Hede Massing came to prominence by testifying in the second case of Alger Hiss in 1949; later, she published accounts about the underground.
16 Facts About Hede Massing
1.
2.
Hede Massing had a brother, Walter, seven years younger, and sister, Elli, nine years younger.
3.
Hede Massing applied for and received a scholarship for dramatic literature at the Burgtheater that eventually led to her external career as an actress.
4.
Hede Massing moved to Berlin and joined the German Communist Party.
5.
Hede Massing became more involved in politics and spent hours discussing politics with her husband and sister-in-law, Ruth Fischer.
6.
Hede Massing rose rapidly in the ranks of the German Communist Party, where his sister Ruth Fischer was a communist member of the German Reichstag.
7.
Hede Massing pursued her acting career while living a domestic life amidst the top leadership of the KPD.
8.
Hede Massing brought her younger sister to live with them and finish her schooling.
9.
Hede and Paul Massing became disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
10.
Hede Massing was assigned several duties, including that of a courier between the United States and Europe.
11.
Hede Massing used appeals to ideology, especially to the strong anti-Nazi sentiments of New Deal liberals who dominated the Washington scene of the Roosevelt administration in the early 1930s.
12.
Hede Massing testified to that episode at Alger Hiss' second trial in November 1949.
13.
Alger Hiss was reporting to Chambers when Hiss and Hede Massing met over dinner to discuss the recruitment of Noel Field.
14.
Hede Massing died of emphysema in her home on Washington Square in New York City on Sunday, 8 March 1981.
15.
Hede Massing said in her memoir that she had left the Soviet intelligence apparatus in the late 1930s after a period of disillusionment with her Russian handlers and the Stalinist trials.
16.
Hede Massing had first met Richard Sorge at the Marxist Workweek in 1923 that led to the establishment of the Frankfurt School.