20 Facts About Hilde Meisel

Hilde Meisel was a Jewish German socialist and journalist who published articles against the Nazi regime in Germany.

Hilde Meisel acted as a courier and repeatedly undertook secret operations in Germany, Austria, France and Portugal, although as a social democrat and Jew, it was extremely dangerous for her to do so.

Hilde Meisel's father exported and imported household goods for a living.

Hilde Meisel suffered with a physical problem until puberty, necessitating frequent trips with her mother to Switzerland.

Hilde Meisel then went to England, where her uncle, the conductor and composer Edmund Meisel, was then living and working in London.

The ISK established its own press, Der Funke in 1932 and Hilde Meisel contributed a number of articles, writing about the economic problems in France, England and Spain.

In 1933, the Nazis seized power, suppressing Der Funke shortly afterwards, and Hilde Meisel began getting active with the German Resistance, briefly moving to Cologne to help smuggle individuals associated with the labour movement and money out of Germany and into safety in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, as well as smuggling banned literature into the country.

Hilde Meisel then returned to Berlin, where she established underground socialist propaganda networks and organised efforts to oppose the 1934 referendum on elevating Hitler from Chancellor to Fuhrer.

Hilde Meisel became active with the ISK established friendships with political contacts in different countries.

Hilde Meisel lived in Paris for a time, from where she made regular trips back to Germany to aid underground trade union groups, before relocating back to the UK in 1936.

Hilde Meisel acted as a courier and smuggled literature into Germany and helped those under threat by the Gestapo to escape from Germany.

Hilde Meisel wrote for, and served as a member of the editorial board of, Sozialistische Warte, an exile publication of the ISK, writing primarily about problems with the economy.

In so doing, she became a "British subject by marriage", allowing her to carry out her work in England more easily and Hilde Meisel developed a busy career as a journalist, writing articles for The Vanguard, Sozialistische Warte, Left News and Tribune.

Hilde Meisel left Germany just one day before the outbreak of war, but had previously been in England.

Hilde Meisel had recently experienced the psychological situation of the population in Germany.

Hilde Meisel appeared on the broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corporation geared toward German workers, worked with the education program of the British forces, and toward the end of the war, got involved again with the ISK group in London.

In summer 1944, Hilde Meisel was recruited for the "Faust Project" of the Office of Strategic Services, who were looking for some 200 agents to obtain military and political news from Germany.

Hilde Meisel helped them reach Thonon-les-Bains, where they stayed four weeks, until they were picked up by Rene Bertholet.

Hilde Meisel was assigned as a courier to Jupp Kappius, a German socialist who had been dispatched to Germany to carry out sabotage operations.

On 17 April 1945, while trying to cross the border illegally from German-occupied Austria into Liechtenstein, Hilde Meisel was shot when she made a dash for the frontier at Tisis near Feldkirch.