Max Troll

Max Troll (1902 – 7 April 1972) was a German communist-turned-informer who betrayed hundreds of Bavarian communists to the Bavarian Political Police, a forerunner of the Gestapo, between 1933 and 1936. Troll spent a short time in Dachau concentration camp and served in the German Army during World War II. After the war he was sentenced to ten years in jail for his role as informer and released after five, in contrast to his Gestapo handlers who were not prosecuted.

Troll was never a Nazi, opposing the regime instead, but a number of factors have been cited for his betrayal, among them financial difficulties, his treatment while being held at Dachau and the threat of physical violence against his stepbrothers should he not cooperate.

Biography Early life Troll, the son of a truck driver, and born in Lower Bavaria, grew up in Munich. Troll worked as a labourer on building sites and as a life guard for the city of Munich, but lost his job in 1931 because of his left-wing activities and thereafter remained unemployed until 1934. Troll lived in the working class suburb of Giesing, in public housing, an area dominated by unemployment and communist activities, and joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1932.

Nazi era With Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the Nazis took power in Bavaria on 9 March 1933 and Troll was arrested the same day alongside his two stepbrothers and taken to Dachau concentration camp. He and his brothers were some of its first inmates. Troll was released in May and worked as an informer for the Bavarian political police, now under the control of Heinrich Himmler. The possibility exists that he either already worked as an informer when he joined the KPD in 1932,