Victor Grossman


Victor Grossman was an American publicist and author who defected to the Soviet Union in 1952. He studied journalism in East Germany, and remained there working as a journalist and writer.

Early life

Born Stephen Wechsler in New York City on March 11, 1928, he reluctantly changed his name to Victor Grossman after defection to East Germany in order to shield his family members in the United States. His parents were an art dealer and librarian who had fled antisemitic pogroms in the Russian Empire. Growing up, his family moved often due to the Great Depression. He joined the Young Communist League in 1942, while in high school. As a youth, his family often summered in Free Acres, New Jersey, a community using economic philosopher Henry George's concept of single taxation. Grossman joined the Communist Party USA in 1945 while studying at Harvard University. He graduated from the university with a degree in economics in 1949. After receiving his degree, he worked in an industrial factory in Buffalo, New York. However, in 1950, Grossman was drafted into the United States Army and stationed in Bavaria, West Germany.

Defection

In 1952, while serving in Austria, Grossman swam across the Danube into the Soviet-occupied zone of Austria, and became one of a handful of soldiers from the NATO nations who defected to the Eastern Bloc. Grossman later stated he defected because he feared prosecution by U.S. authorities for not declaring his membership in left-wing political organizations prior to his entering the army. Following assessment by Soviet authorities, Grossman was sent to East Germany, where he adopted the name "Victor Grossman" and worked at a train car building firm. In 1954, continued his studies in journalism at Karl Marx University. After graduating, he worked as an editor at the Berlin book publisher Seven Seas. From 1959 to 1963, Grossman worked for the German Democratic Report, an English digest of GDR press. He then worked as the North America editor at Radio [Berlin International] until 1965. He worked as the director of the Paul Robeson Archive at the Academy of Arts for the next three years. Following 1968, he began working as a freelance journalist. While in East Germany, Grossman was a good friend of his fellow US exile, the singer and actor Dean Reed. In 1954, Grossman was recruited as an informant by the East German Ministry of State Security, codename TAUCHER. In 1994, the U.S. Army dropped charges of desertion against him. He reclaimed his U.S. passport and traveled to America several times, including a book tour to promote his memoir Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany, published in 2003. Grossman was a frequent contributor to the Marxist magazine Monthly Review. He later joined the German Party of Democratic Socialism and Die Linke.

Death

Grossman died in Berlin on December 17, 2025, at the age of 97.

Personal life

Grossman met librarian Renate Kschiner while studying at Karl Marx University. The two married in 1955 and raised two sons, Thomas and Timothy.

Selected works

  • Nilpferd und Storch. Kinderbuchverlag Berlin, Berlin, 1965
  • Von Manhattan bis Kalifornien. Aus der Geschichte der USA. Kinderbuchverlag, Berlin 1974
  • Per Anhalter durch die USA. Berlin 1976
  • Der Weg über die Grenze. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin, 1985
  • If I Had a Song – Lieder und Sänger der USA. Lied der Zeit, Berlin, 1988,
  • Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, Boston, 2003,
  • Madrid, du Wunderbare. Ein Amerikaner blättert in der Geschichte des Spanienkrieges. GNN-Verlag, Schkeuditz, 2006,
  • Ein Ami blickt auf die DDR zurück, Spotless, Berlin, 2011,
  • Rebel Girls: 34 amerikanische Frauen im Porträt, Papyrossa, 2012,
  • A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee, Monthly Review Press, 2019,