Ruth von Mayenburg

Ruth von Mayenburg (1 July 1907 – 26 June 1993) was an Austrian journalist, writer and translator. In her earlier years, she was politically active in the Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, or KPÖ). Fleeing the Nazis, she lived in exile in the Soviet Union at Moscow's Hotel Lux, afterwards writing several books about her experiences there.

Early years Ruth von Mayenburg was born in Srbice, in Bohemia, in the Sudetenland (now Czech Republic). She was the younger daughter of Max Heinsius von Mayenburg (1857-1940), mine director and his wife, Baroness Lucie von Thümen (1874-1965). She grew up in a cosmopolitan, Austrian aristocratic family in the Bohemian city of Teplitz-Schönau. Her uncle was Ottomar Heinsius von Mayenburg, a pharmacist who became a millionaire with his invention of a brand of toothpaste, Chlorodont. Von Herder later became an SA leader While in exile, she became a member of the KPÖ, then outlawed. Von Mayenburg joined the Red Army and became a spy, traveling all over Germany an international exile hotel during the Nazi era. They lived there until 1945. Fischer continued working for the Comintern.

During World War II, she served in the propaganda division of the Soviet Army. Her book, Hotel Lux, which she spent five years researching and writing, was the very first history ever written about the hotel. and of their sexual mores and secrets, especially during the earlier years.

Von Mayenburg's second marriage was to the conservative journalist Kurt Dieman-Dichtl.

Publications Blaues Blut und rote Fahnen. Revolutionäres Frauenleben zwischen Wien, Berlin und Moskau. (1969) , Promedia Verlag (1993) Hotel Lux. C. Bertelsmann Verlag (1978) Hotel Lux. Das Absteigequartier der Weltrevolution. (1979) (Piper Verlag GmbH 1991) Hotel Lux – die Menschenfalle. Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag GmbH (2011)