Klaus Mehnert (October 10, 1906, in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

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– January 2, 1984, in

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) was a German writer, journalist and academic. He was a correspondent in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

; a professor in the

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; a publisher of the German-funded journal ''XXth Century'' in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

; and an advisor to several German governments after the war. He was a prolific author.

Early life and education

Mehnert was born in 1906 in Moscow, Russia. His father was an engineer. In 1914, at the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Mehnert's family left Moscow for

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

, Germany. His father died in

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in 1917 as a German soldier. Mehnert attended the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

and the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

in Germany, the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, in the United States, and finally the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

, where he received his PhD under Professor

Otto Hoetzsch Otto Hoetzsch (14 February 1876 – 27 August 1946), was a German academic and politician (German Conservative Party, German National People's Party, DNVP and Conservative People's Party (Germany), KVP). At the beginning of the 20th century, he was ...

in 1928. Hoetzsch and Mehnert later took part in the short-lived society to study the Soviet

command economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...

, ARPLAN. Mehnert was briefly a supporter of

Otto Strasser Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser (also , see ß; 10 September 1897 – 27 August 1974) was a German politician and an early member of the Nazi Party. Otto Strasser, together with his brother Gregor Strasser, was a leading member of the party's ...

Black Front The Combat League of Revolutionary National Socialists (German: ''Kampfgemeinschaft Revolutionärer Nationalsozialisten'', KGRNS), more commonly known as the Black Front (), was a political group formed by Otto Strasser in 1930 after he resigne ...

Career

Over the next ten years, Mehnert traveled frequently, to America, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China. He married Enid Keyes († 1955) in California in 1933. From 1934 to 1936 he served as a Soviet correspondent for a German newspaper. In 1936, he was questioned in the press court in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

under suspicions of being too sympathetic to the Russians; although cleared by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

, he was forced out of his job. Subsequently, Mehnert moved to the United States, teaching politics at Berkeley and then at the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

until 1941.

World War II

In June 1941, six months prior to America's entry to World War II, he left for

, China, where he published an English-language journal named ''XXth Century'' with help from the Nazi German foreign ministry and funding from

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...

' Third Reich Propaganda Ministry. An influential promoter of anti-Allied reports and commentary in Asia, ''XXth Century'' was later described by American intelligence as "one of the slickest bits of propaganda work that has been done anywhere". In its four years, Menhert "steered his publication cunningly along a sophisticated path that eschewed overt pro-Axis advocacy", according to the British historian

Bernard Wasserstein Bernard Wasserstein (born 22 January 1948) is a British and American historian. He taught at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom from 1976-2014. Now retired, he is an emeritus professor of the University of Chicago. Wasserste ...

, with "a wide range of contributors, few of whom were publicly identified with Nazism". The journal was discontinued at the end of the war in 1945, and Mehnert was briefly imprisoned.

Postwar

Mehnert returned to Germany after the war. In 1946, an American tribunal cleared him of having Nazi affiliations. He continued to face occasional accusations in the American press of spying and anti-Semitism. The German historian

Norbert Frei Norbert Frei (born March 3, 1955, in Frankfurt) is a German historian. He holds the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Jena, Germany, and leads the Jena Center of 20th Century History. Frei's research work investigates ho ...

describes Mehnert as "one of the adaptable 'former ones'" in the postwar leadership of the German newspaper ''Christ und Welt''. Mehnert held various positions as journalist, editor, and professor. He became a foreign commentator for South German Radio in 1950. He was a professor of political science at Aachen Institute of Technology. He was the editor of the journal ''Osteuropa''. He was a government advisor on Sino-Russian matters (counseling German chancellors from

Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman and politician who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of th ...

Helmut Schmidt Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. He was the longest ...

). He published several books on political science. In the late 1970s he authored several books on youth movements in Western countries. He died in 1984 at age 77 in

, West Germany. Since 2005, the "Europainstitut Klaus Mehnert" has offered a student exchange program between his former university

RWTH Aachen RWTH Aachen University (), in German ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen'', is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study prog ...

and the University of Kaliningrad.

Selected writings

;in German (some translated) * ''Ein deutscher Austauschstudent in Kalifornien'' ("A German exchange student in California"). Stuttgart, 1930 * ''Die Jugend in Sowjet-Russland''. Berlin, 1932; ''Youth in Soviet Russia''. Transl. by Michael Davidson, Westport, Conn., 1981 * ''The Russians in Hawaii, 1804–19''. Hawaii, 1939 * ''Der Sowjetmensch''. Stuttgart, 1958; ''The Anatomy of Soviet Man''. Transl. by Maurice Rosenbaum, London, 1961 * ''Peking und Moskau''. Stuttgart, 1962; ''Peking and Moscow''. Transl. by Leila Vennewitz, London, 1963
''China nach dem Sturm''.
Munich, 1971; ''China Today''. Transl. by Cornelia Schaeffer, London, 1972
''China Returns''.
New York, 1972. ;in English:
''Stalin Versus Marx: The Stalinist Historical Doctrine''.
London:

George Allen and Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It became one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and established an Australian ...

, 1952. 130 p.
''Soviet Man and His World''.
New York:

Frederick A. Praeger Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG) was an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which was part of ABC-Clio. Since 2021, ABC-Clio and its suite of imprints, including GPG, are collectively imprints of B ...

, 1958.
''Peking and Moscow''.
New York:

G. P. Putnam's Sons G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group. History The company began as Wiley & Putnam with the 1838 partnership between George Palmer Putnam an ...

, 1963. 522 p.
''China Today''.
London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 322 p. .
''China Returns''.
New York: Dutton, 1972. 322 p. .
''Moscow and the New Left''.
Berkeley & Los Angeles:

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 1975. 275 p. .
''Twilight of the Young: The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy''.
New York, 1977. 428 p. * ''Youth in Soviet Russia''.

Hyperion Press Hyperion Press was an American publishing company, based in Westport, Connecticut. In the 1970s, it published science fiction and science fiction studies including reissues of several books first published by World Publ. Co. of Cleveland and clas ...

, 1981. .
''The Russians & Their Favorite Books''.
Stanford, CA:

Hoover Institution Press The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace and formerly The Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace) is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic ...

, 1983. . ;in German: * ''Peking und Moskau''. DTV, 1964. 508 p. * ''Der deutsche Standort''. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1967. 415 p. * ''China nach dem Sturm''. 1971. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 340pp, * ''Amerikanische und russische Jugend um 1930''. 1973. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 297pp, * ''Moskau und die neue Linke''. 1973. 219pp, * ''Jugend im Zeitbruch: Woher-Wohin''. 1976. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 511pp,
''Kampf um Maos Erbe: Geschichten machen Geschichte''.
Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1977. 319 p. . * ''Maos Erben machen's anders''. 1979. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 171pp * ''Ein Deutscher in der Welt: Erinnerungen 1906–1981''. 1983. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 447pp, * ''Uber die Russen heute: Was sie lesen, wie sie sind''. 1983. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 352pp, ;in French: * ''La Rebelión De La Juventud''. 1978. ;In italian: *"Cina rossa". 1972. Milano: Bietti, 372pp.

Notes

External links

Articles by Mehnert
published in XXth Century

of the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, initiated by Mehnert
Europainstitut Klaus Mehnert
(German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mehnert, Klaus 1906 births 1984 deaths Writers from Stuttgart People from Moskovsky Uyezd German male journalists German male writers German Nazi propagandists Academic staff of RWTH Aachen University 20th-century German journalists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the German Empire Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg