Appendix to Hotel Bristol - Sven-Eric Holmström
The article in Social-Demokraten, September
1, 1936, p. 1. For an English
translation of the article, see Appendix B.
Appendix B
English translation of the article in Social-Demokraten reproduced in original in Appendix A.
New sensation in the Moscow Trial
The, in 1917, closed down Hotel Bristol rises again 1936 in Moscow.
In a remarkable way Copenhagen has been involved in the recently finished Moscow Trial. Several times during the so-called interrogations Copenhagen was mentioned as meetings place for assassination preparations on Stalin himself and others. But the really few facts that are connected with the mentioning of Copenhagen are far from proven.
Accordingly claims one of the defendants – E. Gol’tsman in the interrogation of August 21 and published in “Pravda” on August 22, that he once in November 1932 met Trotsky’s son, Sedov, in Berlin, and by him was urged to go to Copenhagen and see Trotsky. About that trip Gol’tsman said the following in the interrogation: “I agreed, but I told him that we could not go together for reasons of secrecy. I arranged with Sedov to be in Copenhagen within two or three days, to put up at the Hotel Bristol and meet him there. I went to the hotel straight from the station and in the lounge met Sedov.”
Gol’tsman further claims that he and Sedov at around 10 am went to see Trotsky, who at the end of the conversation says to Gol’tsman: “Stalin must be removed.”
The fact that two conspiratorial Russians would meet in the early morning in the lounge of a hotel does not sound particularly credible. But it becomes totally insane when the hotel in question would be Hotel Bristol since it went out of business many years before 1932 – namely in 1917 – and has not risen again until now in 1936 during the Moscow Trial.
The conspiratorial Gol’tsman possibly knew of the existence in Copenhagen of Hotel Bristo, which, during the World War, was so well known among international circles. It is also possible that he stayed there at some time during these years. But his accusers probably were not aware that this big exclusive hotel was put out of business.
A number of other peculiarities would probably have been refuted from abroad – if the trial was not finished so speedily in a few days and ended in death sentences and executions of all the 16 defendants.
An appropriately conducted trial, with the access of foreign socialists and independent lawyers to try the accusations put forward, would have taken a much longer time and would most certainly have ended in a completely different way. Some of the accusers have, despite that, been put in the dock [sic].
Appendix C
The article in Arbejderbladet, January 29, 1937, pp. 7-8. For an English translation of the article, see Appendix D.
Appendix D
English translation of the article in Arbejderbladet reproduced in Appendix C.
****************
Around the trials in Moscow:
Trotskyite lie exposed: “Bristol” does exist!
Remarkable documentation which proves the correctness of the revelations brought forward during the trials in Moscow regarding the Trotskyites counter-revolutionary activities against the Soviet government and its leaders.
During the process last year in Moscow against Kamenev and Zinoviev, a witness announced that he had met Trotsky’s son Sedov at Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen. This announcement was taken by the Trotskyite and Social Democratic press around the world as evidence that all the revelations brought forward during the trial were lies since it was claimed there did not exist any Hotel “Bristol” in Copenhagen. However, it does exist, which Editor Martin Nielsen proves in the introduction that he wrote to a pamphlet about the Kamenev-Zinoviev trial written by the English Social Democrat D. N. Pritt. The pamphlet will be released in a few days by Arbejderforlaget and since it is our opinion that the revelations in the introduction are of great interest to the Danish working class, we publish below with the permission of Arbejderforlaget the introduction in its entirety – and then lies of the Trotskyites and a leading Social Democrat are completely confuted.
In view of the recently commenced high treason trial in Moscow against Piatakov, Radek and others, “Social-Demokraten” of January 24 puts forward the following statement of the leader of the 2nd International, Louis de Brouckère, and its Secretary, Friedrich Adler:
“Through the English
press, the known information of the indictment against Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov – the others
indicted are completely unknown to us
–
shows that the accusations are false and
are simply another
stage of the extermination campaign against the old Bolsheviks.”
And in “Social-Demokraten” of January 25,
our
secret Trotskyite writer, Mr. Ernst
Christiansen, puts forward
a small pamphlet
of the above-mentioned Friedrich Adler:
“The Witchcraft Trial in
Moscow,” which through
HIPA has for long
been available to the labor movement’s appointed representatives as “confidential material” and which has now also been
sent released to the public.
Since ARBEJDERFORLAGET is now releasing
the written account
of the course of the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial by D. N. Pritt, the noted
English lawyer and member of
the English Labor Party’s parliament group, who, unlike Friedrich Adler, was present
at the trial, and since considerable pieces of Adler’s pamphlet dwell on “disproving” D. N.
Pritt’s objective
judicial and evaluative account,
I believe it is not too obtrusive if I deal
briefly in the following with Friedrich Adler
and his “arguments,” particularly since I have also
dealt with Mr. Ernst Christiansen and his likes and their unpleasant and double-standard attitude,
which has deadly
serious consequences for the labor movement
and Socialism.
Who is Friedrich Adler?
