Klaus Mehnert

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Klaus Mehnert.

Klaus Mehnert (October 10, 1906, in Moscow, Russian Empire – January 2, 1984, in Freudenstadt, West Germany) was a German writer, journalist and academic. He was a correspondent in the Soviet Union; a professor in the United States; a publisher of the German-funded journal XXth Century in Shanghai during World War II; and an advisor to several German governments after the war. He was a prolific author.

Early life and education[edit]

Mehnert was born in 1906 in Moscow, Russia. His father was an engineer.[1]

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Mehnert's family left Moscow for Stuttgart, Germany. His father died in Flanders in 1917 as a German soldier. Mehnert attended the University of Tübingen and the University of Munich in Germany, the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States, and finally the University of Berlin, where he received his PhD under Professor Otto Hoetzsch in 1928. Hoetzsch and Mehnert later took part in the short-lived society to study the Soviet command economy, ARPLAN.[2] Mehnert was briefly a supporter of Otto Strasser's Black Front.[2]

Career[edit]

Over the next ten years, Mehnert traveled frequently, to America, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China. He married Enid Keyes († 1955) in California in 1933. From 1934 to 1936 he served as a Soviet correspondent for a German newspaper. In 1936, he was questioned in the press court in Munich under suspicions of being too sympathetic to the Russians; although cleared by the Gestapo, he was forced out of his job.[3] Subsequently, Mehnert moved to the United States, teaching politics at Berkeley and then at the University of Hawaii at Manoa until 1941.[4]

World War II[edit]

In June 1941, six months prior to America's entry to World War II, he left for Shanghai, China, where he published an English-language journal named XXth Century with help from the Nazi German foreign ministry and funding from Joseph Goebbels' Third Reich Propaganda Ministry.[5][6] An influential promoter of anti-Allied reports and commentary in Asia, XXth Century was later described by American intelligence as "one of the slickest bits of propaganda work that has been done anywhere".[5][6] In its four years, Menhert "steered his publication cunningly along a sophisticated path that eschewed overt pro-Axis advocacy", according to the British historian Bernard Wasserstein, with "a wide range of contributors, few of whom were publicly identified with Nazism".[6] The journal was discontinued at the end of the war in 1945, and Mehnert was briefly[clarification needed] imprisoned.[7][5]

Postwar[edit]

Mehnert returned to Germany after the war. In 1946, an American tribunal cleared him of having Nazi affiliations.[8] He continued to face occasional accusations in the American press of spying and anti-Semitism.[8] The German historian Norbert Frei describes Mehnert as "one of the adaptable 'former ones'" in the postwar leadership of the German newspaper Christ und Welt.[9] Mehnert held various positions as journalist, editor, and professor. He became a foreign commentator for South German Radio in 1950.[5] He was a professor of political science at Aachen Institute of Technology. He was the editor of the journal Osteuropa.[1] He was a government advisor on Sino-Russian matters (counseling German chancellors from Konrad Adenauer to Helmut Schmidt[5]). He published several books on political science.[10] In the late 1970s he authored several books on youth movements in Western countries.[third-party source needed]

He died in 1984 at age 77 in Freudenstadt, West Germany.[1]

Since 2005, the "Europainstitut Klaus Mehnert" has offered a student exchange program between his former university RWTH Aachen and the University of Kaliningrad.[citation needed]

Selected writings[edit]

in German (some translated)
  • Ein deutscher Austauschstudent in Kalifornien ("A German exchange student in California"). Stuttgart, 1930
  • Die Jugend in Sowjet-Russland. Berlin, 1932; Youth in Soviet Russia. Transl. by Michael Davidson, Westport, Conn., 1981
  • The Russians in Hawaii, 1804-19. Hawaii, 1939
  • Der Sowjetmensch. Stuttgart, 1958; The Anatomy of Soviet man. Transl. by Maurice Rosenbaum, London, 1961
  • Peking und Moskau. Stuttgart, 1962; Peking and Moscow. Transl. by Leila Vennewitz, London, 1963
  • China nach dem Sturm. Munich, 1971; China today. Transl. by Cornelia Schaeffer, London, 1972. China Returns. New York, 1972.
in English
  • Stalin Versus Marx: The Stalinist Historical Doctrine. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1952. 130 p.
  • Soviet Man and His World. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958.
  • Peking and Moscow. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1963. 522 p.
  • China Today. London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 322 p. ISBN 0500250324.
  • China Returns. New York: Dutton, 1972. 322 p. ISBN 978-0525080008.[11]
  • Moscow and the New Left. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975. 275 p. ISBN 978-0520026520.
  • Twilight of the Young: The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy. New York, 1977. 428 p. ISBN 978-0030194764[12]
  • Youth in Soviet Russia. Hyperion Press, 1981. ISBN 978-0830500833.[13]
  • The Russians & Their Favorite Books. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1983. ISBN 978-0817978211.
in German
in French
  • La Rebelión De La Juventud. 1978.
In italian
  • "Cina rossa". 1972. Milano: Bietti, 372pp.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Klaus Mehnert Dead; A Specialist on Russia". AP. 1984-01-04. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
  2. ^ a b David-Fox, Michael (2011-12-22), Showcasing the Great Experiment : Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794577.003.0002, retrieved 2022-07-12
  3. ^ Chapman, J. W. M. (2011). Ultranationalism in German-Japanese relations, 1930-45 : from Wenneker to Sasakawa. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental. ISBN 978-90-04-21278-7. OCLC 810277801.
  4. ^ Mehnert, Klaus. "The Face of the Pacific." The XXth Century, vol. VII, no. 2/3, August/September 1944, pp.141-162.
  5. ^ a b c d e Geerken, Horst H. (2015). Hitler's Asian Adventure. Books on Demand GmbH Norderstedt. Norderstedt. ISBN 978-3-7386-3013-8. OCLC 923658255.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ a b c Wasserstein, Bernard (2017). Secret war in Shanghai : treachery, subversion and collaboration in the Second World War. London. ISBN 978-1-78453-764-7. OCLC 953982008.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ "The XXth Century, Shanghai, 1941-1945: A Guide – University of Hawaii Manoa Library Website". Retrieved 2022-07-03.
  8. ^ a b Kotkin, Stephen (2015-03-04). Rediscovering Russia in Asia: Siberia and the Russian Far East. doi:10.4324/9781315701257. ISBN 9781315701257. S2CID 134785020.
  9. ^ Frei, Norbert (2002-12-31). Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past. doi:10.7312/frei11882. ISBN 9780231118828.
  10. ^ Laqueur, Walter. The Dream that Failed: Reflections on the Soviet Union. Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 187. ISBN 978-0195102826.
  11. ^ http://www.popula.com/st/no_279/2549740.htm[permanent dead link]
  12. ^ ."Higher Education in the United States". Archived from the original on 2007-06-21. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  13. ^ "Best Web Buys Price Comparison Shopping".
  14. ^ "Der deutsche Standort - KLAUS MEHNERT". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  15. ^ "China nach dem Sturm - KLAUS MEHNERT". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2008-03-29.

External links[edit]

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