Albert Hotopp

Albert Hotopp (20 September 1886 – 1 August 1942) was a German political activist and writer.

As an active member of the Communist Party of Germany he fell foul of the Nazi Germany authorities during the in 1933. In 1934 he emigrated to the Soviet Union where he disappeared, probably dying in a labour camp, in the second half of 1942.

Life Albert Hotopp was born in what he would later describe as a "grey quarter of Berlin, on the east side of town, just beyond the city limits". His father worked as a blacksmith in a factory, earning 8 Marks a week and working ten hours each day. His mother supplemented the family income by taking in washing from the "fine houses".

In 1933 the NSDAP (Nazi Party) took power, and there was a rapid transition to one- party government in Germany. All political parties (other than the Nazi Party) were now illegal, but the new Chancellor had, in opposition, been particularly vitriolic about the Communist Party. Till February 1934 Albert Hotopp continued to live, now illegally, in Germany, working as a Communist Party treasurer. He then emigrated to the Soviet Union, living in Moscow with his wife, Gertrud and their two daughters. He worked in German language publishing and, under the "party name" of "Hermann Lieben" as a teacher at the Institute for Foreign Languages.