kommunisten, lebensnahe und eindringliche Beschreibung seiner Tätigkeit als Saboteur, Spitzel, Straßenkämpfer, Matrose, Gewerkschafter und Revolutionär und ein sehr persönlicher Bericht über die Degeneration der kommunistischen Bewegung unter Stalins Clique. Zum Zeitpunkt des Erscheinens natürlich antikommunistischer Sprengstoff, heute eher Dokument des oftmals unbekannten kommunistischen Kampfes aus einer größtenteils sehr klassenbewußten Sicht. Und liest sich streckenweise einfach wie ein roter James Bond. Politische eingehende Analyse von Karl Korsch hier: http://www.bahoebooks.net/rezensionen...
March 19, 2013
now that you know this book exists, you have absolutely no excuse not to read it.
October 1, 2009
Sitting by the river in Machias, Maine, about as close to New Brunswick as you can get while still being in the U.S., I was reading 'Out of the Night' and overcome with the sense that I needed to make it to Montreal post-haste and write a song about Jan Valtin to perform at the second Band-Off in Saint Henri. I had only read the first 200 or so pages of this almost 700 page tomb at that point, but the episode involving the failed Hamburg uprising left its mark on my forever. Screaming words written quickly in a tattered notebook as my friends danced in a sweaty basement like idiots was one of the highlights of the last years of my life.
This book exposes the horror of the Communist International in a way only one deeply enmeshed in its apparatus could do. It also details the life of a underground communist agitator in Nazi Germany with incredible insight, and the images of torture and confinement at the hands of the Gestapo are something I can never forget. Nearly at tears as I read the last page of this book, I was overcome not with the certainty that anarchists have some solutions or answers to offer the proponents of authoritarian organizations, but that their is a real and profound tragedy in the world for which our ideals offer little comfort.
"Oh Jan, why didn't they stop the train in time?
Neither fear nor hesitation on your mind.
Not believing you could win.
Rather die than give in.
Death to hangmen, kings and traitors!
We'll be free or we'll be dead.
You trusted the party
you trusted leaders
now there's no one on your side
No one on your side."
-Ca$hville, 2009
This book exposes the horror of the Communist International in a way only one deeply enmeshed in its apparatus could do. It also details the life of a underground communist agitator in Nazi Germany with incredible insight, and the images of torture and confinement at the hands of the Gestapo are something I can never forget. Nearly at tears as I read the last page of this book, I was overcome not with the certainty that anarchists have some solutions or answers to offer the proponents of authoritarian organizations, but that their is a real and profound tragedy in the world for which our ideals offer little comfort.
"Oh Jan, why didn't they stop the train in time?
Neither fear nor hesitation on your mind.
Not believing you could win.
Rather die than give in.
Death to hangmen, kings and traitors!
We'll be free or we'll be dead.
You trusted the party
you trusted leaders
now there's no one on your side
No one on your side."
-Ca$hville, 2009
December 16, 2020
Jan Valtin alias Richard Krebs, membre actif du Komintern de la section maritime, livre en 1941 une autobiographie à couper le souffle. Après l’insurrection manquée d’octobre 1923 à Hambourg Valtin s’engage dans le parti communiste allemand, et va dès lors dédier sa vie à « La Cause ». Pour le Parti il ira jusqu’à subir les pires tortures sous les mains de la Gestapo, son récit de la vie dans les prisons nazies restant d’ailleurs une référence. Témoin de premier plan de la République de Weimar jusqu’à l’ascension d’Hitler, les manigances sanglantes du Komintern envers une multitude de révolutionnaires finiront, plus que 3 ans de sévices dans les camps de concentration hitlérien, par le convaincre de rompre avec Moscou. Poursuivi à la fois par la Gestapo et le Guépéou Valtin se réfugiera aux États-Unis. Son histoire est celle d’un écrivain autodidacte impliqué dans son époque jusqu’à l’os, une véritable littérature de contrebande, un grand roman d’aventures en haute mer, une mer agitée par la terreur nazie et les espoirs révolutionnaires d’un temps révolu.
