Background
Ernst Fischer was born in Komotau, Bohemia in 1899.
Ernst Fischer was born in Komotau, Bohemia in 1899.
He served on the Italian Front in the First World War, studied philosophy in Graz and did unskilled labour in a factory before working as a provincial journalist and then on the Arbeiter-Zeitung from 1927.
They went to Czechoslovakia, where he began working for the Communist International as an editors In 1938, they went to Moscow, where Fischer continued to work for the Communist International. They lived at Hotel Lux, a luxury hotel that had been built in 1911, and was taken over by the Communist Party after the October Revolution.
Following Adolf Hitler"s seizure of power, the hotel became a refuge for communist exiles, especially Germans.
The Fischers lived there from 1938 until 1945. The autumn after their arrival, Fischer came home from work one evening, looking terrified.
Gustl Deutsch, an Austrian who had been arrested and had imprisoned, had managed to smuggle him a note to alert him to the danger facing Fischer. Under torture, Deutsch had named Fischer as being involved in a plot against Stalin"s life.
Although the charges were completely false, by being accused, Fischer was in grave danger and he immediately sought help from Georgi Dimitrov, one of the leaders of the Communist International.
Dimitrov replied, "I will be able to save you, but the others.?" After the war, Fischer remained an important figure in the KPÖ until. He served as Communist Minister of Information in the first post-war government of Renner (27 April 1945 – 20 December 1945). Revolutionäres Frauenleben zwischen Wien, Berlin und Moskau ("Blue Blood and Red Flags Revolutionary Female Life Between Vienna, Berlin and Moscow").
The two books covered the same period.
Fischer died on July 31, 1972 in Deutschfeistritz.
Initially a social democrat, Fischer became a member of the Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs or KPÖ) member in 1934 after being disillusioned in liberal democracy for not being able to withstand fascism.