Soviet Period in The 1940s
In 1939 Braun arrived in the Soviet Union. At the time, that was a very dangerous place for foreign Communists, many of whom – including German Communists – were imprisoned, tortured or killed by Joseph Stalin's secret police (NKVD), despite being completely loyal to the revolutionary cause and having often undergone persecution for its sake in their own countries. Braun managed to avoid such a fate, though he did face some political difficulties immediately upon his arrival.
The Moscow Foreign Languages Press gave him employment as an editor and translator. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, use was made of his German antecedents by making him a "polit-instrukteur" striving to turn the loyalty of German officer captured by the Soviets. In that role he used an old alias from the 1920s, "Kommissar Wagner". He later performed a similar tactic towards captive Japanese officers as well.
Between 1946 and 1948 he was based at Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast where he lectured in the Antifascist Central School. Afterwards he had another period of working in the Moscow Foreign Languages Press.
Read more about this topic: Otto Braun (Li De)
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