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Arthur Ewert
Arthur Ernest Ewert (November 13, 1890 – July 3, 1959) was a German communist political activist and functionary of the Communist International (Comintern). Ewert is best remembered as an official Comintern representative to the United States, China, Argentina, and Brazil during the late 1920s and 1930s. After being subjected to torture and sentenced to 13 years in prison for his political activity in Brazil, Ewert lost his sanity. He was granted amnesty in May 1945 and ultimately returned to East Germany, where he lived out the rest of his life in a series of medical facilities.
Arthur Ernest Ewert was born November 13, 1890, in the town of Heinrichswalde, East Prussia (now called Slavsk). He was the son of a poor peasant family. Largely self-educated, Ewert completed only a primary school education in a one-room rural schoolhouse.
Anxious to escape the drudgery of rural life, at the age of 14 Ewert accepted a position as an apprentice in an uncle's saddle-making factory in the urban center of Berlin. The growth of the automotive industry convinced the young Ewert that there was little future in saddle-making, however, so he left that trade to take a job as a worker in a Berlin steel works. Earning low wages to perform difficult and sometimes dangerous work in the steel plant proved to be a radicalizing experience for Ewert. Influenced by his older sister, Minna, who was an activist in the social democratic youth movement, Ewert himself joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) in 1908 at the age of 18.
In addition to socialist politics, Ewert's sister introduced him to a friend from work, the Polish-born Elise Saborovsky Ewert, known to her friends as "Szabo", who was herself a committed Marxist. The pair began living together and would remain a couple for 25 years.
Early in 1914 Ewert and Szabowski moved to Canada, where they began to achieve fluency in the English language. At the time of Canada's entry into World War I in the summer of that year Ewert and Szabowski were required as citizens of an enemy power to report to the legal authorities for internment for the duration of the war. Instead the couple chose to disappear into the political underground, where they were aided by Canadian Marxist opponents of the war. The couple traveled extensively through Canada and the United States in this period, interacting with others of like political mind and joining the new Socialist Party of North America (SPNA), a small revolutionary socialist organization launched in Canada in 1915. During this period the couple used the party pseudonyms "Gustav" and "Elsie" and procured false identity documents under the names "Arthur Brown" and "Annie Bancourt" to better avoid law enforcement officers.
Following the Russian Revolution of November 1917, Canadian authorities increased their scrutiny of domestic radicals and Ewert and Szabowski became persons of interest. An informer tipped off the authorities that the pair would be in Toronto for a party meeting on March 23, 1919, and plainclothes detectives picked up their trail from the gathering to a boarding house, where arrest and search warrants were served. According to the police communist propaganda and several handguns were found in the couple's room during the search. After an administrative hearing Ewert was deported to Germany a few months after his arrest, while Szabo was transported across Canada to an internment camp, pending her own deportation in February 1920 aboard a prisoner of war repatriation ship. The couple reunited in Berlin where they resumed their lives together anew.
Returning to Germany early in the summer of 1919, Ewert joined the fledgling Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and became active in its work preparing the ground for a revolutionary overthrow of the German government. To support himself he went to work in Berlin as a laborer at the giant electrical corporation AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft), becoming one of the leading KPD activists among that company's workers. This period was marked by economic chaos, strikes, and street fighting, in which the KPD frequently played the role of provocateur. Ewert was involved in this activity as a leading member of the loosely organized Greater Berlin Revolutionary Action Committee, established to organize urban workers into fighting groups to do battle with similar bands of ultranationalist demobilized soldiers.
The leadership of Soviet Russia placed supreme importance on an early communist revolution in Germany to provide material support for the revolution in their own revolution backwards peasant nation. Substantial funds were funneled into Germany to support the organizing and propaganda efforts of the German communist movement. From 1920 onwards German-speaking veterans of the Soviet revolution and Russian Civil War were employed to establish paramilitary "military-political organizations" throughout Germany in preparation for armed insurrection.
