Jan Valtin, after several years working for the Commintern as a spy and infiltrator
for the Soviet communists became so disenchanted and disgusted by
what he learned or saw in action that he defected.
The crimes and fellonies committed in the name of socialism were so
abhorrent that he fled his masters.
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Jan Valtin ,""OUT OF THE NIGHT.""
Jan Valtin was the alias of Richard Julius Hermann Krebs (December 17, 1905 - January 1, 1951), a German Communist and Soviet agent during the interwar period. He defected to the United States in 1938, and in 1940 (as Valtin) wrote his bestselling autobiography Out of the Night. He also wrote several novels.
Valtin became active in the Communist movement as a boy, when his father was involved in the naval mutiny that heralded the 1918 German revolution. In 1923 he saw action in the failed Communist uprising in Hamburg. Sometime after this he was recruited by the GPU, the foreign intelligence service of the Soviet Union, and forerunner to the KGB.
After joining the GPU he helped run various smuggling enterprises, and helped organize Communist cells in the crews of merchant ships. As a sailor he visited many countries and could speak a number of languages including fluent English. He spent three years in San Quentin State Prison in California for an assault carried out under GPU orders.
After the Nazis came to power in Germany he fled to Denmark, where the GPU headquarters had relocated. At this time he was a seasoned GPU operative but fell out of favor with the leadership. He was sent back to Germany as an agent. According to Valtin this order was from Ernst Wollweber.
He was subsequently arrested by the Nazis and brutally tortured. But the GPU made contact with him in jail and instructed him to defect to the Nazis and act as a double agent for them. This plan was successful, and the Nazis sent him to Denmark to make contact with the GPU again. However, they kept his wife and son hostage in Germany.
Once again he fell out with the GPU leadership, who kidnapped him for transportation to the USSR. He escaped, and fled to the United States. The GPU took their revenge by publishing an article about him in the Daily Worker (the American Communist newspaper). This let the Nazis know that he had tricked them, and the Gestapo killed Valtin's wife .
Valtin was destitute when he arrived in the United States. He worked at a number of menial jobs before joining the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war he was investigated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities but cleared. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1947.
Valtin/Krebs married again, before 1941, to an American girl named Abigail Harris. They had two sons.
[edit] References
Valtin, Jan (1940). Out of the Night. New York: Alliance Book Corporation.
von Waldenfels, Ernst (2002) (in German). Der Spion, der aus Deutschland Kam. Das Geheime Leben des Seemanns Richard Krebs. (The Spy Who Came From Germany. The Secret Life of the Seaman Richard Krebs.). Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-351-02538-0.
Valtin, Jan; Walsh, Lynn (1988). Out of the Night. Fortress Books. pp. ostscript. ISBN 978-1-870958-03-5.
[edit] External links
1941 excerpt of Valtin's life story
1941 Another excerpt of Valtin's life story
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