Written by IAMCR member Jörg Becker
The German citizen Richard Sorge, who was hanged in Tokyo in 1944 for spying for the Soviet Union, lived from 1918 to 1924 in various locations between Frankfurt and Kiel. Shaped by traumatic war experiences, he served from 1920 to 1922 as journalist and political editor of the nationally significant newspaper “Bergische Arbeiterstimme” in Solingen. For the first time, a total of 43 of his articles from this period are reproduced here. After his time in the region of Wuppertal, Remscheid and Solingen, Sorge worked at the newly founded Institute for Social Research (IfS) in Frankfurt am Main until his departure for Moscow in 1924.
During this time, he played a leading role in the famous First Marxist Work Week of the IfS, held in Geraberg, Thuringia. The volume sets itself apart from defamatory myths surrounding a supposed “adventurer” or a “master spy who drank, frequented brothels, and warned Stalin in vain.” Drawing on archival sources and documents, Jörg Becker traces the career of Sorge: a versatile intellectual who, during a time of upheaval, analyzed political conditions, drafted political guidelines, actively championed the ideas of council communism, worked as a teacher and, in his spare time, devoted himself to poetry.
Jörg Becker, is a political scientist who taught at the University of Marburg. He resides in Solingen and was Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck from 1999 to 2011.
The above text is from the publisher’s description of the book:
Title: Der spätere Spion. Richard Sorge 1918-1924
Author: Jörg Becker
Published: 2026
Pages: 588
Publisher: by PapiRossa
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