Catalogue description Richard Julius Hermann KREBS, alias Jan VALTIN: German. In the 1920s and 1930s KREBS...

Richard Julius Hermann KREBS, alias Jan VALTIN: German. In the 1920s and 1930s KREBS worked for the International of Seamen and Harbour Workers and engaged in political activity among seamen in various countries. He claimed that he was instructed to penetrate the Gestapo in 1933. In 1938 he went to the United States as a seaman and there wrote a successful book,"Into the Night", recounting his experiences. The US authorities at first took the view that his account of his life was false and that he was, in fact, a German agent who had worked against the Russians, but only in the 1930s. In due course he was accepted for American military service