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Hilde Meisel (31 July 1914 – 17 April 1945) was a Jewish German people 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 democracySozialdemokratische 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.
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 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. 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. In 1932, Meisel also began studying art in London.
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 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.
Meisel anglicised the spelling of her name from Hilde to Hilda. In her German manuscripts, however, she continued to use the original spelling. When she felt fearful about using her real name, she abbreviated it or used "Hilda Olday".
Fritz Eberhard mentioned his association with Meisel 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
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.
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 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.
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.
Her ideas and comprehensive approaches to the economic integration of Europe were then published in her own book, "The Unity of Europe". Among other topics, it covered the economic requirements of a postwar Europe. Many German university students have written their diplom theses using this book.
Both books were published in 1943. The " Sozialistische Mitteilungen: News for German Socialists in England" wrote,
In a short chapter of her new book, The Unity of Europe (published by the Left Book Club), Hilda Monte debates the status of Germany in a new Europe; in principle, in the same sense as The Next Germany, published around the same time. Monte's highly readable book is rich in factual material and instructive discussion of the political and economic problems in Europe's future. It stresses, in particular, the recent opposition of the highly industrialized West and agrarian southeastern Europe; the export difficulties on the one hand, rural poverty on the other, crises, tensions and which involved uncertainty and was one of the causes of the war. "Sozialistische Mitteilungen: News for German Socialists in England" Friedrich Ebert Foundation, official website. Issued by the London Representative of the German Social Democratic Party (December 1943). Retrieved July 2, 2010
In September 1944, Meisel and flew to France. The original plan was for them to be dropped near Lyon, but there were skirmishes in the area, so they were landed by light aircraft in Thonon-les-Bains, near Lake Geneva, in a meadow used as a landing field by the British Special Operations Executive.
They were transported by French farmers in an old open wagon to an unused tunnel, where they were met by an English officer. He helped them reach Thonon-les-Bains, where they stayed four weeks, until they were picked up by Rene Bertholet. Surreptitiously, they crossed the border into Switzerland and went to Zurich, where they were given new identification documents and went with Hanna Bertholet to a meeting of the group in Geneva, centered around Willem Adolf Visser 't Hooft. Meisel was assigned as a courier to Jupp Kappius, a German socialist who had been dispatched to Germany to carry out sabotage operations.
Shortly thereafter, Meisel and Beyer traveled to the Ticino Alps near Intragna, Switzerland. The Bertholets maintained a weekend home there, called "Al Forno", which was used by emigrants as a residence. In autumn 1944, (forced laborers) began trying to escape Germany by swimming their way to Switzerland, so the Germans, attempting to stanch the escape route, sealed off the border to Switzerland.
Near the end of the war, Meisel, Beyer, Hanna Bertholet and Anne Kapius received an invitation from the American headquarters in Bern to discuss returning to Germany to engage in acts of sabotage, but they declined. A little later, Meisel made contact with , who later became editor of the Frankfurter Rundschau,Matthias Arning, "Karl-Gerold-Platz 1" Frankfurter Rundschau Online, official website. (19 February 2009). Retrieved 9 July 2010 to establish links with Austrian resistance groups from Ticino.
On 17 April 1945, while trying to cross the border illegally from German-occupied Austria into Liechtenstein, Meisel was shot when she made a dash for the frontier at Tisis near Feldkirch. Shot in the thigh, she bled to death while still on the border.
Much of what is known about Meisel's life in England came from her husband, whose recollections were embellished. In 1946, she was identified as the mastermind behind the 1939 Bürgerbräukeller assassination attempt on Hitler's life, though convincing evidence of this is unverifiable.Peter Koblank, Union Time, Hilda Monte und der Illegale 'A', Online-Edition Mythos Elser 2006
As Hilda Monte:
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