HANNES MEYER (3/3) | Raquel Franklin

We have ended part 2 with Hannes Meyer leaving the Soviet Union to go and help build a socialist republic in Spain which was interrupted by the Franco coup and left Meyer in limbo in his home country, Switzerland. Here, he married Lena Bergner in 1937 – they already had a daughter, Lilo, back then. In 1938 to 1939 Hannes Meyer built the orphanage Mümliswil, which I have discussed more extensively at the end of part 2. In this new episode I have invited the Mexican art-historian Raquel Franklin to talk about Meyer’s next and last emigration to Mexico between 1938 and 1949, about which she wrote her PhD thesis. What were his goals and opportunities? Was Meyer really a spy for the Soviets? What was the Black book of Nazi terror and Meyer’s role in it? And why did he leave Mexico, too, ending up again in Switzerland and not in another socialist country like the GDR? As in parts 1 and 2 I will bring in former Berlin Senator for Culture Thomas Flierl to share his research results and expertise, too.