November 20, 2023
Wat een boek is dit zeg. De memoires van een Duitse communist die inde jaren 20 op de barricades meevecht in de strijd om de macht in de Weimarrepubliek, om vervolgens internationaal geheim agent voor de communisten te worden en het verzet tegen Hitler-Duitsland te organiseren.
Het boek is al meer dan zeventig jaar oud maar leest als een absolute thriller en leert je enorm veel over de politieke strijd in de jaren 20 en 30. Dikke tip!
Het boek is al meer dan zeventig jaar oud maar leest als een absolute thriller en leert je enorm veel over de politieke strijd in de jaren 20 en 30. Dikke tip!
October 27, 2013
A young sailor and participant in the German revolution of 1918-1919 and the lesser-known Hamburg uprising of October 1923 becomes an agent of the Comintern, rising to high-level positions in the Maritime Division. The sordidness of international communism is made painfully clear: already in the 1920s it meant nothing but the foreign policy of a totalitarian Russian state. Driven by belief in world revolution, Valtin crisscrosses the globe and takes part in endless adventures and conspiracies, his faith challenged only by his love for his companion Firelei. The Bolsheviks find themselves rivalled by their own children, the Nazis who copy Bolshevik methods of terror and discipline and whose Gestapo mirrors the GPU. Both parties work together against democracy and socialism before contending with each other.
Valtin learns that "The Party knows no friends." Deceit and thuggery run rampant. At the same time, one has to respect how seriously the communist militants took themselves, and feel nostalgic for a time when inciting strikes, sabotage, mutiny and even bloody insurrection was considered the natural and constant tool of the anti-capitalist. There's nothing about blogging, pop culture criticism, art installations or teaching at bourgeois universities. There is only a twisted commitment, and endless tragedy as the Nazis devour rank-and-file communists and Valtin, who survives long, hellish months of torture in Gestapo prisons, comes into conflict with the head of the Western Secretariat over its cynical methods and disdain for human life and love. "It is fruitless to dream of peace as long as one is alive."
Valtin learns that "The Party knows no friends." Deceit and thuggery run rampant. At the same time, one has to respect how seriously the communist militants took themselves, and feel nostalgic for a time when inciting strikes, sabotage, mutiny and even bloody insurrection was considered the natural and constant tool of the anti-capitalist. There's nothing about blogging, pop culture criticism, art installations or teaching at bourgeois universities. There is only a twisted commitment, and endless tragedy as the Nazis devour rank-and-file communists and Valtin, who survives long, hellish months of torture in Gestapo prisons, comes into conflict with the head of the Western Secretariat over its cynical methods and disdain for human life and love. "It is fruitless to dream of peace as long as one is alive."
June 9, 2017
This is probably the most moving and fascinating book I have ever read. Before even reaching the age of 34, Jan Valtin seems to to have lived 9 lives. In his whirlwind accounts of stealthy international communist activism, the level of detail can sometimes feel tedious, but when it comes to describing horrific events witnessed and experienced, his understated tone is exactly right. There were times I reacted out loud with an unbelieving "Oh my God!" and times that I wept for him and his fellow prisoners. By the end, you will feel like you've parted ways with a close friend.
I would advise new readers to be prepared for graphic descriptions, especially in Book III. And for me, it was useful to keep handy 3 reference books: a dictionary, an atlas, and a history of the Third Reich.
I would advise new readers to be prepared for graphic descriptions, especially in Book III. And for me, it was useful to keep handy 3 reference books: a dictionary, an atlas, and a history of the Third Reich.
February 11, 2013
Excelente documento acerca de una época tumultuosa de poderosas ideologías . Su mayor mérito radica en la capacidad de juicio del autor para opinar sobre las circunstancias políticas que vivió .
March 14, 2018
A very detailed and interesting autobiography of Richard Kreb a well-traveled man who had in his life worked for the communist, fascist, and capitalist causes (the International Comitern & the GPU, the Gestapo, and the American Army). His life begins in in post-World War I Germany during the 1920’s where there is political chaos, runaway inflation (a loaf of bread costs 1,000,000 marks) and massive unemployment.