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Arthur Ewert
Arthur Ernest Ewert (November 13, 1890 – July 3, 1959) was a German communist political activist and functionary of the Communist International (Comintern). Ewert is best remembered as an official Comintern representative to the United States, China, Argentina, and Brazil during the late 1920s and 1930s. After being subjected to torture and sentenced to 13 years in prison for his political activity in Brazil, Ewert lost his sanity. He was granted amnesty in May 1945 and ultimately returned to East Germany, where he lived out the rest of his life in a series of medical facilities.
Arthur Ernest Ewert was born November 13, 1890, in the town of Heinrichswalde, East Prussia (now called Slavsk). He was the son of a poor peasant family. Largely self-educated, Ewert completed only a primary school education in a one-room rural schoolhouse.
Anxious to escape the drudgery of rural life, at the age of 14 Ewert accepted a position as an apprentice in an uncle's saddle-making factory in the urban center of Berlin. The growth of the automotive industry convinced the young Ewert that there was little future in saddle-making, however, so he left that trade to take a job as a worker in a Berlin steel works. Earning low wages to perform difficult and sometimes dangerous work in the steel plant proved to be a radicalizing experience for Ewert. Influenced by his older sister, Minna, who was an activist in the social democratic youth movement, Ewert himself joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) in 1908 at the age of 18.
In addition to socialist politics, Ewert's sister introduced him to a friend from work, the Polish-born Elise Saborovsky Ewert, known to her friends as "Szabo", who was herself a committed Marxist. The pair began living together and would remain a couple for 25 years.
Early in 1914 Ewert and Szabowski moved to Canada, where they began to achieve fluency in the English language. At the time of Canada's entry into World War I in the summer of that year Ewert and Szabowski were required as citizens of an enemy power to report to the legal authorities for internment for the duration of the war. Instead the couple chose to disappear into the political underground, where they were aided by Canadian Marxist opponents of the war. The couple traveled extensively through Canada and the United States in this period, interacting with others of like political mind and joining the new Socialist Party of North America (SPNA), a small revolutionary socialist organization launched in Canada in 1915. During this period the couple used the party pseudonyms "Gustav" and "Elsie" and procured false identity documents under the names "Arthur Brown" and "Annie Bancourt" to better avoid law enforcement officers.
Following the Russian Revolution of November 1917, Canadian authorities increased their scrutiny of domestic radicals and Ewert and Szabowski became persons of interest. An informer tipped off the authorities that the pair would be in Toronto for a party meeting on March 23, 1919, and plainclothes detectives picked up their trail from the gathering to a boarding house, where arrest and search warrants were served. According to the police communist propaganda and several handguns were found in the couple's room during the search. After an administrative hearing Ewert was deported to Germany a few months after his arrest, while Szabo was transported across Canada to an internment camp, pending her own deportation in February 1920 aboard a prisoner of war repatriation ship. The couple reunited in Berlin where they resumed their lives together anew.
Returning to Germany early in the summer of 1919, Ewert joined the fledgling Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and became active in its work preparing the ground for a revolutionary overthrow of the German government. To support himself he went to work in Berlin as a laborer at the giant electrical corporation AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft), becoming one of the leading KPD activists among that company's workers. This period was marked by economic chaos, strikes, and street fighting, in which the KPD frequently played the role of provocateur. Ewert was involved in this activity as a leading member of the loosely organized Greater Berlin Revolutionary Action Committee, established to organize urban workers into fighting groups to do battle with similar bands of ultranationalist demobilized soldiers.
The leadership of Soviet Russia placed supreme importance on an early communist revolution in Germany to provide material support for the revolution in their own revolution backwards peasant nation. Substantial funds were funneled into Germany to support the organizing and propaganda efforts of the German communist movement. From 1920 onwards German-speaking veterans of the Soviet revolution and Russian Civil War were employed to establish paramilitary "military-political organizations" throughout Germany in preparation for armed insurrection.
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