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A Jewish-American exile behind the Iron Curtain, he never lost his love for East Germany
Three thousand miles from his New York City home, as the August dawn broke over the Austrian landscape, 24-year-old Army draftee Stephen Wechsler took off his shoes, waded into the Danube River, and began to swim. He struggled at first, then realized the current was carrying him toward his destination: the Soviet zone of occupied Austria.
Wechsler’s act of betrayal took place in 1952. The U.S. Army had discovered that the young Jewish private first class had lied on his induction papers, denying that he had ever belonged to the Communist Party or any affiliated organizations. In truth, he had belonged to several Communist groups, starting at age 14.
When a letter arrived ordering him to appear before a military judge in Nuremberg, it didn’t specify the charge. It didn’t need to. Wechsler understood immediately. And in his mind, there was only one path left: flee the American zone and seek refuge behind the Iron Curtain.
What followed is one of the more improbable personal odysseys of the Cold War. Starting a new life in Communist East Germany, Wechsler remade himself as Victor Grossman — establishing himself as a columnist, interpreter for visiting American leftists like Jane Fonda, defender of his adopted homeland, crusader against fascism, and sharp critic of American capitalism.
In his final years, Victor/Stephen wrote an online newsletter called Berlin Bulletin, warning about the threat to German democracy posed by the far-right Alternative for Germany, and to American democracy posed by Donald Trump.
Victor/Stephen died last week in Berlin at age 97, bringing to a close a 73-year exile.
I came to know him through a cousin of his in Portland, Oregon, where I live. I interviewed him by phone last year, reaching him at his apartment on Karl Marx Allee, in the formerly Communist half of Berlin. He had just turned 96. I call him Victor/Stephen because he was known as the former in Germany and the latter among his friends and relatives in the U.S.
Victor/Stephen’s story is as much about love as it is about betrayal — perhaps more so. It was love for Renate, the East German woman he married soon after his desertion, that anchored him.
“I was homesick. But I was very much in love, and that made up for it,” he told me about Renate, who died some years ago.
He sometimes wondered whether he was like Don Quixote, jousting with windmills. But his ideals were so deeply rooted that he fought for them until his final years, writing his Berlin Bulletin with the same passion he had carried since adolescence.
From his teen years through Harvard and in factory jobs after graduation, Stephen Wechsler had been deeply involved in Communist causes. In the infamous 1949 riot that disrupted a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, N.Y., young Wechsler was among the leftists on buses attacked by stone-throwing white mobs while police stood by and did nothing.
His activism was interrupted by the Korean War, when he was drafted into the Army. He was relieved to be sent to West Germany rather than to the front lines. But his radical past caught up with him. Facing a possible five-year sentence in a military prison for lying on his induction papers, he decided to desert.
After his swim across the Danube, Wechsler didn’t know what to expect from Austria’s Soviet occupiers. Would they suspect he was a spy? He soon found himself in Bautzen, East Germany, where the Soviets had established a kind of halfway house for Western deserters. He found work in a factory, joined the German-Soviet Friendship Society, and so impressed his hosts that they appointed him culture director of a clubhouse for foreign deserters — organizing dances, ping-pong tournaments, chess matches, billiards, and other diversions from the temptations of Bautzen’s bars.
He fell in love with Renate, enrolled in the journalism program at Karl Marx University in Leipzig, married her, and after graduation went to work for an East Berlin publishing company, as he later wrote in his autobiography Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany. He and Renate started a family, raising two sons.
Victor/Stephen caught the attention of John Peet, a British expatriate who published the German Democratic Report, an English-language newsletter sent abroad from East Berlin to counter negative portrayals of the German Democratic Republic. He worked for Peet for four years, helping publish reports that embarrassed West Germany by using Nazi-era documents to reveal how deeply the Federal Republic’s judiciary and bureaucracy were staffed by former officials of the Third Reich
He next worked for East Germany’s state radio network. A unique opportunity arose when East Germany’s Academy of Arts asked him to create an archive dedicated to Paul Robeson. Freelance work followed: articles on U.S. affairs for fellow Karl Marx University graduates now in senior media positions, dubbing dialogue for East German films, writing English subtitles.
He began writing his own books, including a history of the United States that emphasized the roles of women, Black Americans, peace movements and unions — themes that aligned with the ideals of Communist East Germany, at least partly because of their propaganda value against the West.
The opening of the Berlin Wall tossed him into a predicament. While he welcomed the end of travel restrictions on East Germans, he feared it would lead to the demise of East Germany as an autonomous state. Of course, he was right.
When West Germany formally merged with East Germany on Oct. 3, 1990, it was a stab in the heart for him. His wish was not to see “little GDR,” as he called it, swallowed by the capitalist West, but to take a middle path — allowing political freedom to bloom while preserving socialism and what he saw as the virtues of the East German state.