The young Kreb follows in his father’s footsteps becoming both a sailor and a communist agitator. Enthused by the idealism of the communist cause he participates in much picketing, strike organizing, outright sabotage, mutiny, and open rebellion (ie the doomed Hamburg uprising of 1923). As time goes on he feels the crunch of the soviet boot on his neck. He views with disgust the upper levels of the communist leadership in the free counties with their fine living and hypocrisy.
He describes how the leftist influence, under the direction of the Soviet Union, spent as much time undermining organizations with similar goals, but were not under their control, as fighting the systems they were supposedly against. He demonstrates again and again where the communist agitators would be ordered to cause a strike only to have their superiors subvert said strike by ordering Soviet ships in the striking port to be the only ones loaded and unloaded, improving the finical stability of Russia, but cutting the throats of those striking.
Hitler rises to power and he is captured, tortured, and imprisoned by the Gestapo. Eventually he is ordered by the GPU (the pre-KGB) to attempt to infiltrate the organization. He convinces Hitler’s henchmen that he has renounced his former faith and is welcomed aboard as a new Gestapo agent.
As time goes on his beliefs are eroded away, especially during the Stalinist purges of the early 30s, where many of his friends were recalled to Moscow and shot for petty reasons. He describes the atmosphere as one of constant suspicion where all of his former close knit comrades not denounced and gathered information on each other. He is especially savage in his descriptions of Ernst Wollweber who he saw turn from a passionate revolutionary into a corrupt bureaucrat. But the author had by then spent so much of his life, even sacrificing his wife and child, in the Comitern’s employ he does not know where else to go.
He presents here the revolutionary’s dilemma where ideals and rhetoric give way to practicality and inevitable corruption. For every populist movement eventually gives birth to a demagogue and the requisite cult of personality. Which always leads to the destruction of its most faithful followers, prison camps, and firing squads. We have seen this again and again: Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Franco, etc. And all of them have succeeded on the backs of men like the author, who gave up everything only to then be betrayed.
His story doesn’t end here though. Krebs followed up with a further book after he defected to the US and was drafted into the army, fighting with the 24th infantry in the Phillipines for World War Two. The second memoir is called Children Of Yesterday: The 24th Infantry Division in the Philippines, which I plan to read and review at a later date. The author died in 1951 of an undefined illness, which may have been in part psychosomatic.
March 5, 2023
I can probably count the number of books I've re-read on one foot and this is one I'm in the process of re-reading. It's no less flabbergasting the second time around.
Jan Valtin, aka, Richard Krebs may be the teller of the most vivid autobiographical tale I've ever encountered. Every chapter is epic. Certainly, there are moments that could have been embellished, but more often than not they paint pictures of people who are utterly lost, risking life and limb for a cause and mostly failing.
The desperation is palpable. The wins are short-lived and so chaotic as to feel right in line with my experience of life's tumult.
In the early 1900s he came of age, joined the German Communist Party, trained in the GPU (the original KGB) in a division called the Comintern for international spies and so on.
The combination of fanatic, wholehearted conviction in the mission of spreading a communist revolution across the globe plus a steady awakening to the brutality, destruction, and moral hypocrisy sewn by GPU leaders strikes a tone of powerful irony.
I see it not so much as a takedown of the principles of socialism — the condemnation of a rigged system and the police state propping it up doesn't falter. But it does sculpt an acknowledgement of the wrongs committed in the name of capitalism, nationalism, and communism on the part of dictators and imperialist powers. This man just happened to be batted around like a pinball when he thought he was playing the game. It turned out some of the most dastardly government actors had their hands on the buttons.
No historical account of political intrigue, spycraft, and subterfuge, especially during the 1920s and 30s, even comes close to holding a candle to this book.
