Albert Hotopp | Bitter Truths about Communists

"Not all of the facts recounted in the novel are authentic," admits Pete Heuer in the afterword to his first novel, "Don't Call It a Lie, Say a Secret." Unlike in the novel, Heuer's great-grandfather, Albert Hotopp, had not one but two sisters in real life, and, in addition to his daughter Gerda, a second daughter, Käthe. Furthermore, Hotopp was arrested in the Soviet Union by the NKVD secret service in 1941, not in 1938.

Weapons for the Hamburg Uprising

In the novel and in real life, Albert Hotopp procured weapons from the Soviet Union for a coup in the Weimar Republic. This coup failed. The 1923 Hamburg uprising of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) did not spread to the entire country as hoped and was crushed. Hotopp was sentenced to four years in prison. He wrote a socially critical novel. The cover of the first edition of "Fischkutter HF 13," published in 1930, was designed by the famous John Heartfield.

"Hotopp takes the novel from social reality seriously," said a review of "Fischkutter HF 13" in the "Frankfurter Zeitung" on July 6, 1930. The writer Theodor Plivier praised Hotopp on Berlin radio: "The way Hotopp describes everything, how realistically, how vividly he depicts the events and things, that is masterful." But Hotopp was not destined for a career as a writer. In 1933, the fascists threw "Fischkutter HF 13" into the fire during the book burning. Hotopp went to Moscow, and there his family fell into the clutches of Stalin's terror. His wife and their daughters were exiled and for years they didn't learn that Albert Hotopp was already dead—he was presumably shot in 1942 in Butovo near Moscow on the insane accusation that he was part of a fascist espionage organization. Pete Heuer's grandmother didn't return to East Berlin until 1955.

As a child, Heuer remembered a photo of his great-grandfather from 1931. Whenever he brought up the subject, he encountered a wall of silence, he says. His mother finally took him aside and said: "Your father's family suffered great injustice under Stalin. They don't want to and won't talk about it."

In 1986, Heuer discovered the book "Fischkutter HF 13" in a bookstore on Berlin's Alexanderplatz. He was no longer able to interview his great-grandmother. She had died a year earlier and was buried in the Socialist Cemetery in Friedrichsfelde. Her expulsion from the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), once confirmed during Wilhelm Pieck's exile, had been declared invalid, as if nothing had happened.

This is the background of Pete Heuer's novel "Don't Call It a Lie, Call It a Secret." The great-grandson fills in the gaps in the narrative with imagination. It's a very interesting novel about the trials and tribulations of the labor movement in the 20th century, full of compassion and understanding for the people seeking direction. The novel explains revolutions out of misery, oppression, and war, but doesn't spare the reader bitter truths.

Wilhelm Pieck: Fiction and Truth

That the KPD and Wilhelm Pieck do not come off well is perhaps not surprising when one knows that, although Heuer was a spokesperson for the Left Party in the Brandenburg state parliament and the party's district chairman in Potsdam for many years, he joined the SPD in 2010. In the novel, Albert Hotopp marvels at how Wilhelm Pieck is always able to get out of trouble – for example, why he wasn't murdered by right-wing Freikorps soldiers in 1919 like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. He was able to escape, says Wilhelm Pieck in the novel. Waldemar Pabst, who once commanded the murderers, told the news magazine "Der Spiegel" in 1962 that he let Pieck go because he had cooperated. The victim was already unable to respond to the version implied by this that Pieck had betrayed comrades. Pieck died in 1960. Pabst may have lied to tarnish the memory of the first and only president of the GDR. Pete Heuer doesn't dwell on this. However, the Pieck in his novel pursues young women. An abortion is guaranteed, explains Heuer. However, the idea that Pieck sexually harassed Albert Hotopp's daughter is fiction. "I don't think he touched my grandmother."

Heuer was a city councilor in Potsdam , but did not run for re-election in the local elections in June 2024. He was considered an internal party opponent of Mayor Mike Schubert (SPD). Schubert is accused of accepting free tickets to sporting events and of conducting his office in an autocratic manner. He could be voted out of office in a referendum on May 25.

Although a Social Democrat, Heuer is a member of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation's "Soviet Exile" working group, which brings together descendants of German communists. "Don't Call It a Lie, Tell It a Secret" is set in Berlin, Neuruppin, and Frankfurt (Oder), among other places. It is Heuer's first novel. He says he has ideas for two more in his desk.

Pete Heuer: Don't call it a lie, call it a secret. Bebra-Verlag, 394 pp., hardcover, €24.