“I had always made clear that I was against the boils and carbuncles,” he wrote of the GDR’s abuses, “but wanted to cure, not kill the patient.”
When I interviewed him last year, he spoke wistfully about the GDR: child care, university education, dental care, eyeglasses, and hospital stays were free; rents were cheap; there was virtually no joblessness, he said; crime was practically nonexistent. While East Germans couldn’t travel to the West, they enjoyed inexpensive vacations in Prague, Budapest, and other Eastern Bloc cities.
“Life was not what people in the West imagined,” he told me.
In his recent writings and interviews, Victor/Stephen argued that the East German state took better care of its citizens than the U.S. does of its own. In a 2019 interview with the socialist magazine Jacobin, he said, “I shine a light on issues that Americans face: evictions, homelessness, mass incarceration, food banks, and the lack of access to food, healthcare, education, maternity leave, and childcare. I draw on some truly ghastly yet upsettingly commonplace examples.”
Although Victor/Stephen could sound like an ideologue, from my phone and email communications with him I got the distinct impression that love was a factor in his decision not to move back to the States. It was love not just for Renate, but also for East Germany, for its people, and for a dream he pursued until his final days: of trying to improve the lot of all humankind.
In our times, with authoritarianism on the rise around the world, with human rights and social justice slipping away, who is to fault Victor/Stephen for never abandoning such a dream?
The post A Jewish-American exile behind the Iron Curtain, he never lost his love for East Germany appeared first on The Forward.
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Hezbollah Pays Steep Price in Battle to Reverse Its Fortunes
Workers remove a coffin with a body from temporary graves and prepare for transport for a funeral ceremony of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in Tyre, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo
Hezbollah has paid a heavy price for going to war with Israel on March 2: Israel has occupied a chunk of southern Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands of its Shi’ite Muslim constituents and killed as many as several thousand of its fighters, according to previously unreported casualty estimates from within the group.
The move has brought severe political consequences, too. In Beirut, opposition has hardened to its status as an armed group, which domestic rivals see as exposing Lebanon to repeated wars with Israel.
In April, Lebanon’s government held face-to-face talks with Israel for the first time in decades, a decision Hezbollah firmly opposed.
However, more than a dozen Hezbollah officials told Reuters they see a chance to reverse deteriorating fortunes by aligning with Tehran in its war with Israel and the United States. The group, founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1982, opened fire two days into the conflict, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
The group’s calculations are based on the assessment that its participation would force Lebanon onto the agenda of U.S.-Iranian negotiations, and that Iranian pressure can secure a more robust ceasefire than one that took effect in November 2024 following a conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, the officials said.
Hezbollah was mauled in the last war, which killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with some 5,000 fighters, and weakened its long-dominant hold over the Lebanese state.
Rearmed with Iranian help, it has used new tactics and drones, surprising many with its capabilities after a fragile 15-month truce during which Hezbollah held fire, even as Israel continued to kill its members.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi denied the group was acting on Iran’s behalf when it resumed hostilities, as alleged by opponents. He told Reuters Hezbollah saw a window to “break this vicious cycle … where the Israelis can target, assassinate, bombard, kill, without any revenge.”
He acknowledged losses and damage in southern Lebanon but said “you don’t go into making calculations of how many are going to be killed” when “pride and sovereignty and independence” are at stake.
Hezbollah’s media office said the figure of several thousand fighters killed in the present war was false.
While a US-mediated ceasefire that took effect on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in the south, where Israel maintains troops in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said Hezbollah had “shown more resilience than many thought possible, but that was not a strategic gain in itself.”
“The only thing that will contain Israel is a comprehensive US-Iran deal,” he said. “Without a deal, there’s going to be a lot of pain for everyone. At best, a hurting stalemate.”
GRAVES FRESHLY DUG, AND QUICKLY FILLED
More than 2,600 people have been killed since March 2, around a fifth of them women, children and medics, Lebanon’s health ministry has reported. Its toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Three sources, two of them Hezbollah officials, said the ministry’s figures do not include many of the group’s casualties. They said several thousand Hezbollah fighters have been killed, though the group does not have the full picture yet.
In a statement to Reuters, Hezbollah’s media office denied the figures cited by the sources, and that the numbers published by Lebanon’s health ministry included its members killed in Israeli strikes.
One source, a Hezbollah commander, said scores of fighters had gone to the frontline towns of Bint Jbeil and Khiyam intending to fight to the death. Their bodies have yet to be recovered.
In the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, more than two dozen freshly dug graves were quickly filled with fighters’ bodies in the days after the ceasefire took hold. Simple marble tombstones identify some as commanders, others as fighters.
In one southern village alone, Yater, the council recorded the deaths of 34 Hezbollah fighters.
Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim community has borne the brunt of Israel’s attacks, forced to flee into Christian, Druze and other areas, where many blame Hezbollah for starting the war.
