Dimensions
136 x 212 x 20mm
In November 1934 Egon Erwin Kisch, a famous Czech writer, journalist, and political activist sailed into Port Melbourne aboard the SS Strathaird. He had been invited as a guest speaker by the Movement Against War and Fascism, but was prevented from landing by the federal government and effectively held prisoner onboard ship on the grounds that he was a ‘dangerous communist’.
However Kisch was not a man to be held easily and after a prolonged ship-bound imprisonment, he escaped and jumped from the deck of the Strathaird and into Australian history. Kirsch's dramatic leap would have been forgotten if he had not successfully challenged the legality of the Australian government‘s attempt to prevent him entering the country. Kisch humiliated his principal adversary in court - the newly appointed attorney general, Robert Gordon Menzies. The case was seen by many as a serious infringement of free speech by the rabid anti-Communist Menzies, and Kirsch's triumph was cheered by large sections of the Australian population, but the full story behind Kirsch's time in Australia has never been told.
This important new book assesses, for the first time, the international significance of Egon Kisch and places him, and his Australian experience in the broader context of the rise of fascism in Europe and the ideological struggles of the 1930s. As well as being an eminent journalist and writer, Kisch was an anti-fascist activist and senior figure in the Comintern. Heidi Zogbaum reveals that in fact both attorney general Menzies and Kisch were victims of the British Secret Service's attempt to conceal their highhanded and inept actions against Kisch the previous year in London.