Friedrich Adler, who is known as the Secretary General in the 2nd International, claims in a pamphlet published by HIPA in this country to be especially called upon to criticize and guide the Soviet Union for two reasons:
First of all he claims in his pamphlet, which is presented as an “open letter” to
Georgi Dimitrov:
“I
am directing these words to Georgi Dimitrov, because
I feel he has some qualities that give me hope that he is more receptive
to my thoughts than the other rulers in Moscow. Dimitrov has, just like me, personal experience facing the death penalty.
For him it was during the Reichstag
Fire Trial and obviously
for me it was when I stood trial
And secondly, Friedrich Adler claims he is competent to criticize and throw dirt on the Soviet Union because he is a “Soviet friend”!
He says about that in HIPA’s pamphlet:
“I
am definitely opposed to revolutionary struggle
against the Soviet Union (!).
Four years ago, when the prospects
for Stalin’s economical experiments were far better,
I defended vigorously the view that Russian Social Democracy
must make public the big sacrifice to confess to a policy aimed at tolerating
the Bolshevik regime.”
So then we know who Friedrich Adler is! He equals himself with the hero of the Reichstag Fire Trial in Leipzig, and he wants Abramovich to “tolerate” the Bolshevik regime!
That is his own presentation, and he cannot be accused of suffering from false modesty. Mr. Ernst Christiansen presents him for “Social-Demokraten’s” readers in the following way: “Friedrich Adler, the secretary for Socialist Labor International, and one of the upright leaders of the heroic Austrian Social Democracy. . . .”
Why Friedrich Adler in 1916 stood trial!
It will most probably please Friedrich Adler now to receive such a flattering description of himself in the main newspaper of Danish Social Democracy. The fact is that that has not always been the case.
Friedrich Adler is the son of the physician
and socialist Viktor Adler, the founder and undisputable leader of Austrian Social Democracy for many years.
When the world war broke out in 1914, the son Friedrich Adler was one of those labor leaders who lost his head and belief in the labor movement’s ability and willingness to mount a revolutionary mass struggle against the war and capitalism. Therefore he lost his perspective and ended up in individual desperation!
On October 26, 1916, Friedrich Adler, at a café in Vienna, shot the Austro- Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Stürgkh, and it is indeed that deed that he refers to in the above quote, where he compares himself with Georgi Dimitrov.
In that time it was Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks that, together with Liebknecht, Luxemburg and the whole world labor movement’s left wing, fought the struggle for Adler’s life but without for a moment approving of his individual terrorist act, which all Marxists condemned mpst sharply. It was then for the first time that a leading Marxist lowered himself to individual terror. But the labor movement’s left wing understood his motives without for that matter approving them, and therefore fought for his freedom, which occurred in November 1918 at the time of the German and Austrian revolution in November. The revolution, together with the Russian workers’ revolution in November 1917, was a worthy reply from the labor movement to Friedrich Adler for his tottering belief in the workers’ revolutionary class struggle.
“Only a mentally insane could have committed such an act!”
On the other hand the “official” Labor Movement tried to distance itself by all means from Friedrich Adler after the assassination. One of those was the leadership of the Danish Social Democrats and the “Social-Demokraten” in Copenhagen, whose Mr. Ernst Christiansen now presents Adler as “one of the upright leaders of the Austrian Social Democracy.”
As mentioned Adler’s assassination took place on October 26, 1916, and already on October 28, 1916, “Social-Demokraten” in Copenhagen passed its sentence over the assassin. It is categorical and not at all boring to read today. The sentence was passed by the German Friedrich Stampfer, who wrote a very long article which was delivered to the readers by the newspaper’s Editor at the time, the late Frederik Borgbjerg, in a fashionable typographical way.
I cannot reproduce the article in its entirety but will settle with some quotations which are enough to show the tone in it:
The human tragedy which we have endured since the murder in Sarajevo has, after the insane deed in Vienna,
reached a new peak which no one in his wildest imagination could have anticipated. The Austrian Minister-president Count Stürgkh is dead, and the hand that held the murder weapon was that of Friedrich
Adler. . . .
“The one who has been hit hardest by this, whom all the workers in Germany and Austria hold so dear in their hearts, is our Viktor Adler, the miserable father of an insane murderer” . . . “Friedrich Adler was insane when he committed this repulsive dead” . . . “Only a mad man could have thought of committing such an act and raising
a murder weapon against Count Stürgkh
. . . And just because it really is a deed of insanity, it will have no political
repercussions” . . .
“Only a mentally insane person can therefore
have committed it . . . the only justfication is madness. . . .”
I take it for granted that this is enough! Anyone who doubts it can read “Social-Demokraten” of October 28, 1916, at the Royal Library.
I would not have brought forward this document from history’s oblivion if Friedrich Adler himself in his slanderous pamphlet hadn’t equaled himself with Dimitrov, and his conduct during the trial in Leipzig and also if “Social-Demokraten” and Ernst Christiansen hadn’t presented Friedrich Adler as a man without faults and as an impersonated Socialistic witness of truthfulness in the question of the Soviet Union and proletarian justice.
Friedrich Adler’s “evidently false explanation during the Moscow trial!”