Jan Valtin, aka, Richard Krebs may be the teller of the most vivid autobiographical tale I've ever encountered. Every chapter is epic. Certainly, there are moments that could have been embellished, but more often than not they paint pictures of people who are utterly lost, risking life and limb for a cause and mostly failing.
The desperation is palpable. The wins are short-lived and so chaotic as to feel right in line with my experience of life's tumult.
In the early 1900s he came of age, joined the German Communist Party, trained in the GPU (the original KGB) in a division called the Comintern for international spies and so on.
The combination of fanatic, wholehearted conviction in the mission of spreading a communist revolution across the globe plus a steady awakening to the brutality, destruction, and moral hypocrisy sewn by GPU leaders strikes a tone of powerful irony.
I see it not so much as a takedown of the principles of socialism — the condemnation of a rigged system and the police state propping it up doesn't falter. But it does sculpt an acknowledgement of the wrongs committed in the name of capitalism, nationalism, and communism on the part of dictators and imperialist powers. This man just happened to be batted around like a pinball when he thought he was playing the game. It turned out some of the most dastardly government actors had their hands on the buttons.
No historical account of political intrigue, spycraft, and subterfuge, especially during the 1920s and 30s, even comes close to holding a candle to this book.
February 4, 2023
Quite a read. Incredibly well written, I felt in the 'action'. Also a terribly depressing book. I found myself both wanting to read more and to stop reading. Complex. Is this autobio even a true account or simply fiction? I am inclined to say fictitious. There is simply too much action and adventure.
Also, what does it say about communism in the early 20th C? I am sure conservatives will pounce on this book as a justification to denounce anyone and anything that expresses the slightest criticism of the status quo. On this, taking the evils of Stalin into account, these were not the values that the author professed or fought for in his political life. He wanted a workers paradise, no imperialism, and freedom, not a police state. The author finally felt betrayed by the USSR. Much like Orwell and "Animal Farm".
A long read. It took me a month to finish. Sometimes I would put the book aside for days as the grim life of the protagonist was just too grim. Also, fascinating.
Also, what does it say about communism in the early 20th C? I am sure conservatives will pounce on this book as a justification to denounce anyone and anything that expresses the slightest criticism of the status quo. On this, taking the evils of Stalin into account, these were not the values that the author professed or fought for in his political life. He wanted a workers paradise, no imperialism, and freedom, not a police state. The author finally felt betrayed by the USSR. Much like Orwell and "Animal Farm".
A long read. It took me a month to finish. Sometimes I would put the book aside for days as the grim life of the protagonist was just too grim. Also, fascinating.
January 28, 2021
Ce livre a tout du roman d'espionnage, sauf qu'il s'agit d'une œuvre autobiographique. On suit le parcours d'un jeune militant communiste qui devient ensuite un révolutionnaire professionnel. Le tout dans le contexte troublé politiquement de l'entre-deux guerre. On y découvre le fonctionnement et les rouages du mouvement communiste international et des cellules qui le composent, guidés par la Russie. On voit aussi comment coexiste cette puissance en Allemagne avec l'autre — nazie — lorsqu'elle prend son essor lors de l'ascension d’Hitler. Un livre que j'ai vraiment trouvé très intéressant et captivant.
February 16, 2021
Some people don't think that Jan Valtin's (Richard Krebs') story is a true story of his life, or that he even was the true writer of the book. But it contains so many details of places and people, that one is quite convinced that all those things really happened as he tells it. Jan Valtin fled Germany since he was wanted by both Gestapo and the Soviet Comintern and the Cheka in 1938. He probably contacted the CIA to offer to tell what he knew about both Nazi and Soviet undercover work. It's a fascinating read, true or not, and reflects well the political turns in the turmoils of the late twenties and thirties in Europe.
October 21, 2019
I have read this a couple of times because it is absolutly riviting! There's been controversy over it's truthfulness. Who can ever know for sure but the author? But it is an outstanding telling of events and places of historical people of WW2 as the author claims to have experienced them. So if you love to read first person writing from people who lived through World War 2 then this book is for you! It will keep you on the edge of your seat! I have the 1sr edition hardback copy first published in 1941. I think it is a little different then this latter paperback bookclub edition.