Israel has been entrenching its hold over a security zone stretching as far as 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon and demolishing villages, saying it aims to shield northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah militants embedded in civilian areas.
An Israeli government official said Hezbollah had abrogated the November 2024 ceasefire by firing on Israeli citizens on March 2. The threat to northern Israel would be eradicated, the official said, adding thousands of Hezbollah militants had been killed, and Israel was steadily destroying the group’s infrastructure.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel since March 2. Israel has announced 17 soldiers killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
Citing ongoing Israeli strikes, Hezbollah has called the April ceasefire meaningless and continued to attack.
IRAN ‘WILL NOT SELL’ THEIR FRIENDS
A diplomat who has contact with Hezbollah described its decision to enter the war as a big gamble and a survival strategy, saying it felt it needed to be part of the problem so it could be part of an eventual regional solution.
It has yet to be seen if the gamble will pay off.
Tehran has demanded that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah be included in any deal on the wider war. But US President Donald Trump said last month that any deal Washington reaches with Tehran “is in no way subject to Lebanon.”
A spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Tahir Andrabi, referred Reuters to an April 16 statement in which he said peace in Lebanon was essential to the talks it is mediating between the U.S. and Iran.
A Western official said they saw a possibility the US and Iran might eventually reach a settlement that does not address the war in Lebanon.
Asked about this, the US State Department, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva and Lebanon’s government did not immediately comment.
Hezbollah’s Moussawi said a ceasefire in Lebanon continues to be a top priority for Iran, adding Tehran shares Lebanon’s objectives, including that Israel halt attacks and withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah has “full trust in Iran – that the Iranians will not sell their own friends”, he said.
The State Department referred Reuters to an April 27 interview Secretary of State Marco Rubio did with Fox News, in which he said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah’s attacks, and that he didn’t think Israel wanted to maintain its buffer zone in Lebanon indefinitely.
The United States has urged Israel “to make sure their responses are proportional and targeted,” he said.
When the April 16 ceasefire was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah’s disarmament would be a fundamental demand in peace talks with Lebanon.
Hezbollah has ruled out disarmament, saying the matter of its weapons is a topic for a national dialogue. Any move by Lebanon to disarm the group by force would risk igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have sought Hezbollah’s peaceful disarmament since last year. On March 2, the government banned the group’s military activities.
Hezbollah has demanded the government cancel that decision and end its direct talks with Israel.
Lebanese officials have told Reuters they believe direct talks with Israel under the auspices of the US are the best way to secure a lasting ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, as only Washington has enough leverage with Israel to achieve those aims.
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US President Trump Tells Israeli Media: ‘I Studied Iran’s New Proposal, It Is Not Acceptable to Me’
US President Donald Trump arrives to award the medal of honor to Master Sgt. Roderick ‘Roddie’ W. Edmonds, Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 March 2026.
US President Donald Trump said he has reviewed Iran’s latest proposal and described it as “unacceptable” in an interview with Israeli broadcaster Kan News on Sunday. Trump added that ongoing efforts related to the conflict are “progressing very well,” without providing further details. He also renewed his call for clemency for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that Israel needs a leader focused on wartime priorities rather than legal matters.
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Israel Court Extends Detention of Gaza Flotilla Activists
Activist Saif Abu Keshek, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla detained by Israel, sits at a magistrate’s court for a detention extension hearing in Ashkelon, southern Israel, May 3, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
An Israeli court has extended by two days the detention of two activists arrested aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla that was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters near Greece, their lawyer said on Sunday.
Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national, and Brazilian Thiago Avila were detained by Israeli authorities late on Wednesday and brought to Israel, while more than 100 other pro-Palestinian activists aboard the boats were taken to the Greek island of Crete.
A court spokesperson confirmed that their remand had been extended until May 5.
The governments of Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday calling their detention illegal.
The activists were part of a second Global Sumud flotilla, launched in an attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by delivering humanitarian assistance. The ships had set sail from Barcelona on April 12.
Israeli authorities requested a four-day extension of their arrest on suspicion of offenses that include assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership in and providing services to a terrorist organization, and the transfer of property for a terrorist organization, said rights group Adalah, which is assisting in the activists’ defense.
Hadeel Abu Salih, the men’s attorney, said that the two deny the allegations. Their arrest was unlawful due to a lack of jurisdiction, she told Reuters at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court after the hearing, adding that the mission was meant to provide aid to civilians in Gaza, not to any militant group.
Abu Salih said that Abu Keshek and Avila were subjected to violence en route to Israel and kept handcuffed and blindfolded until Thursday morning.
Asked for comment, the Israeli military referred Reuters to the Israeli foreign ministry, which said that staff were compelled to act to stop what it described as violent physical obstruction by Abu Keshek and Avila. All measures taken were lawful, it said.