So then this Friedrich Adler has taken upon himself in a pamphlet consisting of 32 small pages to “prove” that the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial was a “judicial farce” which in no way can be separated from the heretic processes in the Middle Ages and very little from the case law used by the Nazis.
If you carefully read through Friedrich Adler’s pamphlet only two “arguments” for all his claims and postulates of “proven false affidavits” are left.
The first “argument” is the claim, rejected time after time, that the Menshevik leader Abramovich was not in the Soviet Union in the summer of 1928, which was established in the big Menshevik trial, and the other “argument” is the claim put forward, first in “Social-Demokraten,” later in the whole world press, that Gol’tsman, accused and sentenced in the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial, was “coerced” to “falsely testify” that in late 1932 at Hotel “Bristol” haven in Copenhagen he had a conversation with Trotsky’s son, Sedov.
How a lie is manufactured, and how it later is implemented!
According to the official record from the Zinoviev trial and also quoted in Adler’s brochure the accused Gol’tsman testified at one of the public hearings:
“I agreed with Sedov that I would arrive in Copenhagen in the course of a couple of days and check in to Hotel ‘Bristol,’ where we’d meet. I went straight from the railway yard to the hotel, where I met Sedov in the lobby. Around 10 am we drove to Trotsky. . . .
Adler in his brochure comments on this fact like this:
“This Hotel ‘Bristol,’ where Gol’tsman was supposed to have met Trotsky’s son is really mentioned in Baedecker over Denmark from the time before the war as the no 1 of the leading hotels in Copenhagen.
But
in the travel handbooks from the time after the war it is missing since the hotel in question was torn down in 1917 and has since then not been reconstructed.”
From that statement that Adler got from Copenhagen Trotskyites, although they have something to hide, he builds his entire case that the confessions in the trial should have been forced.
But
the claim that there does not exist any
“Bristol” in Copenhagen has been released in cold blood by the Copenhagen Trotskyites,
despite the fact that
“Bristol” at
least until lately has been a meeting
place for both Danish
and foreign Trotskyites in Copenhagen.
Nobody dispute the fact that the old Hotel “Bristol” which was located at Raadhuspladsen was closed down in 1917 and that it has not been reopened since then, but “Bristol” is located one minute from the Main Railway Station of Copenhagen, and has been a meeting place for the Trotskyites!
At the well-known corner of Reventlowsgade and Vesterbrogade – one minute from the Main Railway Station – the well-known restaurant “Gamle Braeddehytte,” with an entrance from the corner, is located. The next entrance door, Vesterbrogade no 9, is the entrance to the vestibule of “Grand Hotel Copenhagen,” then in the same building a kiosk is located which has a certain international look, where all kinds of Nazi, White Guard and Trotskyite newspapers and magazines from the whole world are sold.
The next entrance door, no 9 A, leads to a café which with big neon light letters speak the name “Bristol” all over the front.
“Konditori Bristol”
Café “Bristol” is a café with a certain international appearance, like the ones you can see in the boulevard cafes in Berlin and Vienna, and it is mostly visited by foreigners, travelers and more casually by boulevard people.
Café “Bristol” opened the first time in 1924, but at that time it was located in the part of the building which now is the “Grand Hotel” vestibule. At that time the café was a part of the hotel and an entrance from the café led up to the hotel. It was not until the modernization of “Grand Hotel” that “Bristol” moved a little bit further down to Colbjørnsensgade and got its own entrance in nr 9 A.”
The meeting place for Danish and international Trotskyites for a number of years!
This centrally located Wiener café, as investigations have shown, has for a number of years been a meeting place for the Danish Trotskyites as well a meeting place between Danish and foreign Trotskyites and also between foreign Trotskyites.
After these facts it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that in each case at least among the foreigners have been the case that the cafés international known name “Bristol” is identical with the name of the hotel, and I do not doubt at all that when the accused Gol’tsman at the interrogation said: “I went directly from the railway yard to the hotel where I met Sedov in the foyer,” it was in the foyer at Grand Hotel that they met!
Sketch of ”Grand Hotel” and ”Bristol” which they looked like in the years 1929-1936, until Bristol was moved further down to Colbjørnsensgade. You notice the door (dør) in the middle that connected the hotel with the café.
This means that Friedrich Adler’s “main argument” has mercilessly fallen flat on the ground. Responsible to a higher degree than Friedrich Adler for using this “argument” internationally in order to cast suspicion on the Soviet Union and proletarian justice, however, are the Copenhagen Trotskyites and their helpers, Ernst Christiansen and Aage Jørgensen, who cannot have been ignorant about the above- mentioned facts, but in their immense hatred for the Soviet Union here saw an opportunity to throw grave suspicion on the Soviet Union and proletarian justice and put their own pettifogging characters in the footlights.
It is only regrettable that it is not until now that our investigations have brought forward the crucial evidence: That “Café Bristol” was the meeting place of the Copenhagen Trotskyites.
Because of these facts both Friedrich Adler’s slanderous pamphlet and D. N. Pritt’s statement get their real value.
Copenhagen, January 1937
MARTIN NIELSEN
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