August 6, 2017
Storia del rivoluzionario Richard Krebs, da marinaio protagonista degli ammutinamenti contro il Kaiser nella prima guerra mondiale ad agente sovietico contro la Gestapo e poi contro gli stessi stalinisti.
Una miniera di informazioni sulla lotta tra comunisti, socialdemocratici e nazisti prima dell'incendio del Reichstag, sui metodi di guerriglia e controspionaggio, sugli errori, si spera, che hanno portato Hitler al potere.
Superbamente scritto.
Una miniera di informazioni sulla lotta tra comunisti, socialdemocratici e nazisti prima dell'incendio del Reichstag, sui metodi di guerriglia e controspionaggio, sugli errori, si spera, che hanno portato Hitler al potere.
Superbamente scritto.
December 2, 2017
Earned it's rating. This is such a textured and detailed bit of history, largely free of telios, from a period and angle that is hardly visible in the shadows of the liberalism's narrative of the world wars and interwar period on the one hand and the Soviet Union's disavowal and historical erasure of its internationalist program on the other. It is a history that has "fallen between the cracks."
September 2, 2018
Sublime. Una descripción brutal de la situación política y la militancia durante el periodo de entreguerras. Una descripción atroz del bolchevismo y del nazismo. Una descripción cruel y cientos de peripecias personales.
Imprescindible para todo amante de la historia europeo de principios de siglo XX
Imprescindible para todo amante de la historia europeo de principios de siglo XX
December 3, 2018
Out of the Night is a book to obsess over. The book is about one man's tragedy spending his whole life fighting for the communist cause, compromising the means for the glorious ends. The moral compromises he commits for the general cause eventually destroys what he loves most. What do you do when your whole life is a lie?
August 17, 2021
This is a great book, detailed account of what this man experienced, heartbreaking and blind loyalty to his party. What it cost him and he lived to tell the tale. I actually owe my name to this book. My mother read it and decided to name her daughter Firelei.
September 8, 2022
Nos describe como actor en primera fila los años 20s y30s de Alemania. El libro merece la pena para entender la Internacional comunista, ya que de los nazis no me cuenta nada nuevo. El problema es que se me ha hecho largo la etapa de huelgas y revoluciones... pero al final ha merecido la pena.
March 3, 2023
Le pongo tan alta nota a este librazo, no tanto por su valor literario sino por su interesantísima narración y descripción de una época negra para la humanidad. Intenso y con un ritmo vertiginoso, realmente muy recomendable. Leanlo!
September 28, 2017
The memoirs of a sometime German Communist, an agent of the Communist International (the Comintern) until he became marked for being purged in Stalin's Great Terror of the 1930's.
June 29, 2023
Incroyable. Témoignage comme un roman d'aventure avec un arrière-goût amer de vérité.
June 24, 2020
I recently watched a programme on BBC about holocaust deniers. In the programme, the host (David Badiel) outlined how the horrors of the Nazi Regime were played down by the British Government during WW2. Reviewing documents in the National Library, he pointed to intra Government communications in 1943 that advised government departments not to provide the British public with any information they had about concentration camps. A paragraph above the text he was highlighting said that books such as 'Out of the Night' by Jan Valtin, written in 1941 should not be promoted.
I had read 'out of the Night about 30 years ago and vaguely remembered some of it. I decided to re-read it. While its a mix of fact and fiction, the brutality of the Nazi regime and inhumanity of gestapo are starkly portrayed; the comintern doesn't come out smelling of roses either. Worth reading to remind yourself why authoritarian regimes of any kind should be utterly detested and resisted.
I had read 'out of the Night about 30 years ago and vaguely remembered some of it. I decided to re-read it. While its a mix of fact and fiction, the brutality of the Nazi regime and inhumanity of gestapo are starkly portrayed; the comintern doesn't come out smelling of roses either. Worth reading to remind yourself why authoritarian regimes of any kind should be utterly detested and resisted.
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