Martin Ludwig Monath (name later changed to Martin Witlin, and also known by pseudonyms such as Paul Widelin and Viktor) (5 January 1913 – August 1944) was a German

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish

Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

resistance fighter.

Life

Monath was born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. His parents, Baruch (Bernhard) and Emilie Monath, had moved from

Ternopil Ternopil, known until 1944 mostly as Tarnopol, is a city in western Ukraine, located on the banks of the Seret River. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical regions of Galicia and Podolia. The populatio ...

to Berlin in 1904. In 1931, Monath joined the Socialist-Zionist youth organization

Hashomer Hatzair Hashomer Hatzair (, , 'The Young Guard') is a Labor Zionism, Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary. It was also the name of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the ...

and became a member of its national leadership in Germany. Around 1940, he joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (Belgium) alongside

Abraham Leon Abraham (Abram) Leon (born Abraham Wejnstok; October 22, 1918 - September 1944) was a Belgian Jewish Trotskyist party leader and theorist, who was murdered in 1944 by the Nazis at the Auschwitz death camp. Biography Leon was born in Warsaw on Oc ...

and

Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel (; 5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter, was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He f ...

. In the summer of 1943, Monath became a member of the Provisional European Secretariat of the

Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) was a political international established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International (also known as Comintern or the Third Inte ...

, responsible for the "German work." In 1943 in Paris, alongside Paul and Clara Thalmann, he began publishing the newspaper Arbeiter und Soldat (''Worker and Soldier'') for German soldiers in France. In August 1944, Monath was arrested and murdered 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 ...

References

External links

Arbeiter und Soldat at Marxists.org

MartinMonath.org
1913 births 1944 deaths Hashomer Hatzair members Jewish socialists German Trotskyists German Jews who died in the Holocaust German civilians killed in World War II French Resistance members {{Germany-activist-stub